Chipping Norton Theatre (above) was created from a 19th Century Salvation Army Citadel building. Its theatrical history dates back to 1975, when the Theatre was opened by Tom Baker, famed for playing Doctor Who on BBC TV.

The Theatre now features an excellent Bar and Gallery Space next door, and anyone who goes there knows that you can expect to find an interesting and original mix of events. Wherever your tastes run in the worlds of cinema, theatre, and music, CNT manages to put on something enjoyable.

Now it’s the turn of The English Eye to have a go, with a one-man show, ‘Visions of Chipping Norton’, to be held September 4-24, 2013.
A three-part event, ‘Visions’ is being created by Chipping Norton author, artist and photographer David Jefferis, aka ‘DJ’, your host at The English Eye. He’s a media veteran with publishers such as the London Observer, Dorling Kindersley, and Usborne under his belt. In New York, David’s futurist concepts have been displayed recently at the Lincoln Center.


These are three elements of the Visions Show:

Visions 1
Son et Lumiere display, projecting an eclectic mix of words, pictures and video clips, featuring Chippy (as residents affectionately call it) ‘Then’ and ‘Now.’ 


Visions 2
David will be signing new titles, including the full-colour hardback book of the show, ‘Visions of Chipping Norton.’


Visions 3
In the Theatre Gallery, DJ will be showing his latest prints of Chippy and the Cotswolds.

More updates as the Show’s content comes together during Spring and Summer, 2013. Meantime, catch up on what’s on at Chipping Norton Theatre here.

Here in the Cotswolds, it’s been a fairly continuous dose of the white stuff since early Friday – and all day today Sunday. Main roads have been kept open though, so traffic has been light but reasonably free-flowing, ‘drive with care’ being the operative phrase for safe travel.

Chipping Norton’s 17th century alms houses (main and above) look even prettier than usual, while St Mary’s churchyard (below) has been transformed into something resembling a picture postcard.

Minor roads in Chipping Norton have seen a mini-snowplough trundling up and down – a most impressive sight, after personal experience of village life, where such things were unheard of!

Also, large hoppers of strategically positioned grit have allowed locals to keep driveways and paths to their front doors reasonably clear.

Whatever difficulties it creates, snow is of course, a magical substance that transforms the mundane into a thing of beauty, and heavy frosts have given many plants, especially their leaves, a Kirlian-like fringe of glittering white.

The weather has been its winterish self recently, with massive changes on a daily – and hourly – basis, ranging from clear, bright sun to clouds so heavy they look as if they should fall out of the sky.

Of course, England is renowned for cloudy weather – it’s not for nothing that we have a climate that is perhaps best described as ‘unpredictable’, even if the national weather forecasters reckon they are usually pretty accurate up to 48 hours ahead.

There are some meteorologists who claim to make a living from long-range forecasts that include taking into account such factors as variable solar radiation, cosmic ray energy and other exotica. If such things seem to work, use them, I say – and if the results are demonstrably accurate, so much the better.

These particular pictures were taken on one of my morning stomps near the water tower that provides Chipping Norton’s drinking supply, and prove that it’s handy to have a mobile phone with a reasonable camera onboard.

Mine is an iPhone 4S, which has decent stills and video modes. Even if it’s not ultimately as good as a high-end Canon or Nikon, the iPhone is ‘always in my pocket’ to grab shots like these as they happen.

This week the RSPCA won a prosecution against the Heythrop Hunt in a case made especially high profile, as the Heythrop is local to the media-hyped ‘Chipping Norton Set’ and a hunt that British Prime Minister David Cameron has ridden with.

The conviction was for intentionally hunting a fox with dogs, a pursuit that’s been illegal in England and the UK since 2005. Not that Oxford District Judge Tim Pattinson was especially pleased, as he criticised the RSPCA for spending some £330,000 on the case, suggesting that the animal charity’s funds might be better spent elsewhere.

It’s an example of Chief Executive Gavin Grant’s policy of making the RSPCA a headline-hungry organization. Whatever you think of foxes and fox-hunting, the RSPCA is unusual for its income sources – with annual funding of around £116 million, almost half comes from legacies in people’s wills. Whether they would have approved of spending huge sums on court cases, rather than on simple animal welfare is a point for discussion.

Back to the RSPCA, it started to move beyond pet concern to wider issues decades ago, and today looks after farm and laboratory animals as well. Patrons include the Queen and Archbishop of Canterbury, with Professor Peter Singer as honorary vice president. He wrote ‘Animal Liberation’, an important early animal rights book, so the Heythrop case is hardly a step into the unknown.

According to the RSPCA, all its donors and members are against abusing animals, and general reaction has been “overwhelmingly in favour”, not forgetting that the Heythrop case was just one of thousands of convictions obtained over the past year.

