As we were eating in window seats of the First Floor Restaurant in Oxford yesterday, we saw a very colourful Sikh procession pass.

Irene was beside herself as she saw all the things she had learnt about in her unit on Sikhism. Men holding dashing kirpans (swords). Women with brilliant sarees and shalwars and long hair. No kaccha, underpants, on display though. Men in saffron, women in every shade of the rainbow.

The funniest part was the cops on their bikes behind the procession, regular white Oxford lads, laughing and joking, and looking most out of place in all this exotica.

I love living in a cosmopolitan city!