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Until God's relative in the retail world, better known as Sir Stuart Rose, one-time manager of Oxford's Marks & Spencer Queen Street store, and now chairman and chief executive of the whole M&S shooting match, declared plastic bags were bad medicine, they had rarely troubled my waking hours.

Being neither a habitual litter lout nor a save-the-world zealot, I had tended not to observe verges and hedges for things other than flora and fauna. Not any more. A trip down the A34 from the M40 brought about a road-to-Botley conversion.

Spanking new bins and the impressive signs, urging us to make a cleaner, greener Cherwell', seemed unable to prick most consciences if the never-ending array of plastic bags, bottles, cans, sheets of polythene and the rest of it was anything to go by.

Derek, an off-duty council worker, whom I met later enjoying a bacon sandwich in Mick's Café near Oxford Station, said the main culprits were those motorists not prepared to stop and put their waste in the bins. They merely dumped it from passing vehicles.

"If the police were able to spend more time enforcing the Litter Act, the problem with plastic bags would be halved, leaving only the landfill dilemma to sort out," he said. "The trouble is they can't."

But the remaining dilemma would still be enormous.

Fired by a newly-found spirit of recycling, I visited a shop that prides itself on tarting up old goods for resale. An A4 ring binder, recovered in brick wall design paper, caught the eye. It was two quid and just what I needed.

The assistant wondered why I was smiling. The binder was wrapped in cling film.

The city was filled with young visitors - French voices most prevalent - making their way from tourist attraction to tourist attraction.

As often remarked upon by many, the continentals' concern for others on the pavements of Oxford leaves much to be desired, as they walk, two, three or even four abreast.

So take a bow, the youngsters of New Hinksey School, who displayed courtesy to young, old and less considerate visitors alike in St Aldate's, moving to the edge of the pavement or squeezing against the wall of the Town Hall while allowing others to pass.

What a pity so few adults acknowledged this all-too-rare act of good manners. Most people walked on as if an unencumbered route was a right of passage.

If the removal of official notices is anything to go by, the proposed memorial to Oxford's martyrs, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and designed by Martin Jennings, is heading for approval as far as the University Church of St Mary the Virgin and the diocese are concerned.

It will be on the north wall, west of the organ loft, and so large that two memorial plaques may have to be moved.

One is dedicated to John Radcliffe, the medical man, who died in 1714 and whose name is already immortalised in several places around the city. The other is to one IOANNES DVNS SCOTVS' and the carved date is MCMLXVI - or 1966. The rest of the inscription was beyond my schoolboy Latin.

Unfortunately, I don't bring my long-neglected primer to Oxford, and the young Latin scholar, Dr Lorna Robinson, who plans to hold lessons in parks, wasn't around to put me wise.

But it would be nice to know whom it commemorates.

The departure of Manchester United from the FA Cup competition at the hands of the less-fancied Portsmouth was high on the agenda among those waiting for the bus to Seacourt park-and-ride.

Two middle-aged men were complaining at the rough justice inflicted on United, while their wives listened patiently - until one interrupted.

"I'm glad they lost," she said, horror crossing her husband's face. "Alex Ferguson is always chewing gum - with his mouth open. His mother should have taught him better manners."

Such logic brought the topic to a close.

12:53pm Thursday 13th March 2008

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