Do you believe in the West Way?

[addedentry]

Note the punctuation: the Westway is the A40 out of London. West Way is a road leaving Oxford; or, from my perspective, leading there

Comments

[megadog]

TBH I vastly prefer the anonymity provided by not having your neighbours/the local tradesmen/postman/gardener knowing any detail of your personal life.

I grew up in a rural small town of around 5000 inhabitants. There was one big employer. Everyone knew everyone else: they worked at the same place, drank in the same pub, went to the same shops or were part of one of the local extended-families.

You couldn't do anything without everyone getting to know. This I felt was deeply and horribly oppressive, and couldn't wait to get away from it.

[addedentry]

I quite understand. But in this case any interaction is by choice.

I think even a limited acquaintanceship will pay dividends in reducing our neighbours' annoyance when we have parties: it's easier to attribute all sorts of ill-will to someone you've never spoken to.

[barnacle]

I think Oxford's suburbs need more psychogeography. I'd be interested in that and I bet CRB would, in the context of ticking off pubs as we go round (although that couldn't dictate our route).

I'll put it on my list, right after "learn nose-flute".

[hatmandu]

Count me in!

[addedentry]

If only there were more than two pubs in Botley. That's perhaps its biggest disadvantage for me. (Heading on out of town, there's nothing till North Hinksey or Cumnor.)

[monkeyhands]

The shopkeepers in the newsagent and the deli surely know our faces but I could patronise them for years without learning more than their opinions on the weather.

I've visited the Spar on Dunnock Way, Greater Leys, on average once a week for over two years.As well as going there to buy things, I've visited many times to drop off newspapers and see the manager about advertising sales. As an extra bonus bit of attention-seeking, unflattering but realistic pictures of me are regularly printed inside the papers I drop off.

I know quite a bit about the personal lives of all the staff, from overhearing the bellowed conversations they have with each other.

If any member of staff there showed me the slightest recognition, I think I might faint with shock.

[addedentry]

I am glad, especially if not all of the street is as neighbourly. The extension cable snaking through the door is a lovely image - what must the cats have made of it?!

I can always give a single hello but I'd be reluctant to spend time running an errand for the busy mother next door or keeping someone lonely company. It's better than nothing but I can't congratulate myself for building genuine social capital.

[uitlander]

When I lived there, what - ~15 years ago, the precinct itself was quite rough and the yoof of Botley something to be avoided in the evenings. The supermarket would echo to cries of 'Code 10' from the cashiers (they'd just introduced bar codes and nothing was in the database, but they stopped putting prices on things leading to mass confusion). The lady in Iceland laughed every time I walked in after my spotting of the but-1-get-200 free loophole on frozen pizza. I think by the time we left we were on nodding terms with the people in the video rental place and the newsagent.

[addedentry]

Interesting. I had expected that yoof with absolutely nothing else to do would spend their time in the precinct, but the handful who do are fairly quiet. We get more noise from the tables outside the pub (and it sounds mostly good-natured). Maybe their families have been priced out to Abingdon and Didcot.

Videohall is empty now, of course, but that's the Internet's fault rather than a sign of decline in Botley.