From the archives: Dinner with Lucien Freud, 1983
Once Lucian Freud was asked to paint the portrait of a former Principal of Jesus College. “A charming physics don asked me if I would do it. I rather liked the idea of being up there amongst a lovely collection of Elizabethan works, but the problem was that I find it difficult to paint people [&he
Hymn to Intellectual Duty
The phrase ‘political prisoner’ is charged with both power and notoriety, concepts I had never associated with my 75 year old grandfather. To me, he has always been my baba, a former English teacher whose days are spent writing poetry and tending to his garden. I’d heard my parents talk about
‘Invisible to Mortal Sight’: Sargy Mann and the Art of Darkness
Her eyes meet yours with the guarded yet knowing gaze of age, staring out from within a fleshed but still skull-like head. She sits upright in a severe wooden armchair her left hand crooked on the rest and her right clutching a bundle of white rags. Clothed in dull browns and blacks that seem both [
One Way Ticket To Mars
“My mum doesn’t just want me to explode in the middle of the atmosphere – and nor do I! That would be bad.” In January 2014, Laurel Kaye found out that she had been shortlisted for a one-way trip to Mars. The Duke University student is no stranger to travelling: she was studying on her [&hel
A Kurd in Cowley
Cowley Road, Oxford, five in the evening. Behind the bright green walls and electric blue shutters of the Greece Greek Taverna, a Kurdish family group sits down to a modest selection of traditional meze dishes, a daily routine before the restaurant opens for business. Though there is a well-establis
“Writing’s such a labour-intensive way of attention-seeking. It doesn’t really make any sense.”: An Interview with Will Self
First published in 2001 Ex-drug addict, novelist, short story writer, social commentator, journalist, permanent occupier of The Eye’s Pseud’s Corner, Julie Burchill and Bret Easton Ellis’ best mate, Tom Hill talkes to former Isis cartoonist and his bitter-sweet idol Will Self. Why shoul
“We marched out down to the Ashmolean where we burnt the proctors in effigy”: Tariq Ali on Student Activism and his time at Oxford (1983)
We are sitting in his study in Hornsey, the seat he hopes to contest as a member of the Labour party in the next General Election. At the moment, the problem of his membership in the party has been ‘shelved’ by the NEC who regard him, basically, as too far to the Left. Hornsey Constituency Labo
“If I write about destruction it’s because I’m terrified of it”: An Interview with Geoffrey Hill
Six decades ago, when he was an undergraduate at Keble, The ISIS published some of Sir Geoffrey Hill’s earliest works. Today, he is the author of over a dozen books of poems and literary criticism. On the evening following his penultimate lecture as Oxford Professor of Poetry, Hill spoke to us
“Parents would rather have a tomboy than a sissy”: An Interview with Grayson Perry (2004)
Grayson Perry has been in the news a lot recently, not just for winning Britain’s most prestigious art prize, but also because of that dress. As ever, the public has been curious about men in frocks, but this time, and for the first time since Eddie Izzard graced the stage in a leather skirt, we [