Congratulations to the winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize for translations into English of full-length French works of literary merit and general interest: ruthdiver.bsky.social for a translation of The Convoy by Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse (openborderspress.bsky.social )

London 3 times in a week. Lights on, nobody much home at Centre Point. The future as imagined by the past.

There's always something to see.

The penmanship and control are extraordinary www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

Delighted and extremely grateful for this kind review of Ghost Stations @cbeditions.bsky.social by Jonathan Keates in this month's @litreview.bsky.social . I'd like to stay on this train, thank you.

Another genius move by Labour. Shaft potential young Labour voters then pick a fight with Martin Lewis about it. www.theguardian.com/money/2026/f...

Delighted to see this woodpecker at the bird feeder this morning. When he's finished the fat ball hors d'oeuvre he can move onto the tree.

Remember them. Murdered by the forces of the British state in Derry on this date in 1972.

De l'importance des bistrots

Like snowdrops and the dawn chorus, the 1st signs of spring: the first pallet of Morrisons compost

Wonderful.

Anonymous briefer, you would not tell with such high zest To reporters ardent for some exclusive story, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro party leadership approval ratings on Ipsos MORI

Area around Oxford station feels transitional: businesses that don't 'take', planning that never settles, empty buildings, brisk footfall to or from historic centre. Through-place. So it's good to see these informative panels in the old (historic) Kings Motors building about St Thomas and St Ebbe's.

I've taught on this and attended some of the talks. It's a brilliant summer school: practical, creative, professional...

Will throw this into the pot for Donald if it means he just fucks off.

Watched @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social for the first time in a while. Tabloid TV , politics as soap opera, titillating rumour and totally content-free. This was once a great programme.

Great Guardian pieces about Weir (and the Grateful Dead) by Alexis Petridis and Stevie Chick. I'd add add Jack Straw and Black-throated Wind to this list. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

Some inverse relationship between how much History there is to learn from and how little is learned from History. Unless that's the point of it.

Very pleased to end 2025 with a nice review in @thetls.bsky.social of Ghost Stations , available from @cbeditions.bsky.social . Giving nostalgia a good name. www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

Nadolig llawen, merry Christmas , Caernarfon

Festive florilegium of reviews of local Morrisons , tempered by the realisation that I know most if not all the people evoked in these comments. Da iawn dre, yma wyf innau i fod.

Y Foryd, some elemental views

Also in 2026, my cross-channel Modernisms book. Starts with Mallarmé and Yeats, finishes with Derek Mahon's translations , by way of TE Hulme, Lynette Roberts, TS Eliot and the NRf , Rosemary Tonks, Odilon Périer, the birth of avant-garde theatre and other things.

After foxes of Oxford, writers' cats of Paris. Here seen modelling Gilles Ortlieb's study.

Always feel privileged to see this fox outside my house , to spend that moment being looked at and looked into , before it turns and goes.

So glad these 2 bikes have finally met. Magdalen Rd.

Promising start

Watching this shape up, due out early next year, produced with my colleagues Clément Dessy and Stefano Evangelista. On literature, art and travel, on symbolism, decadence and globalisation, and on the movement of ideas and *people* across borders.

Happy Themes Water hosepipe ban lift-day to all 'customers' who celebrate.

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2025 is ‘And the Walls Became the World All Around’ by Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing, translated from Swedish (Sweden) by Sigrid Rausing and published by @grantabooks.bsky.social !

A brilliant workshop on class in French literature at @stannescollege.bsky.social finished with an inspiring talk by Maurice East on Working Oxford. Made possible by the @britishacademy.bsky.social organised by @hollylangstaff.bsky.social and me. More projects and events planned...

Inviting

Late to listen in, as I've been travelling, but it was a pleasure to be on The Verb to speak about the poetry of trains and stations with Carmen, Don and Bella. Ian's Beeching joke was our terminus. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Lôn las, Caernarfon

Trouble is, the buck doesn’t stop any more.

Shit and inhumane ideas that drive away your natural voters without attracting your less natural voters, part 150. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A few pictures from Charleroi, Belgium's industrial capital, home of coal, steel and glass (and literature). Sunset Triptych; maison des 8 heures (ref to the 8/8/8 work/leisure/sleep law); a bucolic hill that's a coal mound; a cathedral rebuilt.

Enjoyable but poignantly Kleistian moment in our culture here:

Such a great shortlist - was at the ceremony last year when the winner was the brilliant Nelly Sachs translated by Andrew Shanks @carcanet.bsky.social . Great to see another poet, Krisztina Tóth @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social, in the running this year.

Just in case we didn't have enough examples of how appeasement never works... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Nottingham has one of the most vibrant and forward-looking departments of modern languages around. Music too. To cut them like this, leaving no chance for future rebuilding, is educational vandalism. tinyurl.com/yr65mjkx

The eternal return wrapped around the eternal departure wrapped around the eternal return, etc. Station fractals as I bring the book back, by way of its places, to the people who are in it. Embarquement terminé? I wouldn't be so sure.

Chimneyscapes of Brussels

Foxes of Brussels , 1 of an occasional series.

Couple of Oxford-related images, all from Headington. William Kimber's grave, a couple of pubs and a slow-at-first then all-at-once sunset.

Bangor station buffet. Something for everyone

This is really good example of a headline that is completely at odds with the article's content. Good local journalism is really important but this isn't it. www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/news/2558076...

Great to see this and also to see his later flowering of poetry given its due. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

‘It is on the border between the ordinary and the peculiar that Parr likes to work. He points out, more than once, that what is commonplace now will one day be remarkable.’ Rosemary Hill on Martin Parr’s people: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...