I was one of eight contestants, ready to launch their thoughts, arguments and philosophical musings on the Swindon Art Centre audience yesterday.
And, as it turned out, hopelessly outgunned! Continue reading
Roman Krznaric
Oxfam and UN advisor, tennis player, gardener and furniture-making fanatic, Roman Krznaric is the Brian Cox of philosophy, making it fun and relevant.
In the first part of his event at the Swindon Festival of Literature yesterday on the curious histories of how we live, I was reminded of my first year of my degree studies. This was about the Ancient Greeks and their various types of love. How ‘love’ didn’t necessarily mean passion, and how the Greeks actually felt wary of erotic love.
Which made me think that just because we (in the English language) don’t give different types of love their own names, does this mean we don’t have similar concepts? Or does giving them their own names raise awareness, legitimise them? Raise their importance? Or is the multitasking of one word just as good? Hmmm.
And here’s a ‘did you know’: the Eros statue in London’s Piccadilly Square is not the god of romance at all. Nope, it was erected (snigger) as a monument to his twin brother Anteros, the god of requited love and also known as the Angel of Christian Charity.
Ahha! I see what you’re doing there, Swindon Festival of Literature. I’m founding out things and getting a bit of mental exercise. Mission accomplished. Continue reading
Hugh Warwick at the Lower Shaw Family Fun Day, a Swindon Festival of Literature event
I wonder if there’s any point during my life at which I’ll stop thinking ‘cooool’ when someone tells me something, well, cool?
Hugh Warwick’s Swindon Festival of Literature talk about his new book, The Beauty in the Beast, is pitched at an aged 10-plus audience, by which I assume the organisers mean 10, and those whose appreciation of what constitutes cool has failed to mature past the level of, say, your average Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Continue reading
Now before you start thinking badly of Mark Williams, I’ll quickly explain that he led the Swindon Arts Centre audience in a meditation or ‘body scan’. Continue reading
Festival Chronicle 