I FELT unwanted. The three people I had hoped to meet on Tuesday morning were each tied up in “important meetings”.

Even the door of Inner Space, the city centre “arm” of the Brahma Kumaris, was uncharacteristically locked, meaning I couldn’t share my woes with friends in that Broad Street shop.

“Either change your socks or your aftershave lotion,” suggested Jeff, a retired car worker, when I told my woes to the usual gang in our favourite Covered Market cafe. “I suppose all three were women?”

They were, so with annoying self-righteousness, this former Cowley shop steward rested his case.

Also, less than his usual cheerful best, was retired school teacher Ken. News of Oxford Brookes University planning to quit its Wheatley site had touched a sensitive nerve.

“Claire (his wife of many years) was there when it was Lady Spencer Churchill College. I used to cycle most evenings from Botley – just to see her. If they pull the place down our romantic links with the place will disappear,” he said.

“Pathetic!” exclaimed Jeff.

I doubt if he has a romantic bone in his body.

THOSE feelings of being unwanted were not exclusively mine. A couple were disappointed at not being approached by people wearing sashes announcing they were recruiting – for what purpose the sash didn’t reveal.

“Aren’t we worth talking to?” the woman said loudly to her male companion as they passed one of the recruiters in Cornmarket Street.

Perhaps the answer lay in the fact that the couple could best be described as being of riper years.

“THE lavatory is down that way, isn’t it?” said the portly chap made to appear even more portly by the layers of clothes he was wearing.

The morning was extremely cold.

We were in the Westgate Centre; I was looking in the window of the soon-to-close Evolution fancy gifts shop. He was pointing towards Poundland.

“Yes, round the corner and beyond,” I confirmed. “There are signs.”

He dashed off. Seconds later, he returned.

“Thanks a bundle,” he grunted. “They’ve shut the place. You could have said.”

How was I to know the lavatory had gone the same way as the now abandoned multi-storey car park?

ENOUGH of this gloom. I’m always harping on that it’s a wonderful life and that we should enjoy it. Now is the time to be positive – but about what?

The poster for the Playhouse Theatre’s pantomime, Beauty and the Beast, catches my eye. It has been another triumph for the company and writer/director Peter Duncan. It closes on Sunday. I’d better hurry if I want to buy one of the remaining tickets for the final show.

But what if they’ve sold out...