Allegedly the best view in Oxford

Well, that's what the Maths department thinks! This is the Tower of the Winds & Radcliffe Observatory, part of Green Templeton College, taken from the common room for postgrad and staff in the Andrew Wiles Building, home of the Mathematical Institute. For those who know maths, Andrew Wiles is the Oxford Professor who proved Fermat's Last Theorum, and still works in the building. Myself, two colleagues and another new Oxford resident took advantage of Oxford Open Doors weekend to get a really good tour here, although the cafe and basement of the building, where they teach the undergrads, are open to the public all the time, the offices and staff areas are not. It's a beautiful new building, and has only been open a year. It's hugely popular for conferences and events, having Oxford's largest lecture theatre, which isn't really very large at all (it seats 325). This common room is great fun to in that the tables are actually white boards, so that folk can collaborate around them. We also visited The Queens and Magdalen colleges, and it was hard to choose a blip. We really planned to get into the observatory, but that didn't work out. We then had a lovely evening at a barbecue, discussing everything including the Bible, science, religion, theology, philosophy and the problem of induction theory. And playing a daft, but rather fun game. More sightseeing tomorrow I hope!