Oxford: But where's Aloysius?

Revel in...Oxford from Revel Blog on Vimeo.

I have been to university; in fact I have studied at two. At neither of these did I feel the need to buy a hoody with the name of my educational institution on it, or any other garment giving that information. I did not feel strange going without at the time, nor did I feel in the minority. I’ve passed the last few years quite happily and without regret. Then I took a trip to Oxford and saw that I was wrong; everybody had bought themselves an OXFORD UNIVERSITY hoody, and I felt a right charlie without one.

Oh what a place Oxford is. Bored of its dreaming spires this far into the record-breaking tourist season, it reels from the human onslaught and relaxes in the moments between. Visitors to the Information Centre were up 13,721 on the previous July, and the Ashmolean Museum has attracted 750,000 people in nine months - well over its 450,000 a year norm [1]. The commercial streets are unrecognisable in the crowds, with the distances between shops and street furniture expanding and contracting deceptively with the movement of all those heads.

Go into this shop here and see the usual selection of merchandise that England’s internationally known tourist towns put in their gift shops for busy foreign tourists (while in Oxford, why not pick up the toy London bus or Big Ben clock ornament you meant to have bought on that daytrip to London). One wall is given over to fitted shelving that holds every clothing item possible, all neatly folded into piles. Each thing is available in every colour, and has OXFORD UNIVERSITY emblazoned on it. There are teddy bears in Oxford University hoodies. The teddy bear in a geo-tagged jumper is a staple bit of place merchandise, like keyrings, mugs, biscuits, snow globes and Lledo buses with stickers of wherever you happen to be put on the sides. But where’s Aloysius? Surely Oxford misses a trick by not personalising this generic merchandise. Thanks to Lord Sebastian Flyte and Brideshead Revisited, the teddy bear is actually a relevant piece of merchandise for Oxford.

When I am in Christ Church, Sebastian’s college in the novel, there is no mention of him or his teddy bear. I do not put this down to his being a fictional student. Many famous figures and long-past prime ministers studied at Christ Church, and they remain as portraits in the devastatingly imposing space of the Dining Hall. Despite this, one particular person is picked out as flavour of the month: Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll. The tour guide is discussing him at length while pointing to the Alice window in the hall. While Brideshead is not on anyone’s lips, I do have a Charles Ryder dilemma in the cathedral, where my poor agnosticism comes up against a voluntary opportunity to recite the Lord’s Prayer. As some people around are continuing to take phone pix of the altar and talk over the words, I bow my head and say the prayer, then cross myself as I pass in front of the high altar. You needn’t on my account, however.

We must get away from the large groups of tourists, who walk round the streets in impregnable lines to maintain their coach seating plans. It is quite possible to do this, because the parks, gardens and non-shopping and non-famed streets are much quieter. I do not go on the Morse tour (I miss it for a start, but it also seems a little pointless; Oxford has always washed over me indistinctly in the episodes I’ve seen – I wouldn’t be able to spot-a-scene on the tour). I do, however, imagine that every wail of a passing police car is Lewis related.

There are a lot of police cars wailing about while I am in Oxford it seems. They are there particularly at night, and particularly on Saturday night - after the reeling comes the relaxing. Cars are revving at the traffic lights outside the hotel room window. The sound of smashing beer bottles comes several times, and some larger glass-breaking goes on down there. Teens in trendy urban wear laugh and talk in their hybrid vernaculars, groups of adults shout to their stragglers, or to their striders up ahead. I look out of the bathroom window to try and connect incidents with the noises. The orange street light comes through the Venetian blind and forms stripes across my face (I am very satisfied by this hitherto un-replicable film trait). I see a lady being dragged across the road. A friend is on either side of her as the traffic honks for haste. Her heels are scraping, trying to anchor themselves in the tarmac. She is breaking out of her jeans.

It is possible to get up quite leisurely and still be walking around the town during Oxford’s hangover. At this time of morning the demographic is more mature in years, or else it is younger and more conscientious – the got-work-in-the-morning crowd. The Covered Market shows off skills and trades, like a production line of cake decorating, or meat preparation or cobbling. It shames your local mall - and Oxford’s - just in terms of imagination (and this is ignoring the layout and architecture). You foresee yourself feeling jealous of its regulars come Christmas shopping time. To link shops and Oxford with an organisation, Oxfam’s name goes back to the 1942 Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. During my stay I visit and purchase in Oxford’s Oxfam and Oxfam Book Shop. I buy a Haydn CD in the former; perhaps with this I can do Morse tours in my head.

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[1] ‘Staycations boost Oxford's tourism revenues’ Oxford Times, 21 August 2010 <http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/8345404.Staycations_boost_Oxford_s_tourism_revenues/>