Oxford, Paris, and other things

 This is my second part of my (brief) reflection on Germany after my travel there (Rheine and Hamburg). It's called 'de l'Allemagne' after Madame de Staël's book. I have always wondered about the difference between a state and its limits and the official language of that state, during conversations made with complete strangers in trains or other places, I've discovered there are Swedish speaking communities in Norway and Finland - not to mention the USA, Hungarian speaking communities in Slovakia and Serbia, Russian speakers in Ukraine and Belarus (and of course Paris!), and so many others. But the one European speaking community that I have found a bit everywhere is... the German speaking one. They are, or they were, everywhere: Belgium, France, Russia, Ukraine, most other countries in East Europe. Some were invited by countries, some invited themselves. This is well explained in MacGregor's Germany: memory of a nation (chapter 3: lost capitals) Walking in ...

 No no don't worry I'm not going to redo a madame de Staël, a noble (well as far as I know) lady from France who wrote books at the beginning of the 19th century and is remembered mostly for her book de l'Allemagne.                                                               Bismark monument, Hamburg   (with panels explaning its history and controversy) I vaguely remember her from my highschool as she was included in the Lagarde et Michard , the annual textbook for French literature and culture. Each year was a new century and we started with medieval time when we were in first year so I believe XIX century arrived when I was a teenager. I vaguely remember, from the year before, the walking into nature of monsieur Rousseau, the spleen from the North (England? Scotland?) and the Sturm und Drang...

 For those of you who don't know, I've just registered as a student at Surrey University. It is based in Guildford which means it's not on the other side of the planet from Wantage! You just need to take the Oxford Bus Company X35 or X36 and go into Beauty (ie the countryside surrounding where I live) then arrive in Didcot. Take a train to Reading and change there. So yes really, not far! I plan to go there about once per month. It was only my second day of studies yesterday but I was given the chance to read some of my poems, so I said yes of course! I also heard the other students' work which was great. During the day, there was the Surrey New Writers Festival on campus and my mind (and bank account...) got blown away! I do admit that apart from Amy Key I didn't know anyone. Wow... came back home, around midnight, my bag full of books and I'm now trying to process all the fantastic comments I heard yesterday. It was the best literary festival I went to becau...

  Quand tu débarque à Oxford et la première personne que tu prends en photo est une travailliste au travail #AnnelieseDodds   La classe!  

 Despite being very tired I had a lovely time at the Cowley Road Carnival. Here are a few pictures, hope you like them!

 At the moment, there is a fantastic programme about Martha Argerich's life on France Musique. Martha Argerich une pianiste libre in 7 episodes. I've been listening to it at work as I've been doing some recataloguing of collection. What a life she has had. I have been very lucky to have seen her a few times playing in Paris, I'm not sure playing what, I only knew it was not French otherwise I would have remembered (sorry!). A piano concerto -was it Brahms? Did he write concertos for piano?- and some chamber music, which I enjoyed more.  I'm not sure where it was either that chamber music, a modern place, and she was not playing then during the concert. We are seated towards the back of the room and listening to music sans Martha when I heard some footsteps behind me and then nothing. I turned and looked, it was her, seating on the steps and listening to her friends playing.  I had heard, perhaps it was from someone at the Conservatoire, that she used to live in a b...