This site is for the Mark & Naomi Iliff family. For Mark’s work persona go to Talespinner
Oxford
Attributed only to “one wit”², it’s a play on Matthew Arnold’s 1866 epithet “City of dreaming spires”.
Mum – 1990s¹
Pauline Iliff (Dixon) – mother of Mark, JM, G & Bel
¹I’m fairly certain I heard it several decades earlier, but can’t track it down
—Mark
²One source attributes it to the journalist and green activist George Monbiot