Free Republic

As thousands of homes were left without power during the recent storms, engineers were diverted to fix a simple problem at David Cameron’s home. Two workmen were part of a team battling to restore electricity to 11,000 houses in Oxfordshire after storms and floods left families ­shivering in the dark. But they were suddenly diverted to the PM’s £2million family home after he lost his power while watching the Sound of Music on TV. George Faulkner and Alan Paton told BBC Radio 4 they were “diverted to a house in ­Chipping Norton” – which was later confirmed by their company...

He is a passionate campaigner on green issues, and now Jeremy Irons has backed a campaign to ban lorries from the quaint Oxfordshire town where he lives. The Oscar–winning actor has thrown his weight behind an action group to prevent HGVs using the narrow streets of Watlington as a rat-run between the M40 and M4. The market town—reputedly the smallest in the country—is regularly snarled up with lorries whose drivers, looking for a shortcut between Oxford and Reading, are directed there by their satnavs. …

Challenging the traditional description of the Oxfordshire landmark, retired vet Olaf Swarbrick asks whether the "beautiful, stylised" figure might instead be a dog such as a greyhound or wolfhound. In a letter to the Veterinary Record, his profession's journal, the former cattle and poultry specialist suggests a canine origin for the 110-metre by 38.5-metre animal, which was carefully dug into the downland. He invites alternative theories, too.... "Looking at it again, it seems that it is not a horse at all: the tail and head are wrong for a horse and more suggestive of a dog. It appears more like...

A French physicist with the European atomic research centre near Geneva was charged with terrorism offences by a Paris judge last night after investigators said that he offered to work with the North African branch of al-Qaeda. Adlène Hicheur, 32, who is of Algerian origin, was arrested last week with his younger brother after intelligence agents intercepted his alleged internet contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The physicist, who works at the giant atomic collider at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which straddles Swiss and French territory, told the Islamic group that he was interested in committing an...

A blunder involving one of Britain's biggest nuclear and chemical research facilities has sparked a major security alert. Thieves stole keys and secret documents relating to labs at the Atomic Energy Plant at Harwell, Oxfordshire, after a key employee left his briefcase in his car in a station car park. The black attache case also contained evacuation plans for the research centre as well as phone numbers of senior personnel. A shortwave radio and mobile phone also went missing. The stolen keys are believed to have given access to highly sensitive areas at the base where nuclear and chemical materials...