Bringing together Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths – STEAM, there is STEAM powered Big Draw event with local schools exhibiting at 35 Ock Street. There are lots of colourful pictures in the cafe area …

and a Jurassic theme in the front room with pictures drawn at Oxford University Museum.

Outside the A B C wheelbarrow has been busy carrying away loads of leaves so that you don’t slip on the way in.

On a recent post I mentioned that Abingdon Vases are often for sale on Ebay.

The Abingdon Sanitary Manufacturing Company produced toilets in Abingdon Illinois from the early 1900s.

During the great depression, when demand for sanitaryware hit rock bottom, the company diversified in 1934 to produce decorative vases using the same china.

An increase in the demand for sanitaryware in 1950 meant they stopped producing the vases. The company is still in business today, part of Briggs Industries, Inc., where you can still order Abingdon sanitaryware.

To find out more about the vases press here. For memories about the factory press here.

There is a new sculpture in the public area on the riverside of the Old Gaol development.

The sculpture is made of three interlocking octagons, and is lit up in three colours at night. The octagon could well represent the octagonal central block of the old Gaol, from which the three cell blocks project.

But Octagons are commonplace in Abingdon. There is the badge of the MG – a car formally made in Abingdon. There is also the Octagon Restaurant at the Four Pillars Hotel. Somebody in an open top MG asked me yesterday for the way to the Four Pillars Hotel. I directed them from the town centre to the hotel near the Marcham Interchange off the A34 – back the way they had just come.

Back in 2009 a lot of the murals on the Reynolds Way wall were replaced. The originals had been subjects chosen by local young people in 2002, including a St George Flag, a Saky Tag, and a picture of Muhammed Ali. Ali was well remembered down that way because he used to visit a house in Saxton Road to see an old friend and supporter.

Perhaps there should be a road sign or something in his memory, not just a makeshift poster on the back of a telephone box.

(Thanks to Martin for the link in the comments. Here are pictures of Muhammed Ali in Abingdon from the BBC.)