From outside my office window there came a massive hydraulic exhalation, so loud it almost sounded like an explosion! I typed one word more then went to look out of the window. Four stories down and up the street a huge articulated lorry had somehow broken itself while turning the sharp corner out of the carpark and had ground to a halt wedged across the narrow road, the container on the back of the lorry making a crude but completely effective roadblock. It was already building up a stream of buses on either side, one side desperate to reach the bus station, the other side trying to get away from it. Some days you could run down George Street on the top of buses anyway, just from the congestion, and today? IN rush hour? Oh no! Oxford's one way system isn't designed to cope with roadblocks! The view keeps getting better. There are clusters of people being important in hi-vis jackets, a policeman trying to stop people turning up that thing that looks like it might be a navigable alleyway (it's actually just where the chinese restaurant keeps its wheelie bins), people in flat-bottomed trucks trying (unsuccessfully) to barge their way over the pavement, and someone looking very despairing with his hand on his forehead. I'm thinking the driver. I bet it's all a fake. He's probably just doing a very cleverly-disguised Reclaim the Streets protest.

30 minutes later. Still there.

45 minutes later. Still there.

1 hour later. Still there. Yaaaaaaaaawn. Time to go home. Guess I won't find out how this one ends.

... and in the news this week

Hangar 3022 at Upper Heyford discovers its destiny: it's going to be a vast experimental performance space for Siobhan Davies' next great opus.

Cowley road gets added sleaze unless the concerned residents of we wish this was Wolvercote get their way, of course.

And the Horse and Jockey continues to surprise with an all-day retro games fest.