More nuggets from the Oxford Literary Festival. And a pic of Tom Quad, Christ Church. • Hitler invested as much in the development of V1 and V2 rockets as the US did in the Manhattan Project. If he had deployed funds differently, Germany might have had the atom bomb first – Graham Farmelo, author of Churchill’s Bomb • The trees in the silverback gorilla’s enclosure at London Zoo are electrified so he cannot climb them – Virginia McKenna of the Born Free Foundation. • During the American War of Independence, the ‘Rebels’ (those who sought Independence) supported slavery. It was the ‘Loyalists’ (ie the supporters of British rule and the King) who offered slaves their freedom in exchange for support – Andrew Taylor, whose novel The Scent of Death is set during this war. • If genre fiction includes historical novels and science fiction, the following are genre fiction: Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake … – novelists and St Hilda’s graduates Gaynor Arnold, Elizabeth Edmondson and Anita Mason, debating whether genre fiction is different from literary fiction • Never mention another performer to an opera singer after a performance. The only thing you should say is: “You were the best” – Wasfi Kani of Grange Park Opera • Soraya Mafi, who sang beautifully at Wasfi Kani’s event, is a soprano to watch. She was the best. • Write about naked people. People like to read about naked people. Why? If no naked people, then no people – Margaret Atwood • One First World War soldiers shirt was found to contain 10,462 body lice – Martin Brown, in his Horrible Histories event. (Who counted?) • It was fashionable in Tudor times to wear your doublet with the sleeves dangling behind you. So fashionable that they made doublets with four sleeves: two to put your arms in and two to dangle – Martin Brown again. • Merlin could jump 47 feet – Merlin himself (though strangely like Kevin Crossley-Holland) • If Lauren Child’s Ruby Redfort stories were filmed, she thinks Quentin Tarantino would make a good director. • Opening on Saturday (until October) at The Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford is an exhibition in which you can enter a wardrobe, walk through fur coats and find snow, trees, a lamppost and the White Witch’s sleigh. Just one of many wonderful story environments brilliantly and imaginatively recreated. It’s absolutely fabulous. • The Scarlet Pimpernel was the first superhero who had a secret double identity; the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney’s persona was the precursor of Clark Kent’s – Kim Pickin at a sneak preview of the Story Museum exhibition.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 08:01:47 +0000
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