Still, the RSPCA has to take care with reactions to its policies. Membership is presently just over the 26,000 mark – a decade ago, it was more than 47,000.

Heythrop village itself is little more than a hamlet, 2-3 miles from Chippy. It consists of a handsome church (above) and various houses, though one particular line of these is interesting, as they were built in the 1870s and 1880s as a ‘model’ village by local politician Albert Brassey, who lived in the classically-styled Heythrop Hall country house. At the steeple’s base are a plaque and stonework commemorating local men who died in the two World Wars (below).

Heythrop pictures: David Jefferis. Others courtesy Malene Thyssen (fox), Thowra uk (hound), George Jansoone (engraving).

The first snowfall of the winter is a thing of magic, especially when it is entirely unexpected. Where were the weather warnings the other night? Nowhere!

No matter: the light sprinkling that arrived in the small hours did little to hold up daily activities here in Chipping Norton, but certainly added a sparkle to the landscape.

I went out to take some shots and here they are, the rural scenes captured in and around Water Tank field, with town centre rooftops framing the hills beyond. Below, New Street is clear for traffic though in the distance, the fields gleam with a light frosting of snow.

Coming soon, I will be adding online picture ordering to the website, the idea being that if you like the look of an image you’ll be able to order up your own print of it. Well, that’s the idea anyway; meantime enjoy these pictures of our light sprinkle of Cotswold snow, starting with tyre tracks in Rowell Way.

For black-and-white photo-fans, patterns made by furrows are picked out easily.

The pictures (above and below) were all taken in and around Water Tank field. It’s a popular walk, especially liked by dogs and their owners.

Chippy Jazz and Music Festival turned the town centre into the sound of music on September 30, with pubs, cafes and bars all joining together in providing warm day-long venues for a wealth of musical talent.

Focused on jazz in all its forms, there were also the sounds of gospel and folk, and local schools filled the Town Hall with stunning performances.

The book of the festival is available now, and the online version is a FREE Christmas gift from The English Eye.

Simply register an account with our digital partner HP MagCloud here or at the link below to download your free copy.

You can read it onscreen in a page-turning program that’s also free. It looks great on the iPad too – if you have one, the MagCloud App is free and easy to use.

If you want a printed paper edition, you can order one as easily as from Amazon, with postage options clearly shown.

Amounts are shown in US dollars, with currency-conversion automatically carried out in your local currency by the card company.

Visit Chippy Jazz 2012 at MagCloud here.

Early November means the trees are becoming very bare, here in the Cotswolds. The upside is of course the wonderful colours that surround us – greens, yellows, russets, browns – they’re all there, mostly now spread on the ground.

Beauty indeed, perhaps best summed up in the words of Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt, “…This other Eden, demi-paradise…” However chill the day or raw the wind, a closer look at nature’s bounty makes up for it – though a hot cup of tea is welcome when you get inside again!

I followed this public bridleway not far from the ancient Rollright Stones, to be rewarded at the far end by hugely long and truly spectacular westerly views.

I finally had a chance to learn a little about the Transition Network (TN), inspiration for the hard work that went into Chippy’s Autumn Fair on October 6, 2012. The Giant Pumpkins were quite a sight there, as were other activities, shown in the pictures below.

It was interesting to see that TN started in one of my favourite small towns, Totnes in Devon. A friend of mine once lived in a rooftop eyrie next to the town wall, reached via a spiral metal ladder, with thuggish seagulls for company as you neared the top. Of a weekend evening, the aromas of garlic and cooking wafted up from the street below, and very convivial it all was – making us feel like haute cuisine versions of the Bisto Kids!

Back to the Transition Network, my feeling is that it’s an organization with its heart definitely in the right place, even if my science background tells me that terms like ‘peak oil’ are doom-mongering rather than strictly accurate. There’s plenty of black gold still down there, and getting it out depends more on the economics of market demand and technology, rather than any real shortage.

Perhaps ‘peak cheap oil’ is a better way of putting it, though even while there’s still plenty in the ground, we’re already moving toward a post-oil world, harvesting energy from that big ball in the sky to cover our needs into the foreseeable future, and beyond.

Here’s what the Transition Network says: “It’s a place where there’s a community-led process that helps that town/village/city/neighbourhood become stronger and happier.

“It’s happening in well over a thousand highly diverse communities across the world – from towns in Australia to neighbourhoods in Portugal, from cities in Brazil to rural communities in Slovenia, from urban locations in Britain to islands off the coast of Canada.

“These communities have started up projects in areas of food, transport, energy, education, housing, waste, arts etc. as small-scale local responses to the global challenges of climate change, economic hardship and shrinking supplies of cheap energy. Together, these small-scale responses make up something much bigger, and help show the way forward for governments, business and the rest of us.

