After four years at the University of Cantab, I wanted to stay in Cambridge partly because R was going to be there doing his master's and partly because I wasn't ready for London yet and the only other place I could imagine living was Oxford, which was where I grew up. Two years later, as more of my friends gravitated London-ward, I finally took the plunge and left Cambridge behind.

I'm glad I wasn't planning to get the 21:45 then...

I don't miss the crap shopping, the lack of independent espresso bars, the fact that not much happens, the killer bikes, the killer tourists or the crap transportation (see photo). But this evening, I went back to catch up with some old friends, and I remembered that there are some things I do miss about Nowheresville (these are all from the "town" rather than "gown" perspective):

• Spending a sunny Friday evening at one of the riverside pubs, sipping a G and T and watching the punt chaos on the Cam.
• The Arts Picturehouse -- a lovely independent cinema -- and reasonably priced cinema tickets.
• The prettiness of most parts of the city centre compared to London.
• Overhearing the random chatter of overconfident, over-intelligent and over-loud people (mainly students).
• Bumping into people you know: I was only in town for a few hours and I saw someone from my office and some guys from St Jocks'.
• After three years in London, the Nowheresville air felt incredibly clean.
• The almost eerie peacefulness: in the gown-dominated parts of town, like Pembroke Street, even on a summer Friday night, you can roam the streets and meet only a handful of quiet, civilised folks.

I wouldn't want to live in the countryside. Hell, I did live in the countryside for 16 years and to deal with crappy bus services that only ran until 6 pm, lack of entertainments in my village, strange village people, and poor to non-existent mobile phone signal, among other things. Even Oxford, the nearest big town, isn't exactly a cosmopolitan mecca and only managed to acquire a multiplex a few years ago. Nowheresville, where I spent the next four years of university and the following two years of work life, certainly isn't a cosmopolitan mecca either. They had a French movie star/director there once though and they have a Wagamama now.


So, I don't exactly regret my decision to move to London--far from it, in fact--but sometimes I do feel a little nostalgia for the countryside. Like when I miss my cats, for example (city kitties are so much less cute than country cats), or when it's a sunny Saturday and perfect weather for a barbecue, or when it's a Sunday afternoon in which the weather is alternating between bright sunshine and torrential rain and I really want to go for a roast dinner in a cosy pub in the middle of nowhere. Not that London pubs aren't nice but on some Sundays, only a country pub will do. I was back in the Shire this weekend, anyway, and having pursued town pursuits for most of the weekend (dinner at Quod, running in Christchurch meadow during another deluge, surprisingly successful shopping at Bicester Village while the sun was out), it was time for some country activities.


We had surprisingly good weather for our BBQ on Saturday night and then drove off towards Henley at lunchtime today. For our pub lunch, we chose the Crooked Billet, a 17th century pub near Nettlebed. Dick Turpin apparently hid there once and it seemed to be quite well regarded on the Sunday lunch front (and the parents had been there before). I was quite intrigued by the guinea pig menu, which is neither a menu for guinea pigs or containing them but in fact offers some of the new dishes the chef is working on and would like to test out. We all opted for the roast beef plus trimmings, which was suitably epic. I just about managed to find room for a slice of white chocolate cheesecake with frozen berries, as well.

The mediocre espresso was the only thing that let the side down really. Well, and the lack of mobile phone signal, but that's hardly the pub's fault. The place was packed full, even at 2.45 when we left, so it was lucky we booked. Had the weather been more clement we would have been able to carry out another classic countryside activity--walking off lunch--but sadly, we had to head to the world's most depressing branch of Habitat, which resembled a pound store but with ridiculously high prices.

Maybe it's not so bad to be back in the Big Smoke...

