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31 TUESDAY
MARCH 2009
1984 and Civil
Liberties Debate
318
Carol Drinkwater
326
Shami Chakrabarti
4pm / Garden Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
This debate, marking the 60th anniversary of George
Orwell’s 1984, asks how the novel can inform the present
discussion about civil liberties. In an age of terrorist
threats, government databases and social networking,
it is increasingly difficult to avoid references to
Orwell’s classic satire on the totalitarian state and the
surveillance society. ‘There was of course no way
of knowing whether you were being watched at any
given moment. How often, or on what system, the
Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was
guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
everybody all the time. You had to live - did live, from
habit that became instinct - in the assumption that
every sound you made was overheard, and, except
in darkness, every movement scrutinized.’ Shami
Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty since 2003 joins
speakers to be confirmed.
The Olive Tree: A Personal
Journey Through the
Mediterranean Olive Groves
4pm / Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
Carol Drinkwater has already charted the ups and
downs of life on her Provençal olive farm in her
much-loved ‘Olive’ memoirs. But with the farm now
facing severe challenges - attack by a virulent pest,
the premature ripening of the trees’ fruits - Carol sets
out on a colourful and evocative Mediterranean wide
journey to learn more about the history and
development of the olive tree and different ways of
cultivation. The journey for a single woman is often
hazardous, but the stories she has brought back
are memorable.
Sponsored by Cox & Kings
Ann Leslie
323
Killing My Own Snakes: A Memoir
Matthew Hollis
Ground Water
343
4pm / Festival Room 1, Christ Church / £7.50
Matthew Hollis’s first full-length collection, Ground
Water, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize for Poetry,
the Guardian First Book Award and the Forward
Prize for Best First Collection. He is co-editor of 101
Poems Against War and Strong Words: Modern Poets
on Modern Poetry and works as Commissioning
Editor, Poetry at Faber and Faber. In 2005–6, he was
Poet-in-Residence at the Wordsworth Trust. His
biography of Edward Thomas will be published by
Faber in 2010. Matthew will read from his work.
4pm / Newman Rooms, St Aldates / £7.50
The Reuters/Press Gazette Newspaper Hall of Fame
listed Ann Leslie as one of the forty most influential
journalists of our time. She has reported on some
of the most dramatic events of the late 20th century,
from the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev to
Nelson Mandela’s walk to freedom, and has met
everyone from Steve McQueen and David Niven to
James Mason and Salvador Dali. Always opinionated,
admired right across the political spectrum, she talks
here about her remarkable life and career, and the
epic events she has borne witness to.
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