From December 9th, travel time between Oxford and London will rapidly fall as commuters find themselves with a new, high-speed route.The service will come as a welcome to commuters, seeing journey times cut by 15 minutes on earlier services, and up to 50 minutes later on in the day. The knock-on benefits include increased train services between Didcot Parkway and Paddington being increased at busy times of the day.The first trains will depart at 6:03am and arrive around 7am, seating 282 people, with the number rising to 515 by February.

Oxford University's clearly got its business plan well sorted. Keen Germans have been telling the Süddeutsche Zeitung how much they've being enjoying their pointless, extortionately-priced Oxford holiday camps. At a price of £820, foreigners can spend two weeks 'studying' in a college and soaking in the surroundings. One participant, Heidi Reiss-Wellbery, shares with us that

from the moment I got off the bus in Oxford, my legs went numb

and then claims that

here people think in ways in which we never thought before.

And her beautiful room in Exeter College was apparently

part of the adventure.

And here's the clincher:

Every time I'm here, it's as though I'm on a journey into a fairy tale,

according to Ina de Mets.As long as the Europeans think like this, Oxford will keep raking it in.
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Author and local-resident Philip Pullman expressed his concern over the way Oxford was changing, warning that it threatened the unique nature of the city.Pullman raised his concerns while lending his support to campaigners protesting against plans to redevelop the Castle Mill Boatyard site in Jericho. The former boatyard site is under threat following plans put forward by Spring Residential to build blocks of flats. Speaking of the boatyard, he commented that it was sites such as these which distinguish the city; the new additions would only add to what he described as the "concrete wasteland" spreading over Oxford."The Covered Market is changing, and Cornmarket is now a street like any other High Street in the country, so it is all the more important we protect little spots like this."People need to protest and make their views heard as soon as possible. Oxford is unique and different to any other city in the world."

A new £29 million development for the Bodleian Library has been approved by Oxford City Council. The extension, at Osney Meads, will hold an estimated eight million books, or the equivalent of 20 years' worth of texts.The Bodleian struggles to cope with an addition of more than three miles of shelving a year to house the newly published texts, but the go-ahead from Oxford city's council earlier this week will provide some welcome relief.The building work is due to commence immediately and will continue until 2009.

Oxford was to be the capital of Hitler's new kingdom, according to invasion plans unearthed at the Bodleian Library, announce staff earlier this week. Documents detailing Operation Sea Lion are published this week, revealing how German researchers were employed to find out details of local road systems, geography, units of measurements, money and even translations of some Welsh words, all to be used by invading forces when they landed.According to Oana Romocea, spokesman for the Bodleian Library, "It's thought Hitler was never intent on bombing Oxford because he wanted to make it the new capital of his new kingdom."Of course, Operation Sea Lion was unsuccessful. The plan was to be put into action in 1940, but by September of that year it was abandoned, with the Nazi forces only advancing as far as the Channel Islands. The details of these plans, which were meticulously recorded, will be published in two books, entitled The German Invasion Plans and Instructions for British Servicemen in Germany, 1944. They are intended as a follow-up to the very successful Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942 and Instructions for British Servicemen in France, 1944.

Cowley Road, known for its eclectic nightlife and many student houses, is statistically the most dangerous street in Oxford. Last year, more than 900 crimes were recorded but at present, there are no CCTV cameras on the road, leaving residents and visitors vulnerable.Senior Police Officer Supt Brendan O'Dowda is currently pressuring for eight cameras to be installed on the road between Magdalen Bridge and Magdalen Road, in an effort to clamp down on crime. O'Dowda reports that more than 700 arrests were made in the city centre on the basis of CCTV network footage over the past twelve months, and that the lack of them on Cowley Road was hindering the police from doing their job:"Cameras would stop what could turn into a full-scale assault where a glass could be shoved in someone's face."In the past two years a number of serious incidents have taken place along Cowley Road – some have been detected, but many haven't."Many local businesses have their own CCTV system installed, but without it being linked up, tracing the movements of individuals becomes very difficult. Aside from helping the police to anticipate violence, CCTV footage would also help to prosecute those dangerous to the community.Opposition to the move comes from those who see the cameras as an infringement on civil liberties. The installation of eight cameras would involve roadworks, plus around £150000 expense to the local council. Moderate corners see the importance of introducing CCTV to Cowley Road, but see eight cameras as excessive.

Oxford alumnus Boris Johnson has won the election to become the Tory Candidate for next year's London Mayoral race. The popular MP won the vote by an overwhelming majority, gaining 75% of the votes.Next year the former Balliolite will face opposition from Ken Livingstone, who will be looking to start his third term in power. While the opposition have been quick to voice their doubts about Johnson's leadership potential, his supporters contend that his popularity has already raised voter awareness.

