Fay Weldon and Paul Bailey = writers (Older ones) at the Ox lit festival

Sunday afternoon I had tickets for an all encompassing talk on India from someone called Patrick French.  He was coming to give us India from every point of view, social revolution, today's 'high tech' on to Sonia Gandhi - one of the most powerful women in the world.  My daughter made a dash by bike to join me - sweet child, as it was Mother's Day.  She arrived red faced (the bike broke down) and panting but in time, but only for us to hear that poor Mr French had a foot infection - that he'd contacted in India - and so couldn't make it.

Would we like tickets for another speaker then?  of our money back?  Devastation etc and then we plumped for Fay Weldon and Paul Bailey instead.  There are so many venues and talks going on here at once, Christ Church is so huge but when we looked through the list for 2 p.m., really Fay and Paul were the best on offer.

So all that to explain what we were doing there.  I'm not a big fan of Fay Weldon, though lots adore her (Confessions of a She Devil etc )  and she is interesting in that she is 79 and writes every day!!!  Described as a feminist wit she has countless novels to her credit and currently teaches creative writing in Brunel University.  Bailey is 74 and has just published "Chapman's Odyssey" - has awards for several novels - At the Jerusalem and Gabriel's Lament among them and also teaches creative writing at Kingston London uni.  Both great raconteurs,  talked a lot about hospitals and their experiences of but were very funny in the telling.

So what did I learn from them?  That age is of absolutely no interest to a writer, only that it has added value in that your are wiser and have less to worry about, and - more time to write the ideas that you now are more sure of! ( Mind you, Bailey said that on reflection, he wasn't sure if he was wiser, but that he 'knew more" - which i certainly agreed with.

More soon.  Humanism, Ethics, Shakespere and Ingrid Betancourt to come. .. Hope you've not dozed off....  

Day 2 Ox Lit Fest. A.C Grayling + +

So far, Sunday has been the best day - for me.  I was looking forward to hearing the philosophy professor, A.C. Grayling speak.  He was timetabled for the Sheldonian Theatre - which in itself is an experience.  Another stunning building, built in circular form, yellow sandstone - its everywhere here, and all those huge carved heads along the railings.  (Round to the tourist office later for some data on it..? after the coffee of course..)

Anyhow, bang on twelve A.C. came striding in, long silver hair, dark suit, spectacles, every inch the modern philosopher.  He spoke, without a pause, for over an hour and he was riviting.  He was there to tell us about his latest book "The Good Book" which he has written as a 'secular bible'. Its a 'thoughtful non-religious alternative to the Bible.

There is hardly a section of world history, from pre Christian to ancient civilizations of east and west, through Greeks, ancient Rome, right up to discoveries of 20th century thinking, that he hasn't covered.  It would be a book to have forever, and if you got through it, and retained even half of it, well you can just imagine.

The atmosphere was hushed, the audience spellbound as he talked and explained his thinking in writing it.  I loved every minute and felt privileged to be there.

Then it was on in the afternoon, to Fay Weldon and Patrick Bailey, who were fun and interesting too.  But more of them later.

Today it's Shakespere  A Cultural History at 4.30, followed by Peter Atkins "On Being. A Scientists Exploration of the Great Questions of Existence"  Will I be able for all this?  Well it looks good written down, and then I can run to the tent for the free gin after!  Ah me..

Day 1 At the Oxford Literary Festival

Christ Church Meadow is the setting.  Its Oxford's Literary Festival week and I’m in the middle of it!  I love it.  Christ Church College – if you want to hear about it, is just spectacular.  Built in ??? but many hundreds ago, its yellow stone just glows in the sunshine.  There are quadrangles and turrets, narrow passageways that lead into squares with ancient trees, all surrounded by the Meadow, which is acres and acres of fields – cricket pitches and meadows. And, oh yes, people are punting by on the river that seems to flow out of that manicured garden.  Oh wow. 

I forget how many British Prime Ministers studied here, but at least a couple of dozen, and the list of other luminaries, in every academic field you might come up with, were here at some stage.  So as I wander round with the well-heeled English booklovers who are now thronging the place, I am filled with a mixture of envy and awe.

Blackwells book shop ( trading in town since year dot) have put up a huge marquee on one of the lawns.  It’s doing a roaring trade with dozens and dozens of stalls of books.  You name it, they have it – its Amazon under canvas! 

Floating about through the book buyers are beautiful girls in ‘40’s style (shirtwasters, red lipstick high blocky heels) bearing trays of (tiny glasses, free) gin and lime.  (I suppose they’re students of philosophy or something, on their day off?).  Im resisting, as I’m clutching my ticket to hear two biographers give their talk on Life Writing and the gin mightn’t mix…

And who else is here besides me?  Well the list is so long I’ll just give you a few: They have Kazuo Ishiguro, Philip Pullman, Madhur Jaffrey, Bed Okri, P.D.Hames Melvyn Bragg – not to mention King Abdullah of Jordan (though I wondered if he might just be house-hunting?) and HRH Princess Anne (she’s cutting the tape I think).

