October 1979: I was still, or again, (depending on which way you looked at it as I'd returned to do post-grad work) studying at The Queen's College Oxford. The college offered me the exalted if ridiculous-sounding position of Vir Probatus (Junior Dean) if I abandoned the slum that was 41 Bullingdon Road and moved into…
In 1983, as previously confessed in this blog, I was living in east Oxford grinding away at my thesis. One of the other post-grads I got to know was Paul (a Pole with a German passport), who was studying at Wolfson and, in theory, writing a thesis on Hölderlin. We became friends. He had a…
It was Valencia, July 1972 and blazing hot: my first time in Spain (it now seems odd that I had already sat my Spanish A Level). I was on a three-week language course organised by Liverpool Poly, as it then was, and there were school students from all across the UK. One was at Eton,…
A couple of months ago I was introduced to Nick, the newly elected Chair of the Camberwell Society, who teaches Modern Languages at a local public school. Over a pint he mentioned that he had studied Spanish at Exeter University; we talked about the late professor, Maurice Hemingway, who had examined my M. Litt. so…
Jools Holland's Hootenanny closed, as ever, with the simple ditty that gives this piece its title. (As regards the show itself, I didn't enjoy it very much. Very few plums among the duff. George Ezra? Please explain his popularity because I don't get it. Who buys this stuff? Even the Teletubbies' songs were more interesting.)…
The Wight Stuff 