Unorthodoxford adventure

I can’t remember why I wanted to go to Oxford. To visit, that is. I knew I would never get into the university.  It might be because I’m a fan of The Lord of the Rings and Inspector Morse, but I’m sure there was something more specific. Anyhow, I first tried to convince my friends to go with me (as the group in question had never been on holiday together) in 2020, and let’s just say I think they were fairly grateful when lockdown put a stop to that.

Anyway, this year it was my birthday, so they had to do what I say. And I made it very clear from the beginning that I was perfectly happy to go on my own, so didn’t want anybody whinging about the choice of location.

Train tickets were easy to sort through a mate of my friend’s mam. I won’t use his real name to protect him, but let’s all him “East Coast Trains Tony.” He’ll take you anywhere in the country as long as you’re on his train, by simply ignoring you when he comes to inspect your ticket. He wasn’t working that day, unfortunately, however, but still managed to get us half price which was nice. Anyhow, the deeply questionable lads’ holiday began when we discovered “Tony” had selected us the four remaining seats in a carriage that was reserved entirely for a school trip. While this did make our firm plans of “drinking” and “swearing” a little more difficult, it meant we didn’t get our tickets checked once (apparently at 27 we all pass for 16). My friend commented that we needn’t have bought tickets at all, but I pointed out that sitting in the middle of a school trip without tickets would perhaps be a little strange.

100,000,000 card games of switch later, we arrived in London, where we sank our first pints, before hopping on a second train to the city itself. Of course I’d booked a hotel on the polar opposite of the city because I don’t mind walking (and it was cheap). By the time we got there, I think it may have been preferable that I not mind swimming, because I think my exhausted mates with their huge bags were ready to throw me in the river. I promptly approached the quaint guest house that was to be our abode for this raucous weekend to realise that it was closed, and we couldn’t check in until 4pm. This, of course, spelled certain death. So I didn’t reveal to anyone the email that I had just found which explained this quite clearly. Instead, I opted to knock, and thankfully the door was opened by the owner, who was sympathetic to my cause and allowed us to go to our rooms early, much to the chagrin of the woman who was in the middle of preparing them, and who I subsequently locked out at least twice as she endeavoured to stock the tea tray to its maximum capacity. No tea required, however, as this was of course a lads’ holiday. In sunny Oxford.

And so we hit the town. Of course, all the pressure was on me to provide activities, but as I couldn’t really remember why I wanted to come in the first place, my offerings were rather limited. Thankfully, however, I work with two people who attended the university (I’m prone to imposter syndrome), one of whom at least is a heavy drinker, so I was equipped with a list of pubs and at least one Tolkien-esque activity to please my friends as one thing I will say is that we all like The Lord of the Rings. Unrelated to this activity (which I’ll come to), the first pub we decided to visit was ‘The Lamb and Flag,’ where JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to drink and have literary discussions as part of the “Inklings.” We thought we better hurry because it will be heaving. Got there and we were the only people on apart from what I can only describe as an Inklings tribute band. Still, think we all appreciated it. And I secretly also appreciated it as one of Inspector Morse’s haunts. My mate who drinks cider, however, failed to realise the difference between old mout summer fruits-esque cider and scrumpy Somerset 8% stuff. But we soon made a commitment to drinking as much of this awful stuff as possible. It was a lads’ holiday, you see.

After a delicious pizza at the famous white rabbit pub, things turned into a bar crawl as we headed for the hottest bars in town with the longest opening hours, which were of course either closed or you needed a booking for. But we found a place with a barman who hated students and a lot of Bloody Marys. And, to be honest, I can’t tell you much more about that first night. I remember my friend got chatting to a girl called Alice, which I remember because Alice was in Wonderland and I thought to myself that that was a nice Oxford-themed thing. I think he got her number, which was good, shortly after she told us that there’s nowhere to go in Oxford and asked why on Earth we had decided to come. Before everyone could look at me again, I had another Bloody Mary. Extra hot. And then I woke up in my jeans.

