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1 WEDNESDAY
APRIL 2009
Ilan Pappé, Denis MacShane,
David Aaronovitch
421
Oliver James and
Penny Garner
430
Anti-Semitism
- Alive and Well in Europe
12pm / Garden Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
Many people think anti-semitism is something that
happened in pre-war Europe, but is anti-semitism
being fired up once again into something broad-based
and virulent How is the conflict in Palestine adding
to this worrying trend This lively discussion will
involve IIan Pappé, who spoke out for Palestinians
in his book Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Denis
MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham and author of
Globalising Hatred, and David Aaronovitch, Orwell
prize-winning Times journalist, broadcaster and
author, whose Voodoo Histories: The Role of the
Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History will be
published in May.
Contented Dementia
12pm / Blue Boar Marquee, Christ Church / £7.50
When Terry Pratchett, Britain’s bestselling fiction
writer, announced he was in the early stages of
Alzheimer’s, he described his ailment as ‘like
stripping away your living self a bit at a time…a nasty
disease, surrounded by shadows and small, largely
unseen tragedies’. ‘Until I met my mother-in-law,
Penny Garner,’ says Oliver James, best-selling
author of Affluenza and Contented Dementia, ‘I would
have assumed the same. Today, I know that the disability
created by dementia does not have to be hellish, that
it truly is possible to create well-being for the rest of
the person’s life if you use her method for managing it.’
In this fascinating discussion, Oliver talks to Penny
Garner, founder of the Alzheimer’s charity SPECAL,
about a radical new method already adopted by 17,000
people since the publication of Contented Dementia.
David Constantine and
Michael Schmidt
449
Two Poets
12pm / Festival Room 1, Christ Church / £7.50
The award-winning poet David Constantine is a Fellow
of Queen’s College, Oxford whose writing has a strong
moral component. The mood of his poems is both
tender and desperate.
Michael Schmidt is Professor of Poetry at the University
of Glasgow. Founder and editorial director of Carcanet
Press, he has also been editor of Poetry Nation
Review for more than 30 years. His own poetry
offers a generally attractive and accessible reading
experience, albeit a highly literary one, with ‘no grand
gestures’. He writes variously in rhyming forms and
blank verse about love, landscape, memory and
words. His descriptions can be of places, reveries or
extended metaphors.
David Constantine and Michael Schmidt come together
to read a selection of their published poems.
Guy Fraser-Sampson 410
Major Benjy
12pm / Festival Room 2, Christ Church / £7.50
Guy Fraser-Sampson’s welcome addition to the
hugely popular Mapp and Lucia series finds Major
Flint in need of a new servant, whilst Miss Mapp is
in need of a summer tenant and Quaint Irene is in
need of a pint of beer. Romantic entanglements stir
the still waters of Tilling society and cunning plots
are laid.
Best-selling author Guy Fraser-Sampson, a
lifelong Mapp and Lucia fan, superbly captures
the literary style of the original series, and offers
a new depth of understanding for many of Tilling’s
best-loved characters.
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