First Gay Pride Flag Flying Over An Oxford College

Wadham College was the proud supporter of "Queerweek", which is an occasion for talks and social events, hoy flying the rainbow flag above the 17th century college. This reportedly makes it the first Oxford College to do so, which is a good sign of Oxford moving with the times. The lights in the college's front quad were also turned pink. It was done so with the full support of the college dean and governing body .

Article and photo source (Ross Brooks) here

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Festive Season

For all those with dreams of snow, Santa and presents here are a few ideas to get into the spirit of things:

On 2nd December, Oxford will see the Christmas lights being turned on. This will happen at 18.30 GMT, with a lantern procession involving 400 people taking place just before. There are expected to be 20,000 people in total with music and street performance on Broad Street. So best get in your eggnog and malt wine early to avoid disappointment.

Blenheim Palace will also play host to some good events in the run up to Christmas. More information on them, can be found here.

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Chinese man claims to be at Oxford University, taking £595,000 from parents, but actually moves to Beijing...

A rather interesting story has cropped up in The Guardian. According to reports, a Chinese man informed his parents that he was studying at Oxford University, but actually just moved to Beijing and blew a third of it on an undeserving girlfriend....who then left him when he ran out of money. Oh, dear. He then went to a loan shark, and well, things went from bad to worse. Moral of the story: he should have asked for a larger amount of money...

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Oxford overtakes Cambridge

Rejoice, rejoice....Oxford University has officially overtaken Cambridge University on the Times World University Rankings 2011-2012. [Start childlike taunting....]

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Oxford University aims to raise £1.25 BILLION from alumni in 4 years.

The current University Chancellor Andrew Hamilton is currently undertaking a whirl wind fund raising event touring Australia. Australia is home to 2,700 alumni and it is hoped that they will contribute to the Oxford Thinking Campaign, which aims to raise £1.25 billion in 4 years, having already established £1.144 billion, with around a year left.

Famous Australian alumni include Bob Hawke (known for his record breaking drinking achievements at Oxford), along with Rupert Murdoch. For more details visit the all-knowledgeable Cherwell.

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Eco-Rally Comes To Oxford

Recently Broad Street became home to the starting point of the Eco-Rally. This was the fifth time the event has run, and it was started in 2007 by HRH Prince Charles. It is a time not only to see the most technologically advanced "green" cars currently available in the word, but also to underline the incredible developments in the field, which means they can get us from "A to B without the C" (C being carbon and costs). Our favourite was certainly the Tesla Roadster, a truly incredibly performance car and a technological achievement of gigantic proportions. Find out more about the Eco-Rally here.

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Oxford University's Bodleian Library drops $1.6 million on Jane Austen manuscript

In a perfect example of the huge financial power of one of the universities most important institutions, the Bodleian Library fought of international competition to buy Jane Austen's handwritten manuscript for "The Watsons". The story itself isn't complete and there are several interesting theories as to why this is (which can be found here, along with this lovely image above). But yes, you read that right; $1.6 million doesn't even buy you a finished story. Find out more about the library and its incredible collection on our tour! Yaaaaaay!

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Getting Trashed...

Here is the sight on one of our tours last week. Great bit of fun. Apparently people have been taking it a little too far, with one girl being fined for throwing a trifle, and then being told she will not graduate unless she pays off the fine. Perhaps this is a trifle too far by the University (yes,we actually did make that joke), especially after having seen curry paste and empty bottles of Tabasco around the road. If the trifle did actually look anything like it does in the newspaper article, we wouldn't mind some leftovers. 

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Oxford University takes a stance

In a landmark event, Oxford University has stated that it has "no confidence" in the policies of David Willetts, the Universities Minister, who, coincidently, studied at Christ Church, Oxford. Lecturers voted 283 to 5 on behalf of Oxford University's legislative body, in a vote held in the Sheldonian Theatre (above). This makes it the first University to publicly oppose the plans. We thinks its great that Oxford is keeping this issue at the forefront of public debate. Whether you agree or disagree with the plans, it is essentially that we continue to scrutinize them. More info here!

