Highlights-Wolverhampton to Oxford

The train from Wolverhampton to Oxford was 1040.1215pm. I stayed at the George Street Hotel on one of the main Oxford streets. At Oxford University’s Ashmolean museum, I toured Mesopotamia, Samaria, ancient Egypt (nice video on mummification process), Greece, Rome, and “China before 800 ACE.” I had some world-class spicy beef ramen for supper, possibly the best ever, which is saying a lot for noodle soup. It was hot enough to use for glass blowing and had a huge effect on my nose. I can write no more without getting icky.

Notable Items

On the train to Oxford, my bag didn’t fit well in the overhead shelf. Its initial position had “this is going to fall on the head of your seat-mate” written all over it. The aisle was full of people who were smart enough to put their house trailer size bags into the racks near the access door so I piled into my seat hoping I could put the bag under the seat in front of me. Nope. When I figured this out, I was mostly in my seat and my seat partner on the aisle had returned to her drink and sandwich. I just put my foot on the bag and prayed I wouldn’t get a cramp.

My first stop in Oxford after the hotel was the Four Candles pub. This was a J.D. Wetherspoon facility. JD is from the Sheriff JD Hogg character from The Dukes of Hazzard (I’m not joking, they admit this). They run hotels too. Their corporate slogan is Cleanliness, Beer, Service. Although not sloganed, the pub grub is not too shabby and very reasonably priced. I doubt you could stay in business long in Britain serving bad fish and chips. I couldn’t judge the beer and the mid-day lunch crowd wasn’t as good a stress test of cleanliness as after a rugby match (there’s all that blood!).

My favorite thing about visiting a Wetherspoon pub isn’t the food, beer, or bathroom cleanliness (shocker). It is the Wetherspoon News magazine. This thick literary gem is a combination of marketing rag, employee recognition vehicle, and articulate skewering of poorly sourced yellow-journalism (when the subject is Wetherspoon policies) and government policy duplicity. Who does that?

This edition covered a lot of rhetorical ground, as I’ve come to expect. The editorials poked holes in anti-alcohol campaigns and press coverage of same (it’s a pub, what do you expect?), called for tax reform for pubs (grocery stores get a big alcohol tax break and don’t even serve bangers and mash), and, wait for it, the gap between government feel good net zero press releases and the reality power generation. What pub corporate PR ‘zine takes the government to task for insufficiently aggressive nuclear power station construction? That is just awesome and not because I was a Navy nuke. Wetherspoon News is one of the highlights of my trips to the UK.