Oxford, Paris, and other things

  When the writer Marcel Proust ate a madeleine as an adult and ducked it in his tea, suddenly a whole moment of his childhood came back. Apparently it wasn’t a madeleine in the first drafts of his BIG novel (In Search of Lost Time), but toasted bread. Never mind, the madeleine and/or the bread did the job, the past came rushing back as if it were in the present. There was a bit of that when J. and I went to hear Sharron Kraus at the Port Mahon last Tuesday. I say I went to hear Sharron but there were two other set of musicians there I had not hear before: Sara Wolff and Helen Pearson and I loved listening to them all. A great evening of lovely music organised by Divine Schism.   But yes, there was definitely something spooky going on yesterday.  Because I was quite early coming to town from Abingdon, I decided to walk all the way down the High street from the centre and as I approached Magdalen College, and saw how many people were squeezed on the pavement, I reme...

Reading Alain de Botton still, The Art of Travel . I’m intrigued by his chapter on Wordsworth (what a beautiful family name for a poet!) how he claims that nature makes us better, that we are no longer competitive etc etc Alain describes leaving a meeting in London when he was taken by the usual human bullshit (is he/she more successful, more intelligent, more whatever better than me?) Before going to a concert in East Oxford, I had some time so I went walking in the near nature of the city. My bus stopped at the bottom of St Aldate’s, near the Court, and I decided to sneak into the path leading to Christ Church garden, then instead of turning right into the meadow (I did not have so much time) I went towards Dead’s Man walk ( don’t know why it’s called like that? Check it on Wikipedia! ) Obviously there is nature, or a semblance of it, that didn’t stop many rather disagreeable characters to be walking as if they were in the city of New York after a bad day in the office. I saw...

Everything is fine here.  There are no food banks, no kids who struggle to develop, no drugs problems, no one on the street, no racism, no religious intolerance, not even between Christians, no increase in rental, no rotten food on sale, no polluted rivers and lakes and land and cities. Everything's cleaned and well ordered.  New (or good as new) barges are being commissioned by OUR BELOVED STATE to welcome foreigners who wish to settle into the land. A perfect solution. With a bit of luck, some will walk in their sleeps or just jump straight ahead. No need for coffins and other funeral expenses. Straight into the water. Clean.                    " Catamaran Barge at Olmsted Locks and Dam " by LouisvilleUSACE is licensed under CC BY 2.0 . Clean streets. SECURE STREETS. Some criminals were about to cause a lot of damage on the day of the coronation of our new GREAT KING – long m...

 Well I went to the Ridgeway this morning, as you do.  My feet are still singing as I speak.  I got lost on the way, and lost on the way back but I made it to the Ridgeway, helped by a retired lawyer who does the walk up every day from his house in Letcombe Regis. He very kindly slowed down for me... oh the shame of not being in top form.  I took many pictures on my camera but none on my phone so here you are. Nothing to see here. Sorry! I went around 8 am this morning, after voting and came back about 3 hours later. I went too far walking on the Ridgeway and then found a road that did not have any space for me to walk in so I had to be walking in the fields.  Then, at last, a pavement, just one side of the road but that doesn't matter, so I was no longer trespassing. Apparently anyway, the kind lawyer told me farmers didn't mind too much as long as you're not driving on the sideways.  Well my first impression of the Ridgeway was a disapointment. It was jus...

 Happy May day everyone. This is a very special day in many places in the world. It is also very special here, in Oxford.  At sunrise, you have a bunch of kids singing from the top of the tower in Magdalen College, it goes like that: (Go to 1'50 to listen to the first song) The, there's a lot of dancing everywhere in the centre, especially in Radcliffe Square. There used to be some French dancers there, but they've gone now. Just in front of All Souls College, you're likely to find the Scots, a bit further, nearer St Mary's, the Welsh.  Pass the Bodleian (as if you were going to the new Bodleian), there are the green men and women, mostly coming from East Oxford.    It's a funny mix of pagan and religious, though when you see priests on the day, they could very well be druids or witches, who knows? Perhaps a good time to remember that all Christian ceremonies do have a pagan past. It's a bit the same with Charles III's invitation: the green man is never ...