Mark O’Donnell in conversation with Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson has had a bad week. Labour lost the election, his beloved Queen’s Park Rangers were relegated, and he discovered that his new next door neighbour in the Houses of Parliament offices is Alex Salmond.
A couple of nights ago we had our first comedy / thinky mash-up with Helen Lederer and Peter Tatchell. And last night, we enjoyed an equally unlikely billing – a double-header with philosopher A.C. Grayling and impressionist Rory Bremner. Continue reading
As double bills go, it was an unusual one. Comedienne and actress Helen Lederer is the go-to gal if you want a dotty posh woman in your TV show or film. Human rights champion Peter Tatchell is no less a firebrand than he was when he first popped onto our radar as a gay rights activist in the 1980s.
The decision of the judges was final. The decision of the referees were even more final. We gave orgasmistically abandoned appreciation. Yes, it was the 19th Swindon Slam!, a poetic performance of epic proportions. Continue reading
Henry Marsh, eminent neurosurgeon and author of Do No Harm had a rather unorthodox entry into his profession. Yes he went to Oxford University so his brains were never in any doubt but, as a self-confessed ‘self-dramatising teenager’, he chucked it all in for love, found himself a job as a hospital porter and wrote bad poetry. Continue reading
Daisy. Cute name. Comprehensive school accent. Jeans and a ponytail. Young. And a secondary school teacher who found time to write a book, a clever book – Seven Myths About Education – full of well supported, understandable arguments. All very welcome and refreshing.
Her conclusion, it seemed to me, is that Knowledge is a Good Thing. And teaching knowledge for knowledge sake is not only a good thing but essential. Continue reading
Economist, journalist, and Oxford college principal Will Hutton is angry. He bangs the lectern with his glasses, and gesticulates madly. He even uses profanities with clear intent.
The man who wrote The State We’re In now thinks we’re just “in a mess”. The audience laps it up. Continue reading
By the mid-point of the Swindon Festival of Literature, my brain can usually do with a good rest.
The organisers work us Festival-goers hard: getting up up before sunrise on day 1 for the Dawn Chorus, then making us think, and be creative, and think some more for the next six days. Continue reading
Roman Krznaric
“A smart professional type was sobbing quietly in the corner of my train carriage. So many of us are carrying an intolerable burden. Be kind.”
So tweeted TV celeb Dan Snow, 6 May, and Swindon Festival of Literature retweeted, apropos of nothing, other than what a lovely sentiment and what an awful dearth of empathy there seemed to be around the election.
On Friday, philosopher Roman Krznaric shared how he lost his empathy at the age of ten, when his mum died. And he wanted it back.
This isn’t just a ‘what I did on my holidays and you might laugh/learn from it’ kind of tale. Roman has begun a rather civilised – (for what else could it be than one filled with hugs?) empathic revolution with the Empathy handbook, Empathy Library, Empathy Museum and Empathy Bus.
The Empathy Bus features a ‘human library’ where, instead of books, actual humans can be ‘read’; a chance to talk to people who have a completely different way of life to one’s own and, as novelist Harper Lee said: ‘step into their skin and walk around for a while’. Continue reading
Chris Tutton
This was Chris Tutton’s second visit to Swindon. Six years ago he led a session in the Museum and Art Gallery.
Today [Friday 8 May 2015] he read from his new collection, Angles of Repose, and then offered up the stage to the audience to read their poems. Chris gave performance tips and advice.
‘Just let me know when I’ve read for 40 minutes’, he asked and began with talking muscles, dreams of the sea, off-the-cuff remarks, grown-up regrets, and magpie memories. His asides and introductions to the poems were funny and dry, I was never quite sure why he was telling us this stuff, then I’d find myself laughing. Continue reading
Festival Chronicle 