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Students Fined for Bad Behaviour

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act has lead to reports of the scandalous behaviour of Oxford University students.

Overall, the University is said to have given out £30,000 worth of fines, and has demanded hundreds of hours of community service.  It appears that St Edmund Hall  holds the title for fining its students the most for their behaviour. Its students managed to rack up £2,500 in fines.

What sort of things have they been getting up to? Well, "misuse of a car park" (wonderfully vague, but meriting 20 hours of community service) and throwing eggs (which received 10 hours). Even keeping neighbours awake with antics between the sheets is included.  Hit up the link for more info.

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Obama coming to Oxford University

Ok, so it isn't Barak, but Michelle Obama is coming to Oxford University to highlight the importance of education (click here for more info) Talking to people on the tours, it certainly is interesting discussing the financing of education. Perhaps with our comparatively low fees, it will draw attention to the unrealistic financial demands that are placed on American students. Although, with the imminent price rises coming to University fees in England, the difference in fees between these two countries grows ever smaller.

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Easter Special...

It appears that our favourite statue on Broad Street has been given a Easter makeover with a pair of bunny ears.......

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Oxford Literary Festival and Royalty

This Saturday (2nd April 2011) saw the start of the Oxford Literary Festival, and Footprints went down to be one of the first people to check it out.

Its being held between Christ Church, Corpus Christi and Merton College. Those who have tickets to attend will be able to go into Christ Church, which is a hugely enjoyable experience even on a normal day. But also visitors are able to listen to some of the most creative writers currently alive, talk their stuff.

While it would be hard to say what is the best thing to see, the awarding of the honorary fellowship of the festival is a great bit to see, this year it is being awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Prize Winner - "Remains of the Day"), for his new book, "Never Let Me Go".

 Anyone out for a bit of Royal watching will be delighted to see HRH The Princess Royal coming to Oxford on Wednesday (6th April 2011). For more details about that event check it out here, or hit up the main website for more info.

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Don't jump!

Observant pedestrians on Broad Street (where our meeting point is), will have noticed this sculpture by Antony Gormley. The sculpture itself is titled "Another Time" and sits on the roof of Exeter College's Thomas Wood Building. It was donated by an anonymous benefactor, and was unveiled by Oxford's Lord Mayor of the time, Susanna Pressel on February 15th 2009. Here is a nice video by Voicesfromoxford, about it being put up.    

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Happy Graduation!

Over the weekend we saw another graduation ceremony at Oxford University. Our tour group managed to get a peek at the students all ready for the final degree giving ceremony. Footprints would like to congratulate all the friends of Footprints who worked so hard to get to this stage. Well done guys!

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So, if you like free stuff.....

Footprints is a huge fan of the Fudge Kitchen. Yes ok, our meeting point is next to their store, and a friend who makes fudge is always better than a enemy who makes fudge. But these guys make goooood fudge. Plus they give away samples, for...yep, free. We would definitely recommend indulging in their fudge, and then walking it off on one of our tours! 

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What a lovely sign you've got....

Here is our new beautiful sign making it's debut appearance. Believe it or not, this was not designed by Sir Christopher Wren, but the little elves who work in our office....

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How Long Is A Piece Of String?

Here is a rather interesting addition made to the railings next to the Bodleian Library. It has been there for a few days now, and I even notice tourists turning their back on the Bridge of Sighs, in order to get a photo. You know it's interesting when its challenging the most photographed site in Oxford....

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In The Beginning....

Thanks for logging on to our new Blog. The aim of this Blog is to keep people up to date with exciting events and random occurrences in Oxford. At Footprints we're fortunate enough to spend a lot of time in this city centre of Oxford giving our Oxford Walking Tours, so this part of our site will be useful to share some of our experiences and information. Please feel free to leave comments or give us feedback. If you think we should talk more about certain aspects of Oxford life, or you really like a post, let us know! We will try to label our posts, so you can quickly sift through the different sorts of posts, but ultimately we just want to share our passion for this incredible city.

Thanks again for looking and feel free to follow this Blog or us on Facebook.

Footprints

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