This year, St Jocks' turned cinq cents and as part of the celebrations, the annual May Ball was bigger and better than ever and, importantly for me, provided more tickets than usual for alumni, although apparently, I was still pretty lucky to win a double ticket in the ballot. While I was a student I went to our college's Ball every year — yes, there are other balls to try but the college next door's is the only one that comes close and their tickets were too hard to obtain. It was the same every year (technically, the themes changed from year to year but this had minimal effect on the overall experience) but it was fantastic every year and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


After a five year break, it was fantastic to come back and celebrate St Jocks' from MDXI to MMI. Actually, although the Ball was bigger, it wasn't all that different from most of the others I attended. There was a huge range of different food and drink on offer. I consumed, in approximate chronological order: strawberries and Champagne, pick and mix sweets, a burger, a raspberry martini, a Curiosity Cola, some very fine cheese, a Pimm's-like Summer Cup, a blueberry cupcake, candy floss, a Yorkshire pudding (no room for beef), fish and chips, some treacle tart, a G and T, a bacon bap and some coffee. In small portions, of course, so I didn't fill myself up. Also on offer were: Bloody Margarets (in honour of the foundress), curries, hog roast, ice cream, a fruit mountain, pancakes and plenty more. The best thing is that the food and drink rarely runs out (unlike at lesser balls) and because the variety is so great, the queues are never too long.

Lotus Leap in "India"

The theme this year was the college's history, focusing on six notable alumni (a social reformer, a poet, a former PM, a polar explorer, the Indian PM and a science fiction writer) and the aforementioned foundress. They aren't necessarily the most famous alumni, although several of them have rooms named after them in college, but were clearly chosen in part to provide themes to the different sections of the Ball, each hosted in a separate court. One court, for example, became India, with a giant, gold elephant, a painting of the Taj Mahal, curry and Cobra beer, and a chill-out tent, as well as the stage for the main music acts. Another section, in honour of the polar explorer, held fake snow, penguins, frozen vodka and ice cream.

The Gents in action

The spectacular May Ball fireworks

And of course, the fireworks are always excellent. They seemed bigger, better and longer than usual this year but this might just be because I've had to put up with mediocre fireworks for the past five years. The Backs are the perfect setting for a spectacular show.

The weather behaved perfectly -- not a drop from yesterday afternoon until I left my B&B this lunchtime -- but I didn't miss being freezing and knackered at three am before the sun started to come up. With aching feet and only a shawl for warmth, you start to think, "maybe I should just go to bed." But we resisted, gambled away our chips in the casino, had some caffeine (in my case, poured most of the weak, milky but still scalding coffee over my hand), and were rewarded with a bacon sarnie and a great cover of Hey Ya by the Ella Funks before it was time for the aforementioned five am a cappella fun.


And then, at sometime after six-thirty, we sauntered away to catch a few hours of sleep, via a certain bridge for one last leap before sleep. I'm exhausted now but it was great to go back.

My alma mater is having something of a celebration having reached the ripe old age of 800. Actually, it turned 800 last year but apparently with all of last year's fun and games, they must have ran out of time for the grand finale--because sure, there's always so much going on in Nowheresville. Anyway, the said grand finale turned out to be a little son et lumière show, which I thought sounded a bit lame and which meant I didn't bring my camera into work today. This was a shame because it was actually very pretty and apparently so newsworthy that it even made the London free newspaper this morning.


Undeterred, I made a little detour to Market Square on my way home this evening, just in time to see Senate House--the very building in which I obtained my BA and my (ah hem) MA only a short time ago--all lit up and with a seriously cool PowerPoint presentation projected onto its walls. Nowheresville as you have never seen it before... There were also some crazy ass bells ringing too, which I suppose counted towards the son part of the entertainment.


I had no time to stop and stare so I just snapped a few iPhone pics by precariously sticking my hand between the bars of the fence around Senate House. Not a bad sight for what may well be my penultimate Monday in Nowheresville--ever. Well, until St Jocks' turns 500 next year and if they want me to ever donate money to the college, they had better have a really kick-ass party and they had better invite me. Then again, perhaps I'd settle for Clive Owen's image being projected across New Court...

