Recently, I went to visit my parents, who live just outside Oxford. On my way through, I decided to stop off, have a wander through the city, and see what it was like now. And oh God, I wish I hadn't.

  I grew up around Oxford (in as much as I ever grew up), and could tolerate it then - mainly because my experience of other cities, other places, was fairly limited at the time. I've been through it since, even lived in the city itself for another year or so, and liked it less every time. And now I really hate it - but it's the people I can't stand. I could happily walk through Oxford at ungodly hours of the morning with no-one else around and be happy. The architecture, and the character of the city itself are wonderful - it's just the people that detract from it.

  As soon as you get out of Oxford's rail station, it starts to hit you. For a supposedly educated city, there are cretins everywhere. Because Oxford is (by any definition) bloody old, a lot of it's streets and footpaths are actually quite narrow. Human nature being what it is, this means that everyone feels the need to make themselves as wide as possible, and ideally walk at least two abreast at all times. Oh, and then stop dead in front of you, with no warning, to talk to some colleague, friend, or perfect bloody stranger. Without moving out of the way, and instead courteously allowing you to step off the pathway and meet the other scourge of Oxford life. Cyclists.

  Now, I'm sure there are plenty of valid reasons why Oxford (and Cambridge) appear to be havens for cyclists, including that they're a cheap, green, healthy form of transport that simultaneously provide a workout for the cash-strapped student (they've got to be cash-strapped, none of the little bastards appears able to afford a bell or lights - or even brakes), but in my opinion there's a good reason for cycle paths to be built in every city, and ideally to build it so that they're totally independent of pathways for any other form of transport (including pedestrians). Of course, I'd rather like to see the cyclepaths then strewn liberally with mines and similar devices, but that's probably just a reaction to having walked through Oxford.

  But I digress. You look around before stepping off the path into the road so that Tarquin and Tamara can continue their chat undisturbed, the way appears clear, you step off the pavement, and nearly get squashed by a horde of helmet-wearing cretins who've appeared from nowhere, and seem intent on riding as close to the kerb as humanly possible (conveniently thus narrowing the available pedestrian space by another couple of precious inches) while also aiming bikes at anyone unwary enough to move into their roadspace. They career onwards, leaving only the dulcet cry of "cuuuuuunnnntttsssssssss" echoing off the dreaming spires around them from the increasingly twitchy pedestrian.

  Upon reaching any area of Oxford that contains shops, particularly book shops, the "normal human:student" ratio increases at least tenfold, and the innocent visitor finds themselves surrounded by snotty little twats who believe that because they're at Oxford University they deserve to be at the front of every queue, that there should be tills purely for students, and in fact the shops should be entirely for students, for this cream of society, so that they don't have to even breathe the same air as oiky little tourists and commoners.

  Only in Oxford will you hear people talking of the champagne garden party they went to with Tamara, Tarquin, Henrietta, Piers and Pandora without some form of irony being involved in the conversation. The "Hooray Henry" was originally discovered and identified in Oxford, and while it's an endangered species elsewhere in the country, it's alive and well in the Oxford area, and in fact even seems to be (god forbid) breeding.

  Walking through Oxford is dangerous to my health, I've discovered. My bullshit meter redlines til it has to shut down or explode, and the fuckwit detector doesn't even know where to begin. If you spit in Oxford (and of course, dahling, you know one simply doesn't DO such a thing) then you'll hit a fuckwit. It's not a possibility, it's a 100% certainty. Or as they're known here on d4d, betting odds. It takes roughly 20-30 minutes maximum before my blood-pressure is at "eyeball popping" levels, and psychotic tendencies come out of the woodwork like grasping relatives at a family funeral.

  It doesn't take long before I'm wanting out of Oxford these days. I think I lasted an hour at most before heading for the bus to the parental home. Walking along the main shopping street, Cornmarket (nothing so common as a High Street to be the main street in Oxford - in fact The High (note, NOT "High Street") runs perpendicular to Cornmarket, and is more a home to the Colleges than to the shops.) I realised that it's now actually been completely pedestrianised, not even cyclists. Only it's been done so badly that the great majority of people don't even seem to realise that it's pedestrians only, and still walk on the parts that are still demarked as the footpaths instead of using the full available space. Quite amusing, and so quintessentially Oxford.

  And so Oxford recedes in the back window of the bus, and as we lurch away, I realise I haven't even commented on the other scourge of Oxford - bus drivers. Ah well, I'll save that as the core material for another day's ranting then...