{"id":9952,"date":"2026-02-12T18:54:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/?p=9952"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T20:28:11","slug":"the-dreaming-spires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/2026\/02\/12\/the-dreaming-spires\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dreaming Spires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was Matthew Arnold who first dubbed Oxford as &#8220;the city of dreaming spires.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It really is a magical place.\u00a0 A place with strong ties to fantasy.\u00a0 \u00a0To Philip Pullman, Alan Garner, William Morris, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, and of course the Inklings, among them C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.\u00a0 \u00a0A grand company.\u00a0 Understandably, I was honored when I was invited to return there in November, to address the Oxford Union, and sign a few books.<\/p>\n<p>I spoke on November 4, to a full house.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Author George RR Martin Interview at the Oxford Union\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YbU5imNyDaU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It was a daunting assignment, given the speakers who had gone before me over the years.\u00a0 \u00a0Writers, actors, politicians, poets, comedians, scholars,\u00a0 celebrities of all sorts.\u00a0 \u00a0Some gave long serious speeches on the issues of the day, others focused on literature, war and peace, love and sex&#8230; everything was fair game. For me,\u00a0 I knew it was my writing&#8230; A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE in particular&#8230; that had inspired the Union to invite me.\u00a0 \u00a0So I decided to talk about my life, and my beginnings as a writer.<\/p>\n<p>It was a lovely evening.\u00a0 \u00a0I understand why Tolkien&#8230; and all the rest&#8230; loved Oxford so much.\u00a0 \u00a0 My hosts were warm, bright, so hospitable, students and scholars both.<\/p>\n<p>Alas, my hopes of enjoying g a pint or two at the Eagle and Child, where JRRT and the Inklings drank and talked and argued, were dashed.\u00a0 The pub is still closed for renovations.\u00a0 \u00a0Maybe next time.\u00a0 \u00a0(Oxford did boast a truly outstanding\u00a0 Indian restaurant, where I had the best Indian food I&#8217;d ever tasted).<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the Bird and Baby will be open the next time I make it to Oxford.\u00a0 \u00a0I do want to come back one day.\u00a0 \u00a0Those dreaming spires cast a spell.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was Matthew Arnold who first dubbed Oxford as &#8220;the city of dreaming spires.&#8221; It really is a magical place.\u00a0 A place with strong ties to fantasy.\u00a0 \u00a0To Philip Pullman, Alan Garner, William Morris, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, and of course the Inklings, among them C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.\u00a0 \u00a0A grand company.\u00a0 Understandably, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[308,33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9952"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9960,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions\/9960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgerrmartin.com\/notablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}