I was at Rock City the other day, queueing to buy tickets for three gigs: the Dears (a great Montreal band with strong hints of the Smiths and Blur), the reformed American Music Club and the mighty Wilco. I had a long wait, for the long haired, mid-30s guy in front of me was buying tickets for lots of gigs and two separate people messed up his order. Mostly, he was going to metal gigs that I would pay money rather than be made to see. But I was taken aback by the last gig he wanted a ticket for: ‘Nick Drake’, he said. I found this disconcerting because Nick Drake has been dead for thirty years. I was a fan when he was sill…
The soon to retire US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has a quotation from the Greek philosopher, Thucydides (471-400 BC), sealed into the glass covering of his desk. It reads: ‘Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men most’. It’s a telling phrase, emphasising Powell’s philosophical distance from the rest of the warmongering administration to which he belongs. If you google it, you’ll find numerous references to the quotation. Evidently Powell first used it in a 1993 speech to mark his retirement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But where did Thucydides say it? According to a recent issue of the Times Literary Supplement, he didn’t. Shifra Sharlin, an American academic, has spent years trying to track the quotation down. She’s failed. Powell…
Every year we make a CD (until the turn of the century, a C90 or C100 tape) with a selection of our (OK, mostly my) favourite music released during the previous year. This year, having got a CD burner on my new iMac, I’ve done twice as many as previously. Until this year, I had to copy in real time, so making 15 copies took the best part of a week. Now I can make a copy in four minutes using Toast or i-Tunes. As I write, thirty copies have been posted, given away or put aside to be given away, and there’s one copy going spare. So the first reader to email me via this site with their address will receive the final copy…
It’s over. Nearly two hundred people turned up. Emails have been coming in all morning, saying what a great event it was, and the recurring word on the evaluation forms is ‘excellent’. All of the sessions went well. Delegates were particularly impressed that all of the speakers came for the whole day and I’m sorry I don’t have the energy to write about everybody’s contribution. I need a bit of time for reflection. I have to do an article summing the whole thing up for Books For Keeps by the end of the week. So, for now, once again a big thank-you to everybody: delegates, authors, students, support staff, Sue and, especially, Simon, for helping to make the thing happen. Best thing about the day…
Booking for the Turning Point conference closes on Monday, November 22nd. Much more below. It’s been a full eight days. A week ago, I was in Venice, celebrating a romantic anniversary. We’d spent the sunny day wandering round, visiting the fish market by the Rialto (after negotiating a route there that wasn’t flooded), visiting the Guggenheim, where I had Magritte’s magnificient ‘Empire Of Light’ to myself for several minutes. When it began to rain, we went back to our hotel for a rest before the traditional tourist visit to Harry’s Bar. At first, we mistook the noise outside for street cleaning, but it was too loud, and too persistent. When we opened the window, it was clearly a helicopter, hovering directly overhead. Then there was…