The Hub - Oxford's culture show

The Hub is BBC Oxford's Cultural magazine show

With Oxford providing so much more for the discerning culture vulture than music, we have decided to give the show a facelift.

We now promote everything the county has to offer.

So from here onwards we are officially BBC Oxford's Cultural Magazine show (sounds very grand doesn't it!)

Highlights for the series will include coverage of Oxford Open Doors, Woodstock Literary Festival, OX4 Festival and Apple weekend.

We will be talking with the likes of Philip Pullman, Zac Goldsmith, Tom Parker Bowles and many more!

There will also be a Halloween special taking in places with spooky names and witchy potions!

The team are all back too in one piece (just about!) with some new features including a weekly look at Dance in Oxford and we go behind the scenes of our city buskers to find out the stories behind their music!

As always we'd love to hear from you so do get in touch, we're a friendly and chatty bunch (other than Mondays!!)

Email the team at [e-mail]

Scott Cridland-Smith (right) with Zac Goldsmith

Scott Cridland-Smith

Scott has worked as a broadcaster, producer and programmer in radio for the last 15 years presenting both daytime and urban music shows for BBC Radio 1 / 1xtra, Galaxy Network, GCAP and Kiss to name a few.

As well as his full time job Scott finds the time to manage recording artists, teach media to BBC staff and students and present radio shows at 40,000 feet for Emirates & KLM airways! Scott has just become the new Marketing and Development Officer for Oxford Inspires, the Cultural Development Agency for Oxfordshire.

Other than his family, sport, music and chasing his kids around the garden, Scott enjoys nothing more than a cup of herbal tea with organic biscuits whilst watching Colleen's Real Women during his time off.

Felicity 'Felix' Ford

Felicity 'Felix' Ford

Felicity Ford AKA Felix is doing a PhD at Oxford Brookes that looks at creativity, experience and everyday sounds. Especially interested in domestic spaces she can often be found listening to her kettle or recording her broken tap.

Having made The Missability Radio Show in 2007 as her final MA work, and having produced The Fantastical Reality Radio Show in association with Mundane Appreciation in 2008, she is keen to develop further work for radio during 2009.

If she can get her soldering iron repaired, she's planning on building the transistor radio detailed in the Ladybird book from 1972 so that she can listen in using her own handmade receiver.

Victoria Bosher

Victoria Bosher

Vic is the only member of the team to boast the achievement of being Oxfordshire born and bred ...clearly making her the best! She grew up in a musical household and her parents very kindly replaced her and her sister's recorders with a piano at the age of six. She grew up on a small farm and will always be a country gal at heart.

She read English and Drama at the University of Birmingham and now works for Music at Oxford, a top classical concert promoter. She likes going to gigs/clubs, travelling, cooking (and eating!), playing her piano and guitar, going skiing, playing squash with her mum and she tells people that she goes to the gym. She still prefers a CD to a download... just one of her many self-confessed granny traits!

She is gifted with the ability to justify any purchase and doesn't trust people who don't like cake.

Helen Statham

Helen Statham

Helen was born and grew up in the North East of England. She has been gradually migrating south for the last five years. Stopping first at Lancaster to do a BA in Fine Art, Helen then came to Oxford in 2007 to study her Masters degree.

For the last year and a half Helen has been a practising artist taking part in group shows such as the 'Magic Hour' and has created a number of site specific works, for example at Oxford Central Library and Oxford Botanic Garden. As well and her artistic practice, Helen now works at The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.

Despite Helen's musical enthusiasm her musical talents do not stretch beyond Xbox Karaoke (which is a sport she takes very seriously). Favourite pastimes include curry, body boarding and Blockbuster video.

Rob Hawthorn

Rob Hawthorn

A half Swiss half Scottish clansman, was born in Bristol and raised in the wilds of Norfolk on a strict diet of House and Techno.

After spending much of his childhood up trees, he went on to study composition at college, and is now at Oxford Brookes University half way through his degree in Sound Technology.

When not cooking curry or preparing for the inevitable zombie invasion, Rob takes time out to write electronic music, be a resident dubstep DJ, and produce The Hub.

He also enjoys building rudimentary analogue synthesizers and audio effects with his soldering iron, but doesn't quite remember Ohm's law.

Despite having had a go at producing almost every genre of music that exists (and some that don't), he can't play a musical instrument to save his life.

Loz

Loz

Loz used to play the drums in Ride and The Animalhouse; but don't let that put you off, he can be worth the effort if you get to know him.

Having often had microphones pointed at him, he's now enjoying pointing them at other people to see what they say, or what noises they make.

Currently the newest addition to the OCM crew, Loz is (almost) a fully-fledged music geek, having but one year to go of a degree at Brookes.

Current likes include: coffee, sunshine, Korean films and the Nuggets box-set.

Cyber Zombie

Cyber Zombie

Cyber Zombie came to The Hub team during the summer series of 2009.

Spawned into a void where there were no computers, no Internet, no Google and no Facebook, CZ was filled from birth with a deep inability to deal with the Online world.

During his first days on this planet he repeatedly prophesised the catastrophic demise of The Internet and pronounced his own inception as a fatal Omen for the future of all Online communications.

Luckily other members of The Hub team recognised that his extreme views were the result of too much pre-natal exposure to websites, and they took it upon themselves to restore his emotional balance through a constructive, rehabilitative programme of Arts and Culture.