A curious morning.
I was editing an FT opinion piece about Hong Kong that will go live soon when suddenly I spied a narrow-boat steaming towards the college.
As you will know the University allows only punts on its manor, so my immediate thought was that it must be hippies, hopefully anarchists, storming our citadel.
I walked down to the river bank.
‘Are you anarchists?’
Blank stares.
‘Trotsyists?’
More blank stares.
It turned out to be nothing of the sort. Instead, the university had given these people PERMISSION to bring a motorised craft upriver.
What the hell is going on? Much more of this and they will stop giving unearned MAs to undergraduates. You will be allowed to leave a formal dinner at the wife’s college to go for a piss before dessert. You won’t need a beard and a Nobel prize to walk on the grass. They’ll start calling bedders ‘cleaners’ and pay them a living wage.
Historians of the future please note: it all started with that boat. And it clipped one of our punts.
