I was pushing my bike along St Michael’s Street towards Cornmarket last Thursday when I, and many others, encountered an obstruction.

A young, blonde woman, smartly dressed (I think), was posing for photographs in the entrance to the Oxford Union, which apparently also required a large silvery Mercedes to be parked across the street and so blocking the way of pedestrians.

Although a number of us seeking to get by tried to signal our need to pass, with polite arm and hand movements, nobody from the photography group offered to move the car.

I did manage to lift my bike over a bicycle rack and so get by, but very nearly brained a couple of people coming the other way in the process.

No doubt this ‘event’ was money-making for the Oxford Union (a private students’ society), but it might be good in future if passage up and down a ‘public highway’ could be maintained, whatever the circumstances. B

RUCE ROSS-SMITH, Bowness Avenue, Headington