Oxford

[fpb]

So, last Friday and Saturday I went to Oxford. I would like to post a long elaborate essay on everything I did, but I have a feeling I would not manage to see the end of it. I visited places - especially in the Jericho/Walton Manor area - that I had not seen since I was eighteen and studying for my A-levels (and learning a much more important and painful lesson at the wholly unconscious and innocent hands of a girl called Kathy Sales). I spent the evening and night at the house of my old professor, now retired but still immensely active, discussing my research (on which he was encouraging) and my girth (on which he was legitimately concerned). And on Saturday I got to know both chthonya and kennahijja, who are two charming people. (In this kind of company, I always have a sneaking fear that I may be offensive or boring. I hope they had as good a time as they gave me.) We toured the centre of Oxford and visited the pub where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien used to meet with a few other friends every Tuesday and discuss such trifles as Lewis' science-fiction trilogy and Tolkien's Hobbit and various mythological efforts. Well, kennahijja is indubitably a genius, chthonya is at the very least brilliant, and I hope I can hold up my end even in such company; so I dare say we were not so out of place in such historical surroundings as we might sound. Besides, the pub is just across the road from the college where I spent my Oxford year, St.John's, and a favourite of Johnnies, so I had another excuse to be there. (I always did wonder why Lewis, who was at Magdalen, and Tolkien, who was at Merton, would want to meet there. It is at the other end of Oxford city centre from both colleges. I suspect that that was its real attraction - no danger of running into a college member and get caught up in college business.)

It was a wonderful couple of days, though as exhausting as anything I have ever done. Almost at the start of my first day, I stumbled upon a lot of ultra-cheap second-hand books, and could not see my way not to buy any less than ten; so I spent much of Friday dragging along this extra weight, and I'll let you imagine what the cumulative effect was. But for the place and the company, I would do it again.

Comments

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a wonderful weekend. Bravo for you getting a change of scenery!

And yes, Oxford holds many happy memories for me too. Bizarre, to be sure, but happy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Anyone who has been to Oxford and doesn't have bizarre memories of the place has wasted the time. What were you doing in the City of Screaming Choirs?

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

I'm a John's reject :) During my undergrad a group of us - some rejects and some not - would semi-regularly hang out there, enjoy mulled wine warmed in a cramped pantry on some staircase, go for long walks at 3 in the morning and then get chips 'n' cheese from a stand on St. Giles. Then I'd be getting up very very early (seemingly) the next morning to go to Mass, either at the Oratory or St. Benet's.

Then we all grew up and moved away...I should go back :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Chips and cheese at three o'clock from a stand in St.Giles! My God, when was that? Because I remember it well. That mobile chippie/kebab was certainly there in 1986 when I was. Who knows, perhaps it is there still.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Well it was definitely there in around 2002/2003 :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

What can I say? Evidently you can make a living selling kebabs to benighted Johnnies!