Rumour-mill Oxford Gossip was deleted earlier this week, with the URL directing viewers to The Student Rooms's Oxbridge forums.In the last fortnight the forums were unexpectedly wiped of all previous posts, but users were still able to create new entries until this week. Over the years, information from the site has helped to feed student newspapers with stories. Oxgoss created interest further afield with nationals occasionally picking up on leads.The controversial site has been subject to legal threats over the years, but of recent had suffered more so from content neglect. The site was failing to generate the same interest that it had done in previous years, with forums filling with local advertisements rather than news from regulars.The Student Rooms, or TSR, is considered a tamer alternative student forum to Oxgoss, offering prospective Oxbridge students the chance to ask questions about university life in a non-hostile environment.

Mixed messages for the grim North from the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung. A travel piece on the east coast of England from the Wash upwards is juxtaposed against a special feature on “catastrophe tourism” — holidaying in war-torn regions. Perhaps cycling in Bosnia (not available online) or trekking through Afghanistan are as unbearable as the beaches of Skegness.

Better news though is the glowing report the region gets. After making jibes at the “out of order” signs on loos, the petrol stations perennially “out of service” and the caravans clogging up the A4, the writer depicts the North as some sort of tourist's paradise, a rural idyll:

Along this dual carriageway [the A4] … you enjoy an endless line of wooden-fenced fields that mark out the the scenery from Hertfordshire to Cambridgeshire, the names of unheard-of places hidden behind oak trees, intruding rugby posts and road signs. Letchworth, Biggleswade, Sandy, Godmanchester, Ramsey: life here is provincial from here all the way to Newcastle.

Then comes a bizarre claim that

Scarborough isn't as posh now as it used to be,

as though it was once a competitor with Miami and Dubai. And apparently

further north, small, introspective villages nestle like jewels against the sea: Sandsend, Kettleness, Runswick, Staithes.

The Middlesbrough and Sunderland region gets the treatment it deserves (“beauty takes a copious break”), but the picture is overwhelmingly positive. Britain's expensive and nothing works but it's still quite quaint, the author concludes.

But the glaring omission from the piece is the one factor that would prevent anyone from choosing to spend their holiday in the north of England: the weather. Brits often don't realise quite how pro-English the Germans have been throughout history (Goethe and Schiller were both raving Anglophiles), and the Germans have always found pathetic England a bit sweet: I once read an article in the same paper by a German who'd lived in south-west London reminiscing about the quaint chaos of Kingston Hospital and the NHS. Maybe the writer's another closet Anglophile.

I apologise for catching the writer out and mentioning the w-word. As Basil Fawlty once said, I think I got away with it.

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It’s some 600 years since Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was born in the historic German city of Mainz. After moving to Strasbourg, dabbling in a few trades and getting caught up in a marital legal case we don’t know much about, the son of a merchant took out a loan for a contraption that would revolutionise communications and, in truth, change the world. By 1450 Gutenberg’s printing press was up and running, and five years later his most famous output, the 42-line Gutenberg Bible, was published.

The modern-day outcome of the invention credited to Gutenberg couldn’t be much further from the 180 or so Latin prints that appeared in the mid-15th century. They say the morning papers have replaced morning prayers, and today’s media — save for the brief Thought for the Day the BBC puts out to silence the traditionalists — suffers the odd indictment or two, or seven, for being an amoral and godless defamer. The British press are as fierce as they come. Tony Blair’s send-off to the media was a calculated stab in a speech to Reuters journalists, singling out the The Independent as an “impact” paper and branding the industry a “feral beast” — the title of this series of posts from the home of mass printing. He may well be right.

The aim of this blog is to study how the modern press fares in its own spiritual stomping ground, and how all the stereotypes we had of the Germans are completely and entirely accurate. Germany has its tabloids to match The Sun, but its broadsheets are dull in appearance, so I’ll report back to you on whether they’re actually any fun to read, how they portray things and where they stand on political spectra. I’ll share with you the best (and worst) of the German media, giving you links for the benefit of the German speakers reading this. For those of you who don’t speak German — not a problem now, but there’ll be a test at the end. And of course I’ll translate anything important for the sake of the Little Englanders. Expect brief updates every couple of days and more substantial weekly contributions once a week. Please post your comments too — I want to know your views on the blog and the subject of it.

Just a few miles to the east of Gutenberg’s birthplace is the financial hub of Frankfurt am Main, where I’m blogging from on my year away from Oxford. Frankfurt is to Mainz what today’s fierce press is to Gutenberg’s Bible — the fast-paced outcome of a capitalist 21st century. I like to see Frankfurt and Mainz as symbols of this change. One has a high-speed present, the other an engaging past which spawned the forefather of the information superhighway. Next time Blair wants to set the record straight, he knows where to lay the blame.

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