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Tag Archives: Oxford University

Mary Curies

Review of Tracy Chevalier’s treatment of Mary Canning’s life, in Remarkable Creatures. — For Perspective

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants. Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike […]

Creation-ism

This weekend I will be joining a local choral society for their performance of Haydn’s The Creation – and what better way to welcome Spring now that it’s finally arrived. An avowed and much-loved masterpiece from its earliest performances – Vienna, 1798 – ‘whose appeal [I read from A Peter Brown’s DECCA sleeve-notes] was irresistible […]

Tripping hither, tripping thither

When I went to the bar as a very young man, it was often enough in the company of the Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society. My relationship with G&S had started early, specifically the argument in Three Men in a Boat over which song Harris is trying to sing (I remain confused to this […]

The Kings and I

A festive gripe about Cornelius’s lovely ‘Three Kings‘ – and the solo I have never got to sing in it. — For The Oldie

An Oxford squaddie

From deer park to gun park… . Sixteen years ago, American and British forces hurled themselves into Afghanistan the same week I arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford. I didn’t give them much thought – although the ‘War on Terror’ was immediately everywhere. I had an Egyptology degree to get to grips with; and choral evensong […]