Similar to the spring’s Torpids, Oxford’s Summer Eights is an eights bumps regatta. Crews of eight oarspeople and a cox pile into rowing shells and take it in turns to try to row into each other for the glory of their colleges. This year’s Eights was another strong one for Wolfson. The M1 boat earned blades, moving up to #4 on the river. My M2 boat bumped three days of four, moving up to the fourth division. The M3 and M4 crews also put on a strong performances. Wolfson’s W1 moved up three spaces, and W2 fought through some terrible luck, with three of their races being aborted by marshals for safety reasons.
The image above is courtesy JET Photographic. Click for more pictures!
Ben, a friend and Wolfson classmate, is a member of Oxford’s premier all-male a cappella group, Out of the Blue. Somewhat on a whim, the group decided to enter Britain’s Got Talent (which, for my American readers, is similar to, well, America’s Got Talent). Of course, OOtB did very well in the competition, and I was able to watch their live Thursday semi-final performance. When the British public decided that a middle-aged engineer dancing the Macarena was more worthy of progressing to the finals, both the judges and the studio audience were outraged. The performance was fantastic, as was the chance to see a live TV broadcast. Check the respective websites for more info, videos, etc.
Unfortunately, cameras weren’t allowed in the studio, so this shot is from ITV’s site.
The coming of Trinity term means the Oxford spring ball season. I was lucky enough to attend the Keble College Ball with a few friends from that college. Keble College is new by Oxford standards, established in 1870. When it was built, Keble’s brick structure, though now regarded as quite magnificent, was considered a bit of an eyesore. A secret society was formed at St. John’s College, dedicated to the brick-by-brick destruction of Keble. Membership in the society was secured by presenting the elders with a brick taken from Keble. General wisdom is that this secret society is still alive and well.
The Keble ball took on a Sherlock Holmes “Scandal in Bohemia” theme, and a festival atmosphere predominated the Keble quads. Food and drink were plentiful, as was dancing and friendly company.
Pictures by the lovely and talented Anna Schrade. Click for more!
May Day starts early in Oxford, with 6 a.m. May Morning celebrations. People from all over Oxford (including a motley crew from Wolfson College) head down to Magdalen Bridge to hear the Magdalen College Choir greet the coming spring with a rendition of Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of the college’s main tower. Afterwards, the revelers head into town to watch Morris dancing, find breakfast, and generally frolic before heading back home for a nap.
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On Friday, one of my NIH-OxCam classmates successfully passed her DPhil viva, the Oxford equivalent of a thesis defense. In celebration of her success and the glorious spring weather, we arranged a punting celebration. In punting, a traditional summer pastime at Oxford and Cambridge, a flat-bottomed boat is propelled by pushing against the riverbed with a long pole. All the while, of course, the punter and passengers enjoy the local scenery and weather, and stop at nearby pubs.
As I was too busy punting to photograph, these pictures are courtesy my lovely punt companions, Kara Fleming and Katrina Witt. Click for more!
Last weekend, a couple of Wolfson friends and I decided to head to the southwest of England to enjoy the stunning spring weather. We set out from Oxford on Friday morning, and took our first stop at Barnstaple, Devon to enjoy a bit of a walk around. We continued on to Clovelly, one of the cutest towns in the world. It’s an historic fishing village built into a seaside cliff and still automobile-free, with steep cobblestone streets. From there, we drove on to Bude, where we explored the beaches and pubs and stayed the night.
On Saturday, we ventured out to Tintagel Castle, a ruin claimed to be the birthplace of King Arthur. (If King Arthur did exist, he was born centuries before the castle was built, but there is an ages-old Cornish law mandating that all historic landmarks have Arthurian legend tie-ins.) After a cream tea by the castle, we visited Hartland Quay and its associated headlands before heading back to Bude for the night.
A bit of rain managed to find us Sunday morning, so we toured Castle Drogo, a stately home built of granite around the First World War. We then stopped by Bath to walk around, visit the abbey, and find dinner on the way back to Oxford.
Most of these pictures are courtesy Phill Brown, whose other talents include cross-country driving, instinctive knowledge of Cornish diversions, stand-up comedy, and ultrasound tendon analysis. Click for the rest!
On Sunday, the clocks in Great Britain officially sprang ahead an hour. So while true summer time has not yet arrived, we can safely welcome the spring season and its attendant picnics, punting, and flowers. A few random sunny Oxford and London pictures are below.
First, an unfortunately placed observatory that borders the parks…
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Each year, in the 7th week of Hilary Term, the Oxford University Rowing Clubs hold Torpids, a bumps race between boat clubs of Oxford’s constituent colleges. The regatta lasts four days, and each of the six men’s and five women’s divisions race each day. Because the river is two narrow for side-by-side racing, the boats in a given division will line up along the river, one in front of the other, with their coxswains holding onto regularly spaced “bung lines.” At the sound of a miniature cannon, the crews row furiously, trying to “bump” the crew in front before being bumped by the crew behind.
I had the pleasure of rowing in Wolfson College Boat Club‘s second men’s eight. We managed to move up four places over the course of the regatta, and so will start next year’s Torpids positioned to jump into division four.
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Today, I stopped by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on the way back to Wolfson from the High Street. Although the museum was about to close, and so my visit was brief, even a quick look showed an impressive array of animal, vegetable, and mineral fossils. They included the Oxford dodo birds, dinosaurs, fluorescent minerals, and a wide-ranging insect exhibit. Needless to say, next time I visit, it will be more than 30 minutes before closing!
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Last week I enjoyed “formal hall” at Lincoln College (where an NIH-OxCam classmate lives) on Thursday, as well as one at Wolfson (with guests on exchange from Kellogg College) on Friday night. These dinners, served every night at some colleges and more rarely at others, are a longstanding tradition at Oxford. The food (usually quite good) is served by waitstaff, and students dress in some college-specified combination of formal attire and their appropriate gowns. Grace is said in Latin, and at the more traditional colleges, faculty members (“college fellows”) sit at a separate “high table” overlooking the students. The Christ Church formal hall affair is the meal after which Harry Potter hall was modeled.
Both of these meals and the ensuing nights were good fun, though there wasn’t much opportunity for picture-taking. I have, however, now attained the iconic Oxford achievement of cycling to dinner with a black gown flowing out behind me. Below find a couple of pictures of Lincoln College’s library.
Click for the update and pictures of Keble College Hall!
