As a 19 year old female, it may not come as a surprise that I am not the most avid of motor racing fans. I’ve spent my years tottering around in my mother’s heels and wearing head to toe pink, but have I been missing out? BTCC champion Jason Plato shows us why there’s so much more to being a race car driver than just screeching wheels and the smell of burning rubber.

Oxford Fashion Week 2011 kicked off with the colourful Concept Show, produced by Adriana Blidaru on Tuesday 1st March. Startech productions made excellent use of the cavernous art deco space of The Regal, where outrageous and sensational designs strutted down the catwalk.

• Success for inaugural Awards
• Fabulous Overall Winners
• The Best in West Oxfordshire 2011
• SpecialEffect charity donation

Pedigree is a term often bestowed too lightly, honours are often lavished for the wrong reasons and disingenuous respect is frequently gained. To have pedigree takes years, to earn honours for the right reasons must always be applauded and to gain genuine respect, well, you must be doing something right. Alain Desenclos ticks all of these boxes and many, many more. Richard Rosser had the pleasure of talking to Monsieur Alain, as he is affectionately known, about his career and his future having left his ‘home’ of twenty six years, the unparalleled paradise that is Le Manoir.