Principal's Blog: 12 November 2025

Congratulations to our alumnus Jason Coppell (Jurisprudence, 1987) who has just been appointed a High Court Judge, bringing to 5 our representation on the High Court bench and higher.

Congratulations to our alumnus David Szalay (English, 1992) who won the Booker Prize this year. Bernard Richards taught him and tells me, “At the last English reunion, in 2023, I asked him to send me his thoughts in the novel, to read out to the assembled participants, and he sent something very nice”. His novel Flesh, a rags-to-riches tale exploring class and power, was described as an “extraordinary, singular novel” by chairman of the judges Roddy Doyle.

I attended part of Bernard Richards’ English reunion on 8th November. He spoke about the varying quality of films adapted from Henry James’ novels. It is clear from the large attendance at successive English Days the affection which his students hold for Bernard.

James Bobin

James Bobin is this year’s Frankland Visitor (our artist in residence) and he stayed in the College throughout Fourth Week. I conducted a Principal’s Conversation with him on 5th November, and it did produce some fireworks as he told us of his fascinating career in film and TV. His work with Sacha Baron Cohen changed how we think of satire and parody. He told us how the character for Borat came about. He described living in Hollywood (he is now living in Bath) and his three-film deal at Disney. He did the world a favour by reviving the Muppets franchise. He also described his work on Alice Through the Looking Glass and Dora the Explorer. His latest venture is Percy Jackson and the Olympians which is technically complex. He gave some great hints for those in the full audience who wish to get into films and TV. We look forward to welcoming him back in Week 6.

Concerts

The Freshers’ concert on 7th November was simply outstanding. There were 11 participants ranging from Rachmaninoff to Nosso Samba by Noam Lederman. For me, the one which was very special was Tina Bai playing the Chinese guqin, a traditional Chinese instrument which I had not seen before. Ge Chen played on the cello a piece that he had written. Congratulations to all the performers.

The second of the Organ recitals was by Angela Ede, the Senior Organ Scholar at Balliol. She again demonstrated what a wonderful instrument our new organ is.