Author Archives: robhunt510

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About robhunt510

Writer, artist

Hills

Boulogne’s hilly old town auditions for the remake of Don’t Look Now In the old town high above the shopping malls of Boulogne I catch the first whiff of Tom Coryat; a smell that eluded me in Calais – as … Continue reading

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The Taste for Others’ History

In the upstairs rooms of Calais’ Museé des Beaux Art, under the general title of Les Liaisons Heureuses there are pieces by Joseph Beuys, Picasso, and Andy Warhol. But I am taken with a work by Annette Messager. A “History … Continue reading

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Leaving Calais faster and slower than Tom

Self Portrait at the Station Feeling Bad Leaving Calais early but sick – one of those sweating ache-ridden fevers that keeps you one quarter awake all night – I’m struck that 399 years ago today Coryat walked 25 miles to … Continue reading

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Learning what to forget

In his marvelous – there will be a lot of marvelouses during this journey – Shakespeare and the Origins of English, Professor Neil Rhodes writes: “Watching television has long assumed the role that novel-reading did in the early nineteenth century, … Continue reading

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Gigi: roots and routes

Gigi is from Cavaillon, a town between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence in the South of France. She is in Calais for three days working in the tourist office, researching tourists’ responses to the town in order to improve facilities back home, … Continue reading

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One of those wet nirvana moments

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Those Hamilton Women

Not so far from the Richlieu park, right into a side street – on the corner of Rue Jean de Verne and the Rue Francais, is a plaque commemorating the death place of Emma Hamilton in 1815. “That” Hamilton woman: … Continue reading

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The Man Who Wasn’t Quite

Last night in Calais I heard my first mysterious tale. The Art Museum close to the Richlieu park has a daily visitor. He is old, perhaps as much as eighty; tall with a shock of white hair and long beard, … Continue reading

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Crossing with Thomas Coryat

Coryat gets Going My Observations of France I was imbarked at Dover, about tenne of the clocke in the morning, the fourteenth of may, being Saturday and Whitsun-Eve, Anno 1608, and arrived in Calais (which Caesar calleth Ictius portus, a … Continue reading

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Crossing Me

On the waterfrontWhitstable last night for Oysters and swanky fish and chips. No sign of the many YBA artists who live here; perhaps they are all walking to Venice as well: for this summer’s Biennale. Dover saw a little sun … Continue reading

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