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Chinese Whispers
An interesting example of how stories are distorted in the telling, and how ‘news’ is created. Yesterday, at my place of work, there was a power cut. It happened around lunch time. I went out of my office to see if it was just my room, or more general. It was quickly apparent that the…
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Seeing Galileo
Gylphi, run by my friend Anthony Levings, published this book last month, and it is a strange beast. I have been trying to make my mind up about it, but trying to categorize it is difficult – it contains poems, essays, playlets, photos and meditations. It’s a collaborative effort, from Jason Lee – no, not…
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Look Back at Angers
To Angers, for the fourth international colloquium at the Anthony Burgess Centre, this time focusing on Burgess’s encounters with the Elizabethans. It was, as usual, a very enjoyable event, and it was great to meet up with old Burgessian pals, and to make some new ones. Angers is a very pleasant town, with a chateau,…
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Bonfire of the Humanities
It’s quite likely that I will be out of a job in eighteen months or so. The funding cuts announced by the government in the wake of the Browne review are particularly savage in the subject area where I work, and in the kind of institution where I work. The emphasis on the so-called STEM…
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Sir John Summerscale
It occurred to me to look at The Times obituaries for the elusive Sir John, editor of The Penguin Encyclopedia. And there he is. It’s a classic diplomat’s career, in countries that no longer exist. I am fascinated by these men of the late Empire. They were there as the world changed, and presided over…
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Billy Collins
Last night I had the good fortune to meet Billy Collins after he had performed at Edge Hill’s Poets Laureate event with Carol Ann Duffy.As my students know, American Literature is a bit of a blind spot with me, but I have been a fan of Collins since first hearing him read on Garrison Keillor’s…
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The Finkler Question
To the new headquarters of the IABF for the first in its series of events with contemporary writers. Mancunian Howard Jacobson was presenting his latest novel, The Finkler Question . What an excellent speaker and reader he is! Too often, writers are not actually terribly good at reading their own stuff, as students in my…