Oxford

2005-11-08

Then off to Oxford for an evening of catching up in the Kings Arms and a bit of a wander around old haunts. A sandwich from the OSC (a bit miffed that they don't do roast pig anymore). The University Museum, displays still chaotic but informative. I'm always tickled by their parade of skeletons, marching their bleached way into some unknown necromancer's Arc. Pitt Rivers as absorbing as ever -- thematic piles of Heads, Basketts, Lamps or Cooking Pots. Counting sticks used by illiterate peasants in Yorkshire next door to shrunken heads from halfway round the world. A treasure trove, packed like a Ratner's window display with important or incidental objects given equality through the power of a jumble, aided by copperplate labels that don't get read until after this bundle of sticks, or that Buddha statue, has caught your interest.

I followed the culture with a walk through the Parks. They have a feeling of permanance that grass, trees and water can acheive, mocking the stones that age as their surroundings overtake them. Thence to Port Meadow, for a full circuit from Jericho to Godstow, with the sun disappearing as unseen geese honk overhead.