Fyse January 25th, 2006
In the world of Cambridge transport, the bike reigns supreme. Following the grand tradition of fabricating plausible statistics, I can confirm that 90% of students in the city own bikes, of whom 75% use them once or more each day. Lectures for the majority of people (65%) begin at 9.00am, and so it is a busy time. Flowing past two or three abreast, cyclists dominate the road and form an impenetrable barrier. Poor pedestrians wait minutes for a suitable break in traffic, before diving quickly from pavement to pavement. On the shared foot and cycle paths, streams of bikes part around pedestrians in almost biblical fashion, before crashing back in a maelstrom of spoke and handlebar. The natural progression of this uneasy coexistence of foot and wheel? Poor, benighted perambulaters reduced to hand signals any time they want to change direction. When I finally see a pedestrian with brake lights and a crash helmet, I’ll know I’ve really gone through the looking glass…
Fyse January 20th, 2006
The exams I’ve just sat were for lecture courses followed last term, including ‘Geophysics’ and ‘Astrophysics and Cosmology’. With the latter course, the more I revised (and consequently understood) the more interesting I found it. With Geophysics however, I became progressively more sick of the whole subject. Thus it was that I left my last exam on Wednesday morning with that unique feeling of euphoria that comes with knowing you never have to analyse another seismogram.
Hours later I was in my first ‘Singing in the Rain’ rehearsal, and had a second earlier this evening. For the past ten days rehearsals have progressed without me, and every evening I’d receive group emails organising social outings to bowling or for a meal. The relief of finishing exams and the elation of finally joining the rest of the cast resulted in almost manic euphoria, to the extent that a college friend assumed I was drunk (which I wasn’t). I’m immensely excited about the show and it promises to be great, so anybody within striking distance should definitely come and see it! (From the people reading this blog, that would probably be about three.)
I’m sure there’s loads more to say, but I’m too shattered to write any more. I’m still suffering the sleep deprivation born of crazy last minute cramming, but now I’ve broken the ice again you can expect a return to regular blogging. I keep thinking of posts I ought to write, but can’t find the time. Bullfrog calls, guerilla recruiting, The Penguin Challenge. You’ve got so much to look forward to…
Fyse January 13th, 2006
I don’t have time at the moment for even a quick-fire update. This is just to say I have loads of posts I want to write, but no time due to exams starting on Monday 16th. I am typically unprepared, and will therefore be performing extremely badly in the tests, but am working hard to avoid complete failure. Perhaps having exams after one term will help boost me into industry for the rest of the year. The fear will still be fresh.
PS Just before I go, I’m intrigued by the random hits to my photo site, showing extended visits from a variety of far flung countries. Someone in Morocco took a long hard look through most of my theatre photos, and I also have fans in Italy and the Czech Republic. None of them came via a search engine. Very strange.
PPS One final point. Check out this crazy art installation. A glorious waste of time even I would have been proud of.
PPPS Friday the 13th. Oooh, spooky…
Fyse January 4th, 2006
I welcomed the new year at a friends house somewhere near Nottingham, fourteen of us from college spending a decreasingly civilised evening making conversation of diminishing coherency. Supper was vast quantities of lasagne, consumed with alcohol purloined from the cellar of a generous parent and surrounded by replica armour from the civil war. Anyone who will waste decent wine on undiscriminating students and decorate their dining room with fearsome weaponry is alright in my book.
Drinking games of an increasingly ribald nature brought us to midnight, and we listened to the chimes of Big Ben as we attempted a rendition of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. After mumbling our way through a couple of verses, we were corralled outside to perform the world’s most arrhythmic and uncoordinated conga-line through the streets of the village. The faint hearted were soon off to bed, leaving the rest of us to make valiant effort to finish the drink before discovering exactly how many inebriated Cambridge University students it takes to successfully operate folding beds.
We emerged the next morning in states of varying dishevelment, the prize taken as ever by someone whose pillow-crafted hair defies belief, not to mention the laws of physics. A fry-up was prepared, the chef resplendent in blue dressing gown and slippers. (Looking through the photos my sister said he looked like a mafia boss, which is not the first time such comparison has been made). Fortification with bacon and egg returned some semblance of conscious thought, and after a shamefully brief attempt to help with the tidying everyone went their separate ways home.
A plot of sophistication against time shows an encouraging start before a precipitous plunge from which there is no recovery. Without doubt a grand New Year.