Skip to main content

You can only go back to a foreign place


I know people who take every opportunity to go back to their school or university. They just love to revisit those hallowed halls. I'm afraid I don't get it. I've moved on. I've been there, done that, and now I'm doing something else. I don't want to be mired in the past.

Now there are some who would take a similiar viewpoint to mine because they had a horrible time at their place of education. But that's not my problem. I had a great time at school and an even better time at university. I loved it. But I don't want to go back. I have done so once, because a friend was desperate to, and twisted my arm to go to a school reunion. What a mistake.

First there was the tour, where we were guided round by a sixth former. He was very nice, but it was hard not to imagine him boggling that such old duffers were once at the school. Then there was a mediocre meal with a group of people most of whom I didn't know (the event was for several starting years, and even within my own year I probably only knew 20% back then, far fewer to be remembered now). Followed by speeches. Oh, joy. Speeches. I paid for this, and drove 3 hours to attend? Never again.

That same friend was in the habit of taking up his dining rights at college. In case you aren't familiar with the idea, a couple of times a year you can go and get a free meal alongside the fellows of your old college at high table. He loved it, but I don't know where to start on how horrendous this sounds to me. To begin with, though I ate in hall plenty of times as a student, the whole environment would be totally alien now, particularly from the senior combination room side (even those words worry me). But then there's the thought of eating a meal with a group of complete strangers who might expect some sort of intellectual conversation. Shudder.

This isn't the inverted snobbery of some Oxbridge graduates who wouldn't go back because they consider it elitist or something. I just would find the whole thing hugely cringe-making. Do people really enjoy putting themselves through such an ordeal? I'm afraid I don't understand it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope