Blackbird Leys: Jay and Feral's territory

The other end of Oxford, far away from the university spires, is a different world

Meet Jay (right) and Feral (left) in Blackbird Leys, at the edge of Oxford. Jay is recovering from serious health problems, and we bumped into each other while I did one of my “poverty walks” last summer. Feral can be found begging outside the convenience store, and is a friend of Jay’s. Feral had very specific items he wanted me to buy, and I am far more amenable to a shopping list than a generic plea to “spare any change”. Feral is also a man of few words, yet has a gentle demeanour.

Jay and Feral didn’t “go to Oxford” like I did. You see, they don’t need to, because (in a different sense) they were already there. After a trip to the celebrate my college’s 400th anniversary, where they showcased propagandists and war criminals, I headed over to Blackbird Leys. As a student you naturally get familiar with some of the hinterland of Oxford, like Headington or Cowley or Summertown. Blackbird Leys is different — the other end of the bus route that stopped right outside my city centre college, and I had no reason to go there in 5 years of city residence.

Blackbird Leys is the poor end of town, a large council estate, and on the way to nowhere.

There’s a certain council estate atmosphere.

The football stadium looms over a corner of the area, as if it were the local bread and circuses “factory” — although manufacturing industry is not far away.

Councils seem to expend a large proportion of their energy on parking and traffic management, which the stadium exacerbates.

Football is a recurring theme, and England is more of a sporting concept than a nation at this point in history.

Fancy a career in sport? If you don’t like the circuses, there’s also a college in bread making.

Often it’s the details that convey the essence of a place.

When I see my country for what it is, rather than what I believed it to be, or what I hoped it would become, I get quite upset inside. Covid was a bombardment worse than WW2 air raids, but being psychological it was invisible — unless you had already deprogrammed yourself. The same murderous communist thugs have been running the country for a long time. Now I can see it, I cannot unsee it.

It looks like we were being set up for a race war, but the unwinding of it will be painful. Knowing what I now know makes me very doleful, so many innocent victims.

The ethnicity of the children’s play areas is nothing like what I experienced as a child, and that was in the hinterland of Heathrow airport, which naturally brought an internationalist outlook.

I think I would worry about Marxist teacher more than bullies here.

Women-only business event? What does this say about our society?

Our country needs rebuilding after occupation via a war of infiltration. It’s a huge task.

It was worth getting an “Oxford education”, albeit of an unconventional streetwise kind. Jay saw through the Covid bullshit, and Feral didn’t seem to care. It’s been a sorrowful week for me, as I am usually with my old Oxford undergraduate buddies at New Year, as I have done for 31 of the last 33 years. It’s more than my heart can bear right now; they’re all too brainwashed and jabbed up.

I nowadays seem to have more in common with these two men than those I went to university with. I feel like I have “been to Oxford” in all senses, now. Somewhat sadly.