HAD it been left over from a previous meeting, or was it part of a clampdown on dissent within the county council’s cabinet?

As top councillors met to discuss the issues of the day at County Hall on Tuesday, a flip chart placed strategically in the corner of the room seemed a not-too-subtle way to communicate subliminal messages to anyone glancing up towards the leader: “Ground Rules.

- confidentiality - respect - contribute - listen & don’t talk over each other - mobiles off & in bags - be punctual”

That’s how to keep order in the ranks, Keith.

* CHAIRMAN of the Oxford City Council’s West Area Planning committee Oscar Van Nooijen, pictured, is renowned for his somewhat military (or militant?) approach to timing.

So when, at a meeting of the committee last week, the assembled public booed and hissed as the developers of the proposed St Clement’s car park stated their case, he understandably became apoplectic with rage that the brief interruption was holding up proceedings.

It was perhaps a shame then, that his ‘telling off’ of the adults (some of whom no doubt have pullovers older than him) took three times as long as their 10 seconds of public banter.

* WHEN bones were discovered during the renovation of a Botley Road house, archaeologists were rushed in to identify them.

There was relief all round that they were not human remains, but all the experts could conclude was that they were “likely to be from a pig or a chicken.”

The Insider can’t imagine which part of the human body could ever be confused with a chicken carcass.

And surely it doesn’t take CSI: Oxford to tell the difference between the remains of a pig and a chicken?

Maybe it was a pig that choked on a drumstick?

* AS Oxford in Bloom handed out its prizes, word has reached The Insider of another prize growers sadly overlooked in the annual awards.

Apparently Wolvercote city councillor Mike Gotch’s tomatoes are legendary.

The Lib Dem has shared some of his plants with fellow councillors, and the word at the Town Hall is the quantity and quality of the Gotch yield has to be seen to be believed.