“Really, it’s the opposite of us sitting in our armchairs complaining about what’s wrong, and instead, it’s about getting up and doing something constructive about it alongside our neighbours and fellow townsfolk. And people tell us that as a result of being involved in their local “transition initiative”, they’re happier, their community feels more robust and they have made a lot of new friends.”

All of which sounds good to me, and if the Autumn Fair was a typical result of local action initiatives, then that’s excellent. I’ve added some extra pictures from the day, and all the info you need on the Transition Network can be found here.

TN reminds me that I haven’t been to Totnes for quite a while, and now there’s an excuse to make the trip – some pix for The English Eye, and hopefully a local recipe or two.

A beautiful Autumn day means it’s time to raid the hedgerows for their berries. Now, this indifferent English summer has meant that 2012 has not been a bumper year for blackberries, though it’s been another story for elderberries, with my ‘secret’ hedge positively groaning with them

However, it’s blackberries that take my fancy today, so Chippy’s water tower field (below) was the target for a berry raid earlier. They are probably among the last of the crop, especially now we’re into times of chilly mornings. Once frosts start in earnest, the berries will be over.

What will I do with the blackberries? Well, there are plenty of recipes in books and online for jam, but most of them suggest too much sugar, so the finished product ends up over-sweet for my taste. As I found on my first jam-making session this year, a too slavish approach to following a recipe may end up with something that, whilst nice enough, may not quite hit the spot on the taste front.

We’re all different of course, both in how we appreciate foods, and in how our bodies react to them, which is why it’s important to regard a recipe as guidance rather than a straitjacket.

So far as the blackberries go, the early crop was mostly rather poor (not so elders, see pic above) with berries that tended to be small and not very sweet. Small berries take an age to pick too, so it’s a double-downer where satisfaction is concerned. However, it’s better late than never, now that we are in mid-October. Which leads me to the decision: should today’s blackberries be made into jam, jelly or compote?

I’m a great believer in groupthink, so after some deliberating here at TEE Towers, multiple tastebud desires gave the nod to a Blackberry and Apple Compote, so here’s my quick and easy recipe. It’s for a hand-picked 500 gr (1.1 lb) or so of berries. Adjust according to the quantity you pick.

BLACKBERRY AND APPLE COMPOTE

You need:
Blackberries
Cooking apple, a Bramley is ideal
Brown sugar
Red wine

I use a wooden spoon to stir, Kilner jar to store.

1: Wash the berries through to remove any creepy-crawlies or other bits and pieces. Place in a saucepan with 1/3 cup of water. Bring to boil, cover and cook until soft – about 10 minutes.
2: Pour softened berries into a container, place on one side. Peel and cut Bramley apple into fingernail-sized cubes. Add 1/3 cup of water, 2-3 level dessertspoons of brown sugar.
3: Cook carefully. Don’t allow to burn, but do allow the sugar to caramelize a little, to add depth and flavour. Should take no more than 10-15 minutes until the sugar is browned and apple done. The apple cubes should be soft, but not mushy.
4: Add the blackberries to the apples (fold, don’t dollop), together with half a glass of good red wine – Claret or Cote du Rhone is ideal.
5: Bring back to the boil for a few minutes, stirring gently to allow the flavours to blend and the alcohol to evaporate. Add some sugar if this is recipe is a little tart for you, then remove from heat and set to one side.
6: Prepare a container – I use standard Kilner jars – and scald well with boiling water. Pour the compote mixture into the jar, close and seal the top. Leave to cool thoroughly before storing in the fridge.

As for eating, blackberry and apple compote goes with most things, especially morning cereal, or eaten with plain yoghurt as a simple but tasty sweet. Enjoy!

Yesterday’s Transition Chipping Norton 2012 Autumn Fair opened to gentle autumnal sunshine, which stayed all day, making for a relaxed event for traders and visitors alike.

The Town Hall was packed with specialist stalls, ranging from wine and cheese to ceramics and animal illustrations. Outside, the Town Square featured singers, chickens, hand-woven cushions, and a tent displayed the outsize entries received for the Giant Pumpkin competition.

All sorts of raffles and competitions were held, though sad to say the TEE Blackberry Compote lost out in the preserves section to a chutney. Well done chutney we say, but maybe… next year, jams and pickles could be in separate categories, as we’re not so sure that the two very different taste sensations make comfortable bedfellows in a food category.

A word about the Transition organization, which for Chipping Norton at least, has the tagline, “building a thriving, resilient community.”Ahem, this doesn’t say much, so when we find out some more detail, we’ll be adding it here.

No matter: the weather was beautiful, the traders were busy, and the visitors loved it. Enjoy the pix below, and look forward to 2013’s event.