There's gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike.

It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like it was so it was all wrapped up

but it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing shaped like a bike and had a little ribbon on it

and I was so guest. For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now

so for that one change me a little.

Joy in every sip with red cups now back at Starbucks.

Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple. My name is Charles Brandrath and I'm based in London, England.

My colleague and my fellow presenter of this podcast is Susie Dent who is based in Oxford. Why are you in Oxford?

Why am I in Oxford? Well for a long time, girls, I was living in London and working at Oxford University Press.

So what happened was the sequence of events essentially was that I was studying in America as you know

and I came back, it needed to look for a job and was living in central London, loved it so much. I was living in Soho as you know

and finally got to job but it was in Oxford so I decided I would commute to Oxford because I was enjoying Soho so much

and did that for quite a long time but inevitably the travel kind of got to me so I moved to Oxford and I was still working at Oxford University Press

whilst appearing from time to time on countdown. I was one of the many people who sat in the corner where I sit today.

So that was it and then I had children and I have stayed here ever since. And is Oxford a good place to be based?

It's a lovely place to be based. I think a lot of people, if they haven't been to Oxford, imagine it to be a little bit like Cambridge

which is you know is much much smaller. So I think most people in their minds I have Oxford down as a sort of quaint city

with lots of beautiful buildings and people punting. In fact it's just this incredibly big vibrant city, much bigger than Cambridge as I say

and just has a huge amount happening culturally and no it's lovely, yeah I hardly recommend it.

I was brought up in central London and my parents lived first in various places around Kensington, not fashionable Kensington,

but sort of Earls Court, South Ken, Doster Road and then they moved to Baker Street. And I lived around Baker Street which I loved because

as a little boy my first hero was Sherlock Holmes and literally out of my bedroom window I could see what was then the Abbey National Building which people

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