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Patrick McGuinness

@padrig.bsky.social
997 followers 783 following 294 posts

Endotic traveller. Recent books: Blood Feather 2023; Ghost Stations 2025. FRSL. Prof French & Comp Lit, Oxford. Rep'd Peter Straus RCW.

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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A Rimbaud/Mbappé fusion here (seen on Facebook)
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Lumpen Café Gyeongju. Not sure this is what Marx had in mind but happy to go along with the positive spin. (And the terrific food snd coffee.)
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
An occasional series on the travelability of iconic writers. Today it's Montaigne in Seoul. Not clear from outside or indeed inside what the great essayist had to do with this place, but if you want to attract the digressive urban customer, it works.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Caillebotte The Bridge
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Very sad to hear of Bonnie Greer's death. We appeared together at the Frankfurt Book fair a few years ago & spent happy hours exploring the city. I enjoyed her company and insight, her particularly memorable discussion of Hedda Gabler which she was adapting, and a visit to Goethe's house.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A strange out of body experience when instagram suggested for me a book I edited and introduced. Very Huysmansian sense at once of singularity and futility
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Despite the dust, the age and the abandonment, there's something enduring about these perfect shoes on their perfect wooden feet. A whole world stepping out.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Chimneyscapes of the 10th arrondissement
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I must have thought, back in late June/early July, that I'd need a snack when I returned to my desk in college in September. The banana of summers past.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Preparing a book on Rimbaud, hence Charleville. Rimbaud and Verlaine used to visit Bouillon and stay in the Hôtel des Ardennes. My great-grandmother and her mother were chambermaids there. It can't be ruled out that my g-g-gm changed their sheets.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Bouillon.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Another satisfied tourist leaves a review. Bouillon, Rue Saint Nicolas.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Every regular becomes a ghost in their local. Unless the local itself becomes the ghost. I used to come here and dislodge my grandfather Eugène from the bench by the window. And have been dislodged in my turn, and now finally. Café du Centre, Bouillon, 193?-2026.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
A lot of what's wrong with the people who run universities can be summarised in the word 'hub', notably, as here, replacing the word 'library' (or llyfrgell as here).
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Robert Graves’s house in Deià, Mallorca. His desk, his Aga, his jams (by now probably explosive) and my face in his shaving mirror while he recites 'The Face in thr Mirror' in that mirror on the screen beside me.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
A bit late to this. Once again, Stefan Collini's great article for @lrb.co.uk tells the truth about the REF. I'm wondering how we across subjects and universities can start to mobilise in this direction...
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Heatwave advice Belgian style: plenty of salt on those chips.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
A pair of empty boots, rain and a rail replacement bus. Sunday, distilled
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Sea-sculpted tree that looks like an animal skeleton, and proof that, however remote you are, however far from towns and houses and cars, the universal upturned shopping trolley will find you.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Templars square shopping centre (Cowley centre), Oxford ? Looks like same style.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Because it's going so well.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Pob lwc Cymru heddiw. It's time.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Very taken with Bristol Temple Meads Lost Property office. All these characters angry getting ready to go find their owners.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
At the risk of introducing some bathos , here's the poem i published in the tls around the 40th anniversary of his death. In my 2nd book, Jilted City.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Jacques Brel, born today in 1929. Here in my home town of Bouillon, quite the young bruxellois on a day out to the provinces. My mother and aunt saw him in concert.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
So he did come in the end:
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
From Didcot and Reading to Paris, where the Coolest Man ou No competition has been won by Gilles Ortlieb. André Chénier a close second.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Faint Mondrian vibe on the approach to Reading station
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Long route from work via Osney and the gas works, lots of time to enjoy the springtime growth of pointless aggressive and passive-aggressive signage.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
a few pictures from my ... ahem... 'run' yesterday: chilled heron, orders from Christ, and two skeletal leaves through which spring can finally be glimpsed.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
I.M.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Cormorant, geese and road cone. Osney tableau in hesitant sun. 5/3/26. I date spring from now.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Anither afternoon gone
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Fantastic evening in Palas Print Caernarfon with Niall Griffiths and @benwildsmith.bsky.social for Ben's new book with @calonbooks.bsky.social
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Dal yma heddiw, Morrisons dre. Still here today Morrisons Caernarfon.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Pride of place in Morrisons Caernarfon charity book table: top trolling dre, da iawn.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Rosa road, Sheffield, Snake Pass. White peaks.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Followed by the a motorway of water seen from the safety of the Watermans Arms
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Osney island , Constable light on the old electricity station.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Small mercies: the first rainless day in what feels like months, followed by a sunset that involves a visible sun, visibly setting.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
London 3 times in a week. Lights on, nobody much home at Centre Point. The future as imagined by the past.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
There's always something to see.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Onze lieve vrouw ter duinen, Ostend. Our Lady of the Dunes.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
The penmanship and control are extraordinary www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
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.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
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.
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Like snowdrops and the dawn chorus, the 1st signs of spring: the first pallet of Morrisons compost
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Patrick McGuinness @padrig.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
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.
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