In the shadows

I'm spending the weekend in Oxford where I lived for many years.

Just arrived at the railway station, on the left, there's lights, bustle, buses, bikes, cars and people coming and going. On the right a man sits begging, crouched against the wall of a building. 'Twas ever thus. Oxford's geographical position as an east/west, north/south hub, and its rich social mix from intellectual elite to well-off workers (in days gone by) have attracted the gentlemen of the road in large numbers too: tramps, vagrants, dossers, rough sleepers, the dispossessed - call them what you will, they long have had a presence here. Attempts have been made to move, accommodate or assimilate them but they're still here in the shadows.

The building forms part of the Said Business School, named after its main benefactor who has so far donated £70 million to its cost. Business as usual then.