Oxford, Paris, and other things

                            Banbury. Kings Sutton. Heyford. Tackley. God this train is so slow! But there’s a reason for that. Beauty. The landscape’s slowly showing off Fields and trees and cows and sheep Green on green with splashes of white and brown The infinity of green and the sun playing with you Blinding you slightly. And gone. A wink. Next to me bubbling The English of the South, Fresh as a stream.

The tradition is that I write a poem on a postcard to work in the language of the country I'm visiting. This time it was French, quite difficult... all bad words and expressions to be blamed on the "enemy's wine" (Claret). Paris vue 1001 fois Toujours aussi belle Les Japonaises pièces de musée prière de ne pas toucher et la Joconde, toujours un peu ennuyée - trop de touristes empressés Le cadeau des vieux messieurs qui portent du Guerlain Le bruit des brasseries le goût du pain du vin et moi qui pense de l'autre côté de la Manche Pourquoi quitter tout cela ? France... "que mon coeur aimer doit" (1) (1) Charles d'Orléans En regardant vers le pays de France

"Вы идиот" говорили Да... не знаю... maybe Но между нами Я, меня и мне Мы идем как дураки Или блаженные Ничего не знаем о любви Ничего не знаем о вас - увы? "Вы - идиот!" говорили Да... не знаю... maybe Но между нами Я у меня и во мне в жизни идем как дураки или как блаженные Ничего не знаем о Любви Ничего не знаем о Вас - увы?

This title refers of course to the brilliant novel from Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale , which was recently adapted into a television series. It describes a futuristic society (but not that futuristic...) where the new masters of the land are hard core puritans and where women deemed as "lost" become surrogate mothers. I won't go into that much because I believe many people know the story, or if they don't, they should read the book. Shall I remind people what a book is? A good one? It's a work that has been created for quite a long time and that we, the public, read in a short-ish amount of time, a bit like a painting, hours and hours of work from the painter, that is seen and judged, and looked at for a few seconds, before we move on to another painting. I'd like to remind people that because perhaps fewer and fewer people read books, fewer and fewer people get lost in front of a painting admiring it. The internet is a great place, but it is pro