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Tag Archives: Oxford

To the beat of her own conundrum

Conundrum by Jan Morris Ukemi Audiobooks read by Roy McMillan . Born in 1926, into Anglo-Welsh upper-middle comfort, James Humphry Morris was educated at Christ Church, Lancing, and Christ Church again, served in the dashing 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers during WWII, climbed much of Everest and broke the news of Hillary and Tenzing’s successful 1953 […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The veddahs, or wild hunters, of Ceylon mingle the pounded fibres of soft and decayed wood with the honey on which they feed when meat is not to be obtained. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Monday, January 21 1907 . Samuel John Taylor Coleridge is the first descendant in more than two centuries to be […]

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants. Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike […]

Strength and honour

A love letter to 20 years of watching Gladiator. — For The Critic

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. On an average there is only one sudden death among women to eight among men. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Tuesday, September 25 1906 . The Earl of Oxford did not write Fleabag. Hull is other people. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci chose to stick the with most ridiculous crap name that they could think of. Failure to […]

All good things must come to an end

Some Trick: thirteen stories by Helen DeWitt New Directions, £22.95, pp.197 Certain American States by Catherine Lacey Granta, £12.99, pp.190 Hostages by Oisín Fagan Head of Zeus, £8.99, pp.269 Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus Granta, £12.99, pp.266 The Abyss and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev Alma Books, £8.99, pp.315 . Only Helen DeWitt […]

Did The English Patient send me to Afghanistan?

Two nights from now, by way of (ahem) a birthday present, I will be attending a live-orchestra screening of The English Patient at the Albert Hall. I had invited an old friend, a raven-haired young lady (named in Debrett’s) of impossibly romantic tendency, who first exposed me to the film in, I’d say, about 1998 […]

I ink, therefore I am

On the choice and acquisition of my one and only tattoo. — For The Oldie

Eight debut novels

Currently sitting at 12 to 1 for this year’s Booker Prize, first-time novelist Paul Kingsnorth has set the cat among the pigeons through the disarmingly original expedient of submitting his offering in a fictional language. Composed in what Kingsnorth calls the ‘shadow tongue’ of ‘eald anglisc’, The Wake (Unbound 365pp £16.99) explores one angle of […]

Our little secret – 2

When you explain to your girlfriend that your London degree is as good as mine from Oxford, I say nothing, and hope you both think I’m on your side.