Day two we obviously needed some activities to fill the day. First of all, a nice full English breakfast. Tripadvisor reccomend the handlebar cafe as the best, and although I really enjoyed my spicy beans, butterless toast and herby potatoes, my friends informed me that it was pretentious shite, and longed for hash browns. I have kept a note.

We then went around Christ Church meadow, which is lovely by the way, even when you’re admiring it to the soundtrack of “what we doing then?” “Were we going then?” But they would of course appreciate the tower, St Mary’s church tower that is. From the top of which you can see the two towers that inspired Tolkien’s book of the same name. However, my only source for this is the lad I work with. Google suggests that nobody knows the inspiration, and that these two towers are just assumptions. And when I say “these two towers” I mean two towers in Birmingham, which, as far as I am aware, is not in Oxford. No matter, the views of the city, including the famous Rad cam library (which you can’t go in) were fantastic. Unfortunately, the tower was designed and built many hundreds of years ago for hardier men than I. The walkway was very narrow, with big gaps in the stone wall, which you had to lean over forwards when people shuffled past single file. I’m usually alright with heights but that was bastard terrifying.

I stumbled down the narrow spiral staircase and into the white horse pub. Here we had pints and talked about old times. Which I’ve decided, for my own benefit, is an absolute staple of the afternoon of the second day of a lads’ holiday. Another box ticked, if you ask me. My colleague had recommended the bar he used to work at, the Royal Blenheim.

This was voted, I believe, one of the nicest bars in Oxford and it was really nice. He said to speak to the little Irish manager if he was there and he would recommend things to do. There was indeed a little Irish manager there and I asked him if he remembered my friend, which he did very fondly. Although when I mentioned this the next week at work said friend wondered why the guy hadn’t mentioned that he wanted half his missing stock back …

Anyhow, we had collectively decided on a steak so I asked him where the best steakhouse in Oxford was, to which he replied that he’s always saying he wishes there was a nice steakhouse in Oxford. This was not news I wanted to return to the table with, but thankfully his colleague recommended a lovely Italian’s, where we went and had a lovely Italian’s. One of our party retired early after that. There’s always one who can’t handle such extreme levels of sesh (not really, he just doesn’t drink and goes to bed early, don’t ask me why - I am suspicious though - what did you do that was so bad you had to make these life changes???). The rest of us headed to the suburbs as it was a short cut to the livelier bar (literally one bar) scene. In the middle of a suburban street we found a pub. And it served scrumpy Somerset cider so we got a load of these in. Was gonna be a hell of an evening. And I wasn’t wrong, because the bar that was closed the night before was open tonight. And I don’t remember anything significant about it other than that. I do remember meeting a bunch of Brookes students who were canny lads, out in Oxford because they lived there, not because they had travelled there. We bonded over our inability to identify with the actual Oxford students. One of them hadn’t even managed to graduate from Brookes, he pointed out. But, anyhow, aside from that, as far as I do remember, my mate did pull a woman in the middle of a divorce, whilst I was stuck talking to her irritating teenage twin sisters, who I swear weren’t old enough to drink and made a lot of high pitched noises that I didn’t understand. I wanted to go home, and thankfully I finally got a taxi, where as my friend headed back to their Oxford home along with, he tells me, their grandad and lots of cats. Marvellous. When I got back to the note I realised I had the only key between the two of us, so I cleverly hid it under a plant pot just in case. My other friend retrieved it the next morning from the middle of the pavement where I had left it.

The divorcee dropped my friend off at Wendys where we took brunch a little later, and we headed off for a solemn train journey home, and some more switch. I thought to myself that it had been a great lads’ weekend. Plenty of pints. A drinking completion of sorts. Someone left early. Someone pulled. Bit of culture but not too much. Late night bars and bloody Marys. Yeahhh, as I say, I can’t really remember why I wanted to go, but it’s a nice place and I really did enjoy it. But, no, no don’t go there for a lads’ holiday. It’s a good thing my mate pulled or I think I’d still be hearing about how terrible an idea it was.

But I loved it. Lovely place. Real bit of me. I was just thinking this on the train when my mate opened his phone and said “Alice? Who the f**k is Alice?”