[HN Gopher] The "Bird and Baby" grows up: inside the new Eagle a...
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       The "Bird and Baby" grows up: inside the new Eagle and Child
        
       Author : Doctor_Fegg
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2024-12-04 10:40 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (oxfordclarion.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (oxfordclarion.uk)
        
       | Isamu wrote:
       | This is the pub where Tolkien and Lewis met with their literary
       | group the Inklings before moving across the street to the Lamb
       | and Flag.
       | 
       | Title made it sound like it had reopened, but "The Eagle & Child
       | will not reopen before 2027. Planning permission has not yet even
       | been granted for the building conservation work, let alone the
       | extensive restoration and revival."
        
         | wincy wrote:
         | At least they have a very fine historically restored pub for
         | ants built out.
         | 
         | I always wonder how atrociously expensive the little scale
         | models architecture firms make are, I'd imagine this one uses
         | real tiny hardwoods on the floors and stuff as well so it's
         | even more eye wateringly expensive.
        
           | throw646577 wrote:
           | Well they are _Oxford_ ants. They are used to real hardwood
           | floors with a coating of floor polish so storied you can do
           | archaeology on it.
        
           | kasey_junk wrote:
           | In the US at least, most of that work is outsourced to third
           | parties in China or low cost of labor countries.
           | 
           | If an architectural firm has one in house it's sending a
           | message about just how boutique (and expensive) they are.
        
             | cbsks wrote:
             | Do they still make physical models? I took an intro to
             | architecture class in college, which was fun, but
             | essentially just a drawing and model-making class. I would
             | assume that most models would be digital 3d renderings now.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | At least when my spouse wss in architecture school, these
           | were mostly expensive in time, not materials. Things like the
           | divided windows are a giant pain to put together.
           | 
           | It's pretty atypical to use actual materials in the model.
           | When you need to see the actual materials together, you just
           | use samples at 1:1 size and either hold the individual
           | samples near each other or at most build a small corner to
           | illustrate where things will come together.
        
         | arethuza wrote:
         | Interesting to note that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien met Arthur C.
         | Clarke and a BIS colleague in a different bar - must have
         | regarded it as neutral territory:
         | 
         |  _' Needless to say, neither side converted the other, and we
         | refused to abandon our diabolical schemes of interplanetary
         | conquest. But a fine time was had by all, and when, some hours
         | later, we emerged a little unsteadily from the Eastgate, Dr.
         | Lewis' parting words were "I'm sure you're very wicked people -
         | but how dull it would be if everyone was good"'_
        
         | BoxOfRain wrote:
         | I wonder if the Botley Road will be reopened and the
         | improvements to the train station will have been competed by
         | then?
         | 
         | I suspect they'll have been delayed by another archaeological
         | dig when they find some artefacts left over from when the road
         | was first closed.
        
       | yannis7 wrote:
       | the USENIX YouTube link took me down quite the rabbit hole
        
       | arethuza wrote:
       | I wonder if Ellison will also buy the Eagle in Cambridge - which
       | also has an interesting history:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle,_Cambridge
        
         | stogot wrote:
         | Didn't know this pub! Cool history
        
           | arethuza wrote:
           | I had missed that it also used to be called the Eagle and
           | Child.
        
         | rwmj wrote:
         | Not to mention the Baron of Beef in Cambridge:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baron_of_Beef
        
           | dickiedyce wrote:
           | Pretty sure that The Maypole
           | (https://maypolefreehouse.co.uk), which is round the back of
           | the Baron, is safe... thank goodness.
        
             | nerdponx wrote:
             | > We are a Euro FREE Zone which means no sports will be
             | shown at the pub.
             | 
             | American here. What the heck does this mean?
        
               | dickiedyce wrote:
               | LOL. Pubs in the UK tend to fall into roughly 2 camps...
               | with TV, and without. And the with TV ones can be quite
               | extreme, and conversation can be difficult when people
               | are distracted by a TV visible whichever way you look.
               | During the European football championships, lots of pubs
               | have wall-to-wall football coverage (as in soccer, not
               | Rugby in drag) which serious drinkers might want to avoid
               | ;-) (And for the more sports obsessed, it also makes,
               | avoiding seeing the scores before you get home and watch
               | it properly on catch-up much easier...)
        
               | pm215 wrote:
               | It means they haven't updated their website since summer
               | when the European football championships were on :-) (and
               | that, as the sibling comment says, they're advertising
               | themselves as a pub where you go to avoid the coverage
               | rather than a pub where you go to watch it).
        
       | jgrahamc wrote:
       | I am glad to see they are planning to keep the pub's weird layout
       | of different rooms. A large part of the charm of drinking there
       | was how it is/was laid out.
        
       | nimish wrote:
       | Glad to see it'll still be around just as weird and charming as
       | it was.
        
       | relistan wrote:
       | Did not realize it was closed. When I was there maybe 15 years
       | ago it was in quite a lot better state. Re-opening it at all,
       | given all the pub closures, is a good thing. That it will more or
       | less be kept intact is a big bonus.
        
       | rossdavidh wrote:
       | I've been there once, and it was quite cozy and nice; I would
       | have liked it a good bit even if there had been no Inklings in
       | its history (although that certainly added something). Their
       | plans for it sound good, I hope they follow through!
        
       | seanhunter wrote:
       | Mixed feelings about this.
       | 
       | On the one hand I am absolutely terrified for the future of
       | anything touched by Larry Ellison. On the other hand, there is
       | definitely scope for it to be improved- last time I went there
       | (which was a long time ago admittedly) it was cool to be there
       | because of its history etc but it wasn't _that_ great an actual
       | pub. Like if you 're into historical drinking places somewhere
       | like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese near fleet street in London where
       | Pepys and Boswell used to drink is a much better actual pub than
       | I remember the Eagle and Child being at least the one or two
       | times I went there.
        
       | dave333 wrote:
       | The other idiosyncratic pub in Oxford is the Turf Tavern to be
       | found down some twisty passages off Holywell Street. But my 1970s
       | Oxford undergrad experience was daily pie, beans, and chips in
       | the much more normal Kings Arms opposite the Bodleian.
        
       | adampwells wrote:
       | Check out the fingers on the AI generated images!
        
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