Every now and then I hear polite clapping coming from a window where a lecture is taking place but I’m hurrying off to my class room which is billed as the ‘Junior Common Room’!  Well folks, University life…. It’s all go you know....  

Sadly, Last Class in DCU for me- for this term

Thanks Cathy and Marion.  So enjoyed Saturday - especially Cathy's talk on Life Writing.  Lots to think about.  Will be thinking of y'all next Saturday round 10.  Cheers  Nuala Smith

15 Ushers Usland James Joyce's 'The Dead'

The Dead - John Huston's movie




15 Ushers Island, derelict. Before it became the Joyce Museum
This is 15 Ushers Island, Dublin before it became the Joyce Museum.  Now a splendid building beside the Calatrava Bridge, it is visited by hundreds of Joycean fans every year.

’15 Ushers Island and Joyce’s Story ‘The Dead’

This dark gaunt house’ is how James Joyce described this building which was – and still is – at 15 Ushers Island on Dublin’s Quays.  It is also the house where  - in 1919 - my mother, Carmel Fagan, was born. 

 Here, in the early 1900’s,  Joyce set his short story ‘The Dead’ in which the Misses Morkans give a Christmas Party on the upper floors of this house.   The characters  at the celebration are a backdrop for Gabriel, a young married man who is wracked by the fear that his wife does not love him.  To the clop of horses hooves on icy streets outside, Gabriel’s mind wanders from the party to where his wife’s lover is buried. Snow is falling all around…    A wonderful story, and world wide acclaimed as such. 

On the other hand though, to my mother, brought up in church ridden  Ireland,   the very mention of James Joyce was enough to have her set her mouth in a thin line of disapproval.  She strenuously denied that Joyce (‘that oul fella’ as she called him) had anything to do with her old home.

Then John Huston, the film director, turned up and made a film  of ‘The Dead’ and to her disgust, he made his movie in 15 Ushers Island.  It was a great success and she finally had to agree that ‘there might be something in it’.  Deigning  to come to it with me, she promptly fell asleep till it was over, sniffing, as we left the cinema that ‘it didn’t look a bit like home’ and that the story was ‘a lot of Tommy Rot about nothing’.

Some years after she died, the house became  a museum to Joyce, now called  “The Joyce House”.  To launch the new venture, the owner threw a re-anactment of the Misses Morkan’s party and my daughter and I were lucky enough to be invited.

How my mother would have gasped to see the two of us, all dressed up,  sitting among Dublin’s luminaries, got up in Joycean finery, bowler hats, black lace dresses and piano shawls.  In what were once her family’s bedrooms, we were now at  huge white linen tables, blazing with candles, scoffing  hot punch, goose and spiced beef.   A tinny piano tinkling,  a plaintif baritone singing ‘The Lass of Aughrim’, glasses clinking, and the buzz of voices getting louder as cigar smoke begins .

Well, yes she might have said it was a lot of fuss about nothing,  but how I wished she could have been with us.  And she loved a glass of punch!

(Sorry about the sad photos but I'm just getting the hang of this.

Class three and we are blogging again. I have suddenly thought that the ubiquicitous character JOE BLOGS may be the person who gave his name to this new form of communication.

Class three and we are blogging again.  I have suddenly thought that the  ubiquicitous character JOE BLOGS may be the person who gave his name to this new form of communication.

Recession of 80's and this one - compare

Most people of my age -64- will probably look at you and say "No I don't remember it - that recession in the eighties.  I was working".   Me too.  I just thought I was in trouble myself. 

I created my own recession by leaving a steady job then and starting my own business.  My brother and I opened a vegetarian restaurant, probably the first in Dublin, in 1982.  How crazy was that?  Well, hindsight is of course a marvellous thing and suffice it to say that, for a while,  it looked successful on the outside.  Inside we were in the RED within months.

In the middle of all this, I had a baby girl, and so the whole thing folded.  My brother emigrated.  I became a single mother on welfare.  That's what I knew of that recession.  It was mine alone.  Stoney broke, jobless and pushing a buggy around the neighbourhood,

But we got going again, and here we are, nearly thirty years later.  That baby is now a doctor in Oxford.  My brother is back in Ireland with a small and successful business and I own two apartments, which I am hoping will continue to have tenants.  So we got back on our feet.  Even got good shoes for those feet, and did quite a bit of dancing on them too.   Good times came again, and mixed in with life's usual worries and fears, we had a lot of challenge and excitement to fill our memory banks.

And now it's back.  Recession.  Only this time, we know all about it.  We are all experts on economics, we can rattle off phrases like 'senior bond holders'  and 'dilution of share values' with the best of them.  We rant at the big gamblers in our banks and watch The News and Prime Time like addicts.  We have theories and solutions a plenty, which we add to every day as the dreaded Budget Day approaches.  But somehow, from our experiences, we instinctively know that it will all 'be all right'.  The only differences this time is that perhaps, we, in our sixties and seventies, can't count on the time that might take.