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22-28 March 2004

The Activities Department offered students a service opportunity to offer assistance at the annual Oxford Literary Festival, hosted by the Sunday Times. Here is one students account of what he experienced.

Over the last week St. Clare's students decided to lend a hand in the Oxford Literary Festival, taking part in some of the culture Oxford is famous for. Running around in oversized red sweaters, we collected tickets, made sure people kept an orderly queue (as one helper said not too difficult since the were mainly English) and point people in the right direction (hopefully). After we had done all this we could enjoy listening to many authors, and honestly they were interesting!

There were a lot of famous people there, maybe not David Beckham, Jay-z and George Bush famous; but at least they were interesting to listen to. I enjoyed a talk with Philip Pullman while I helped him sign books, and asked Michael Burke (you know the guy that presented BBC 10 o'clock News for 14 years!) about a job in journalism.

Yet if all this frivolity was not in your taste, there was the much appreciated and well used gifts given by the Festival organizers in return for our help - is there any left? Well if even the gifts were not your cup of tea, I have seen a few of those red jumpers on Monday morning around the Banbury Road campus, and the service hours couldn't hurt. Anyway, I really enjoyed my weekend and its back next year.

Marek Zaremba-Pike IB1