Alice theme to literary festival closing dinner (From The Oxford Times)

Alice theme to literary festival closing dinner

3:53pm Wednesday 4th April 2012 in Gray Matter By Christopher Gray

Since I have no wish to Marr a curious tale in the telling (W. Shakespeare), I shall desist from mention of the guest speaker at the Oxford Literary Festival’s closing dinner and merely show you KT Bruce’s excellent study of him in action.

For ‘curious’ one should, I suppose, read “curiouser and curiouser”, since the purpose of this splendid gathering in Christ Church’s Great Hall was, in part, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the famous journey up the River Thames that resulted in Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland.

This was, of course, undertaken by the Rev Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, for so long a Student of Christ Church that he is calculated to have consumed more than 8,000 meals there. (The dinner also marked the Diamond Jubilee of HM The Queen, Visitor of Christ Church. Andrew Marr writes about her in The Diamond Queen.) College chef Chris Simms devised a splendid dinner in conjunction with food historian Anne Menzies (with whom I enjoyed a delicious lunch earlier in the festival). Highlights included Mock Turtle Soup, Lobster Quadrille and Jabberwocky and Jinger Parfait adorned (see picture) with a teapot.