Latest news with #MertonCollege
BBC News
21-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Student beekeeper finds 'bee paradise' in the heart of Oxford
A university student says he has found a "bee paradise" in the heart of Oxford after pursuing his Maxen, 23, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, splits his time between studying cancer science at the University of Oxford and taking care of tens of thousands of bees in two hives at the Great Meadow, owned by Merton took up the unusual hobby earlier this year after spending a couple of years researching beekeeping and "going down a rabbit hole" of watching YouTube videos about Maxen had initially posted on neighbourhood app Nextdoor, asking the Oxfordshire community to put his beehive "in someone's back garden" and was "overwhelmed" with replies. "Sometimes there'd be a really nice story involved - there are a lot of people whose parents had kept bees when they were a child and they now want to reconnect with beekeeping," he explains."[Others] were maybe too old to bee keep themselves but really wanted to get involved."But he changed his mind over potential stings and him visiting someone else's space during "unsociable times".Instead, he reached out to about 20 university colleges and Merton College offered "a beautiful wildflower meadow here that they'd happily house my bees"."Now, I'm in a bee paradise right in the heart of Oxford." 'Bees are like pets' He first became interested in having his own bees about two years ago. "I was supposedly revising for exams, but then I accidentally went on YouTube and ended up going down a three-hour rabbit hole," he says."I was watching Just Alex and he's quite a young guy as well, so I thought 'if he's able to do beekeeping, there's no reason I should kind of wait till I'm older'."Mr Maxen says beekeepers "have a tendency to start thinking of the bees as their pets". "There are somewhere between 10,000 and 60,000 of them... but maybe you could view one hive as one big pet," he explains, comparing it to the emotional support some might get from a dog. Mr Maxen says his friends were initially "understandably surprised" by his hobby."But they've all got super into it and I've had lots of friends coming down to the hives to get involved."He even started naming the queen bees after them, such as Bee-ola after his girlfriend Ceola and Badeline after his friend Maxen says his "dream" is to harvest between 50 to 100 jars of honey, twice a year in spring and autumn."That way I'd be able to give some away for free to my friends and family which is the most important thing for me," he says."But also, it would be very cool to get my own honey to one of these garden markets or markets that we have in Oxford, and be able to sell them to the public as well." You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
BBC News
29-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Councils pay Oxford college £545,500 after planning delay
Two councils have paid a total of £545,500 to an Oxford University college after delays to a planning County Council and Cherwell District Council were told to pay the costs to Merton College over its planning application for 540 homes at Rutten Lane in college first submitted the application in 2021, but in 2023 decided to appeal because Cherwell District Council failed to make a decision on authority said it had carried out a "thorough examination" of the case and an action plan was in place. The Planning Inspectorate awarded costs to Merton College as part of the obtained by the BBC show that Cherwell District Council has now paid £401,769.74 and Oxfordshire County Council has paid £145, inspector's report said that Cherwell District Council had "delayed development that should clearly have been permitted".It added that Oxfordshire County Council behaved "unreasonably" over a request for a contribution to highway works at the Peartree Interchange as part of the development is part of the 4,400 new homes allocated by Cherwell Council in Yarnton, north Oxford, Kidlington and Begbroke to meet Oxford's housing needs.A report released by Cherwell District Council's auditors said that a review had found significant "weaknesses" in the authority's handling of the said: "The council has already been financially exposed as a result of these weaknesses and, if left unaddressed, there is a risk that the situation reoccurs with other strategic site applications it handles."A spokesperson for Cherwell District Council said: "A thorough examination of the case has been undertaken. "An internal management action plan has been prepared to address the findings of that examination for immediate implementation."An Oxfordshire County Council spokesperson said it had "considered the Planning Inspectorate's decision and it will continue to review its internal procedures related to the outcome of this appeal and subsequent costs ordered against the authority". You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
The Guardian
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Britten Sinfonia/Sinfonia Smith Square review – quiet fervour and formal grace
Innovative as always, Britten Sinfonia joined forces with Sinfonia Smith Square for a programme of music for wind ensemble by Messiaen and Stravinsky, alongside Stravinsky's Mass and 20th-century French motets (Poulenc, Duruflé, more Messiaen) sung by the choir of Merton College, Oxford. There were two conductors, Nicholas Daniel for the wind ensemble music, and Benjamin Nicholas (Merton's director of music) for the a cappella works. Daniel, also the Britten Sinfonia's principal oboist since its founding in 1992, steps down at the end of the current season, and this was effectively his final concert with the orchestra. The programme was sombre and beautifully constructed. The main work was Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum, Messiaen's great memorial to the dead of both world wars. It was commissioned to mark the 20th anniversary of the second, and is still an essential reminder, another 60 years on, of the necessity of hope in dark times. It was prefaced by other 20th-century works reflecting on conflict. The echoes of both Russian Orthodox church music and The Rite of Spring that lurk behind Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments suggest a world lost to revolution and exile, while his Mass, written in the US between 1944 and 1948, moves from hard-edged austerity towards a chilly peace, tentative at best. Poulenc's Quatre Motets Pour un Temps de Pénitence, only three of them sung here, date from early 1939, their surface calm barely concealing deep unease at impending crisis. Ritual elements rightly predominated in performances. Daniel's way with the closing sections of Symphonies of Wind Instruments proved extraordinarily moving, as the music moves towards sad resignation. The Mass was a thing of quiet fervour and formal grace, beautifully sung and played. The reverberant acoustic of St George's Cathedral, Southwark, can sometimes swallow definition and detail in Stravinsky. The vast hieratic ceremonials of Et Exspecto, in contrast, expanded and resonated superbly into the space in an interpretation of intense solemnity, superb control and, at times, cataclysmic loudness. Merton College choir sounded beautiful in the motets: Duruflé's Ubi Caritas et Amor was particularly exquisite. And Daniel also gave us a transcription for oboe of Messiaen's Vocalise-étude, originally a conservatoire test piece for soprano and piano, done with exquisite tone, extraordinary lyrical poise and wonderful depth of feeling.
Times
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Britten Sinfonia review — a spectacular farewell to Nicholas Daniel
It will go down as one of the noisier farewells in music history. The great British oboist Nicholas Daniel has played with the Britten Sinfonia for 33 years, even while sustaining a dazzling solo career. With this concert under the towering arches of St George's RC Cathedral in Southwark, he signed off in spectacular style. Bringing together the combined wind, brass and percussion players of the Britten Sinfonia and the Sinfonia Smith Square, plus the excellent choir of Merton College, Oxford, the programme mingled mysticism and modernism in a way that seemed to reflect Daniel's own adventurous yet highly charged music making. In this ultra-resonant acoustic the two Stravinsky pieces conducted by him — Symphonies of Wind Instruments and the Mass — perhaps lacked the
