<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="/resources/xsl/"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <channel>
    <title>The Oxford Times | Gray Matter</title>
    <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/</link>
    <description>The Oxford Times /news/opinions/graymatter/</description>
    <language>en-gb</language>
    <pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 10:49:06 +0100</pubDate>
    <lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 10:49:06 +0100</lastBuildDate>
    <docs>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/rssterms/</docs>
    <generator>M6</generator>
    <managingEditor>nvincent@newsquest.co.uk (Nigel Vincent)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>webmaster@digitalmedia.newsquest.co.uk (Tim Joy)</webMaster>
    <image>
        <url>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/resources/images/999282/?type=rsslogo</url>
        <title>The Oxford Times | Gray Matter</title>
        <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/</link>
    </image>
    <atom:link href="http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/rss/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<item>
           <title>Jenny finds a backer in an arbiter earl</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10435945.Jenny_finds_a_backer_in_an_arbiter_earl/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  I returned to my desk this week after a fortnight away to find a charming letter from a reader telling me I was wrong to contend (in Gray Matter on May 2) that Jenny Seagrove, playing an upper-crust businesswoman in TV’s Endeavour, had struck a wrong note by pronouncing ‘envelope’ with the first syllable given the French ‘on’ sound, “in the way no real toff would do”.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 14:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">caa27d904bcc411aeba07143d67b8b2e</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Masterly biography of a remarkable politician</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10435937.Masterly_biography_of_a_remarkable_politician/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  When the literary prizes are presented at the end of the year, it will be an injustice indeed if the one for best biography is not awarded to Charles Moore for the superb first volume of his authorised life of Margaret Thatcher. Not For Turning (Allen Lane, £30) is a masterly account of the career of one of the 20th century’s most charismatic politicians, up to and including the Falklands War, the episode that brought her greatest triumph.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 23 May 2013 14:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">bb3e41bdc0a6c173a3b64ec077708d7e</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>TV's Fanny helped 'do' for the toast rack</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10391509.TV_s_Fanny_helped__do__for_the_toast_rack/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  Another topic that has provoked a lively correspondence in the Daily Telegraph recently has been the disappearance from the nation’s breakfast tables of the toast rack. It began with the lament of one reader, who wrote to say the devices were vital for keeping toast crisp.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">f5403291d08518d70137305b19e4c027</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Champagne reception not ideal for our fussy princess</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10391485.Champagne_reception_not_ideal_for_our_fussy_princess/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  Sunday night’s superbly made episode of ITV’s Morse spin-off, Endeavour, was much concerned with a visit to an Oxford missile factory by Princess Margaret. As catering arrangements were discussed in the opening moments, the word ‘refreshments’ was accompanied by beguiling scenes of lots of champagne glasses being lavishly filled.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">c5adefeeb9c383392d7a0a6ca4a1397b</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Why we can't restore the old county boundaries</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10391468.Why_we_can_t_restore_the_old_county_boundaries/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  ‘And who could forget the Soke of Peterborough?” wrote Paul Hornby, of Oxford, on the letters page of the Daily Telegraph last Friday. Who indeed? Certainly not the present writer who was born and brought up in this quaintly named area of eastern England. Confusingly, it was an administrative county, largely composed of the cathedral city of Peterborough, within the geographical county of Northamptonshire. The Soke disappeared in 1965 (though ‘the Soak of Peterborough’ remained, as a title applied to anyone with a preternatural appetite for alcohol). Its domain became part of the short-lived county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. In 1974, this was absorbed into an enlarged county of Cambridgeshire in the reforms of Edward Heath’s government under his Environment Secretary Peter Walker. So I can say that without having moved, I lived as a child and young man in three different counties, four if Northamptonshire is included. Unusual, eh?
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">e2b888d6464eb6d3de7a8a8f8bae1ca6</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Azfa picks up £3,000 poetry prize</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10375704.Azfa_picks_up___3_000_poetry_prize/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  I wrongly assumed when I received my invitation to the Tower Poetry prize-giving last Thursday lunchtime at Christ Church that the event must have derived its name from Christopher Wren’s Tom Tower. Not so. It is named for a former student at the House, the late Christopher Tower, who bequeathed a sum of money to finance this annual competition for young writers aged 16 to 18. A very generous sum, too, for the first prize winner receives no less that £3,000, a tidy amount for someone still at school, with £2,250 shared among another five prize winners.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">978fb99d87838faf8358587e28191280</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Strippers flex muscles at Newspaper House</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10375655.Strippers_flex_muscles_at_Newspaper_House/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  Five fit young men joined one rather unfit old one for an entertaining chat at Newspaper House nine days ago. My meeting with a quintet of Dreamboys — and there are five more like them at home — was part of an action-packed week that later took me from fab abs to Ab Fab as I joined Joanna Lumley on the terrace of the House of Commons at the launch of the 2013 Buxton Festival. Also present there were the Culture Secretary Maria Miller and the Arts Minister and Wantage MP Ed Vaizey, both hotfoot from Baroness Thatcher’s funeral. Two days later I was with Mr Vaizey again as we met for coffee and an informal chat at Oxford’s Malmaison Hotel. Add in a buffet lunch last Thursday at Christ Church for the presentation of a prestigious poetry prize, and you get to see there is rich variety in the life of an arts editor.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">2adf5e2a68e450d6bdf1642570b6743d</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Is it 'Thatcher denial' to question the style of funeral?</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10360605.Is_it__Thatcher_denial__to_question_the_style_of_funeral_/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  With some trepidation I ventured to London yesterday, to the House of Commons. My afternoon visit had nothing to do with the big event of the day, though a number of those present will certainly have been at the funeral of Baroness Thatcher. Whether this passed off without unpleasantness will now be known. As I write, the day before the service, I can only express the hope that nothing unseemly will mar the nation’s farewell to a great figure of our time.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">406e643bc6cb67d39fcf0304e04a9d49</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Unlikely cigarette brand for young sleuth Endeavour Morse</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10360633.Unlikely_cigarette_brand_for_young_sleuth_Endeavour_Morse/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  I look to be having stay-at-home weekends for the next few weeks, with Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle live from New York’s Metropolitan Opera courtesy of Radio 3 on Saturday nights and the excellent new Morse prequel Endeavour going out from ITV on Sundays.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">646d7ef74ee935a65a4974b7c18049d9</guid>
    </item>


    <item>
           <title>Town in icy grip on August Bank Holiday</title>
           
           <link>http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/opinions/graymatter/10360618.Town_in_icy_grip_on_August_Bank_Holiday/?ref=rss</link>
           
           
           <description><![CDATA[
  At about the time that we were starting to wonder if April could get any colder, I came across a reference to even more unseasonal weather in a book I was reading about Southern Region trains on British Railways. This was a snow storm said to have struck Tunbridge Wells on August Bank Holiday in 1956. A photograph (right) appeared to supply evidence that it happened.
]]></description>
           <pubDate>Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:46:50 +0100</pubDate>
           <guid isPermaLink="false">be6538b5e9fc023345220d0ef5221a76</guid>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>