Mark Nayler

Bullfighting season in Spain began earlier this week at Seville’s huge annual fair, known as the Feria de Abril. A couple of days before the fair began, at a corrida de toros (‘running of bulls’, translated into English as ‘bullfight’) in the Andalusian capital’s beautiful 18th-century bullring, one of the country’s best-known bullfighters (toreros) was badly gored in the rectum. The reaction from anti-bullfighters, pouring out on social media and in comment threads, was entirely predictable: he deserved it.   This sort of hateful, knee-jerk reaction to bullfighting can be ignored as the ranting of morons.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) once wrote: ‘[T]he man who feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the quiet sanctuary of their works.’ That’s easier said than done: philosophical classics have a terrible reputation outside ivory towers – as big, boring, difficult books, filled with obtuse theorising about irrelevant problems, their covers featuring ghastly old men staring miserably out at the reader. Books about philosophy are hugely popular today, most of which repackage the thoughts of past thinkers for time-pressed readers – but I suspect not many people transition from these guides to the great works themselves, especially when AI can do all the hard reading for you.

I’m backstage with classical crossover singer Karl Loxley and his pianist Tim Abel at Stratford-Upon-Avon’s Rother Street Arts House. The sound and lighting team are setting up in the empty theatre for what will be one of the final shows in Loxley’s ‘Songs of Christmas’ tour. Since 2015, when Loxley sung Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ on the TV talent show The Voice, he’s been on a mission to make classical music cool. I’m here to see exactly what that involves – and if he’s succeeding.  Loxley is charming, expansive and – at least when I interview him, a couple of hours before showtime – relaxed. Appearing on The Voice, he tells me, was ‘a very nerve-wracking experience. I don’t think I would have the nerve to do it now.

The USA’s Eric Lu has beaten more than 600 other pianists to win the 19th International Chopin Piano Competition. Held every five years in Warsaw around the anniversary of the Polish composer’s death on 17 October, this is one of several piano tournaments that often launch major careers, along with Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition, the Van Cliburn in Texas and the Leeds International. Unlike any of those, however, the Chopin competition requires contestants to perform the music of just one composer. Lu, 27, didn’t exactly need this win. He took first prize at the Leeds International in 2018 and has already released two records on the Warner Classics label. After his victory in Warsaw, he will take home a cash prize of €60,000 (£52,000).

If I were a doctor specialising in alternative treatments, and someone came to me feeling depressed, I wouldn’t send them off with a herb-based elixir or a bunch of St John’s Wort. I wouldn’t cleanse their chakras or refer them to an acupuncturist. I’d send them off to Málaga’s annual fair, which this year runs from 16 to 23 August. Summer in Andalusia is feria season – the best cure that I know of for a bout of the blues. Usually lasting three or four days, or an entire week in the regional capitals, ferias are occasions of pure alegria (joy) and inclusivity.

A couple of weeks ago, at one of my local bars in Antequera, a waiter asked me something as he served our glasses of wine. I didn’t catch it, so I asked him to repeat what he’d said. After the third time, I still hadn’t understood and clearly wasn’t going to. This guy has a thick Andalusian accent and sprays out about a thousand syllables per minute, but we usually communicate without problems. Two Spanish girlfriends also taught me a lot, and that’s definitely the most fun way to learn a language There’s also a local character, we call him ‘Gummy’, who roams the streets asking for cigarettes or change. I never understand a word he says either, except for ‘eurito’ (a little euro) or ‘cigarillo’ (cigarette). In my defence, he has no teeth.

‘What sort of book might Satan write?’ ‘Why do people watch horror films?’ ‘Should we give up hope?’ These were three of the questions faced earlier this year by candidates seeking admission to All Souls College, Oxford, Britain’s most elite academic institution. Founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Chichele, and King Henry VI in 1438, the college takes its name from All Souls’ Day on 2 November, the occasion on which Christians around the world pray for the faithful departed (in Mexico it’s called Día de Muertos, or the Day of the Dead).