21/03/2017 South Today - Oxford

Hello. Welcome to South Today.

Coming up - the death of Colin Dexter.

Tributes to the Oxford author who created Inspector Morse.

Also, charged nearly ?1,500 for four Ed Sheeran tickets -

an Oxfordshire woman tells the Government

And a birthday surprise from George Clooney -

Tributes have been paid to Oxford author Colin Dexter who has

He created the character Inspector Morse - and often made

The actor Kevin Whately said, "Colin loved being on set -

detective, a character that captured millions.

Today Kevin Whately - the man who played Morse's sidekick -

We've been lucky to have him for 30 years, and 30 years of his wonderful

plots and characters and what have you, so it's a of feelings.

I said there are two characters we have to have if we do come back,

and one of them is going to be Kevin Whately.

The Trout pub in Wolvercote featured in a number of Morse episodes.

Bosses say it s become a Mecca for fans of the series.

There is a massive following for Colin Dexter,

I think he was a really influential person and series so everyone comes

We have so many fanatics who come in and ask us questions.

Colin Dexter was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire

He was also given the Freedom of Oxford.

Colin was a delightful man with an impish sense of humour

and his jokes were often about himself as much

We gave him the freedom of the city because he was such an important

person in drawing attention to Oxford through the

The Randolf hotel - home of the Morse bar -

A statement said Colin would often visit the hotel.

Thousands of people come to Oxford every year

because of its connections with Morse, and places

like this bar will make sure he is remembered for years to come.

Police investigating a murder in Milton Keynes say they have

several new lines of enquiry after an appeal on the BBC's

Hang Lin Leung died 11 days after her house

was broken into and ransacked at the end of January.

Some of her possessions were found off Weedon Road in Aylesbury.

Police believe they may have been thrown from a car.

Next, getting hold of tickets for sold out events -

like concerts - and the high prices you can be asked to pay online.

An Oxfordshire woman has been giving evidence to the Government

Claire Turnham, who lives near Witney, was charged nearly

fifteen hundred pounds for four Ed Sheeran tickets

Ed Sheeran - popular is an understatement.

He is currently holding nine of the ten top spots

Hardly surprising, then, that tickets for his concerts

Viagogo, a secondary selling website, provides a place for fans

to buy tickets when they've sold out elsewhere.

It said that there were, you know, thousands of people

looking at these tickets, I was next in line,

and that I had a chance to buy the last four tickets,

which I was actually really excited about.

But Claire Turnham from Witney's happiness was short-lived.

The tickets had been ?263 each, I was unaware of that, but on top,

they had added an extra approximately ?350 in fees.

She complained to Viagogo and got refunded.

Since then, she's started a Facebook group to help hundreds of others

At the moment, they can hide behind certain things and it's not great,

and that's why there's some confusion and anger.

Today, Claire and Ed Sheeran's managements made their case

I think there should be a cooling-off period.

People should be allowed, particularly under this

pressure selling situation, to have the protection

of the law which states that if you are in this situation,

you have a right to cancel your purchase within

Viagogo didn't reply to our request for a response today.

They decided not to attend the committee hearing either.

A Wiltshire farmer's hoping to put kid on the menu in homes

Lizzie Dyer from Cricklade gave up her office job and created

the Cotswold Kid Meat company four years ago.

These inquisitive billies are being reared on a 30-acre farm

in Cricklade near Swindon, but most are killed at birth.

That's because although demand for goat's milk and cheese has

soared in recent years, there's been no appetite

Lizzie Dyer hopes that's about to change.

I was shocked that it's so widely eaten on the continent but not here,

and then when I started to look into it I realised that these

billies were being born on the dairies and were being

dispatched at birth and I thought hang on, we can find a nice little

blueprint here to rear a by-product sustainably and produce

a good-quality meat at the end of it.

Lizzie started with 20 kids four years ago

It's already the largest free-range kid farm in the country.

As well as producing the meat, the skin is sent to an organic

tannery and made into rugs and cushion covers.

These little guys are just ten days old.

They'll live here on the farm outside in the fields for nine

months until they're sold for meat, and it's particularly healthy meat -

lower in cholesterol than chicken and higher in iron than beef.

Lizzie's selling direct to a growing number of customers and businesses

including here at The Wild Duck near Cirencester.

I'll break the shoulders down and the neck and I'll braise

that for a little while, and then with the leg

and the saddles, they're so delicate and delicious,

you can just grill them and serve them like that.

So it's not like the old goat you think of in a curry

No, the kid that Lizzie's breeding is so delicious and the flavour

So as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Here we go, so Lizzie's kid, lovely anchovy and rosemary,

Go on, Lizzie, tuck in, it smells amazing.

The rosemary lifts up the kid flavour.

The anchovy matches with it and it's soft and tender.

As her business takes off, Lizzie hopes kid meat will one

day be a firm favourite on the Great British menu.

As birthday presents go - it was possibly the perfect gift.

He went to see 87-year-old fan Pat Adams at her retirement home

in Sonning on the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border.

Staff had written to the star who lives nearby,

telling him a visit would make Pat's dreams come true.

At home on the red carpet George Clooney has

a domestic retreat on the banks of the Thames at Sonning.

A fact that had not gone unnoticed by one committed

Like all residents at Sonning Sunrise retirement home,

she was encouraged to make a wish and Pat aimed high,

requesting a audience with the crinkly-eyed charmer.

Sat and waited and, lo and behold, he came.

He said it was very nice to meet me and I said,

I thought to myself, not half as nice

And Mr Clooney didn't come empty-handed.

Greeting Pat in her birthday week with flowers and

It says, "Pat, I thought you'd like some flowers.

The flowers won't last forever but the card will

I thought, I've shaken hands with George Clooney.

And this is the day I will always remember for the rest of my life.

As Pat and other Clooney watchers well know,

He married human rights lawyer Amal in Venice in 2014.

The couple are expecting twins in June.

If, come the summer, the new dad needs a quiet escape

from nappies and night feeds, Pat's door will be wide open.

He's a very nice man, a very handsome man.

Well, some lovely spring sunshine across the region today.

But we had some chilly winds and some showers

too and we will continue with this mixed theme

For tonight, you can expect some clear spells for a time and it

will be dry at first but it won't be too long before you see a band

That's going to make for a dull and wet start for some places

Under the cloudy skies, though, temperatures up

For tomorrow morning, that band of rain moves East,

fragmenting as it does so, the rain becoming like all the time

and by the afternoon we're starting to see some brighter skies,

some sunshine developing and the high reaching,

With lighter winds tomorrow, it should feel a little bit less

Looking ahead, then, to Thursday and it's a showery story.

Plenty of cloud around on Thursday too.

As we head into Friday, high pressure begins to build

so although we will have the threat of rain at first it should be

a dry end to the day and the weather for the weekend

Coming next, Darren Bett has the national weather forecast.

Heavy rain, snow and ice are all in the forecast once again. It was

quite a wintry scene today, especially in Scotland. Some very

cold looking winter skies here, and we had some snow falling at times in

West Lothian. For a while earlier today, there were quite a few

showers running through central Scotland, all in that cold air.

Right now, we have two areas of cloud, one in northern Scotland and

this deepening area bringing heavy rain into south-west England and