The Tab, the new-ish Cambridge University tabloid-style news outlet, hadn't entered my radar until I heard its "Totty" section being mocked on The News Quiz and criticised in most of the rest of the country's papers. I don't particularly have a problem with hot, female Cambridge undergrads getting some of their kit off if they want to and the fuss over this seemed a little excessive. One piece posted on the website today did catch my attention, however: Cambridge vs Bridgeford.

I've always enjoyed quirky juxtapositions and this was cemented in place by the Italian literature course, Visions of Hell, which I took in my second year of university, Dante's Divine Comedy being a classic melting pot of high and low style, with popes and priests being punished alongside pimps and prostitutes. This means that I've never really been too ashamed of watching trashy shows such as Gossip Girl, as long as they are interspersed with the occasional deeper, more meaningful diversion. Besides, Gossip Girl is actually quite well written with a very sharp and funny script and the odd bit of decent acting; it can't be so bad if the Daily Intel blog tags it the Greatest Show of Our Time.

After a dearth of fiction in my life for the past few months, the past five books I have read have all been novels, most of them enjoyable while none of them spectacular. I suppose that too much time spent reading non-fiction has taught me to become too much of a speed reader, skimming over certain paragraphs and details, in an attempt to get to the end of the book - and the next book! - as quickly as possible. Of course, my skim-reading skills also stand me in good stead for novels, too, but only those where the substance is more important than the style. I was almost entirely ambivalent about The Alchemist, for example - probably because I read it too fast and didn't take the time to lap up the language, while Dana Vachon's Mergers and Acquisitions - the tale of a mediocre i-banker in NYC, who seems to lead a charmed existence, which ultimately turs out to be far emptier than he had ever imagined - went down very well (OK, so any book set in New York is already starting out on a good note).

The latest book to add to my read-in-2008 list was recommended by Maman, which would normally have meant that I might not have bothered (she is an incredibly slow reader, taking weeks or months to finish a book I would have devoured in an afternoon or a nuit blanche, and so we tend to enjoy completely different types of novel): Rebecca Stott's Ghostwalk. I don't normally go for ghost stories/hauntings/supernatural/spiritual bollocks, but this one provided satisfactory alternative, rational explanations for some of the goings on.

The main reason I bought the book was because it was set in Nowheresville - in fact, you could say that Nowheresville was the biggest character although, to put it mildly, this ain't exactly the equivalent of New York in Bonfire of the Vanities. There were references to local pubs, colleges, story-telling punt chauffeurs, the fact that there are no mountains between Nowheresville and Siberia (hence the fact it's always damn cold), rowers, familiar street names - even my gym got a mention. The basic plot is that after Lydia's friend Elizabeth is found dead in the river outside her house, Lydia returns to Nowheresville for the funeral after years of escape in Brighton, only to hook up with her old flame, Cameron, who is Lydia's son, a brilliant neuroscientist whose wife eventually became too much of a strain on Lydia. Cameron hires Lydia to finish the book Elizabeth was writing about Isaac Newton, alchemy and some suspicious deaths in the 17th century - only the deaths seem to be being echoed in the present day (history repeating itself but not as farce here), as well as all sorts of other funny business, and Lydia must work out what Elizabeth found out before she died so that she can set old ghosts (metaphorical and - maybe - physical) to rest. After all, "you have to know the past to understand the present" - according to Carl Sagan, anyway.

Long extracts from the book Elizabeth/Lydia are writing are copied out in the novel but I couldn't be bothered to read them properly (and I don't think it affected my enjoyment of the book) but I liked the rest of the novel enough to plough through it very quickly. Although it is a thriller, it is hardly full of action scenes - in fact, much of the action happened 400 years before the story was set - and seems to move along langorously, carefully and very, very precisely, like a diligent historian might. Dry, detailed explanations of Newton's experiments in alchemy are juxtaposed with tender, bittersweet scenes between Cameron and Lydia. In fact, much of the book is told in the second person - Lydia is addressing Cameron, telling him her story - her whole story - for the first time, as though she is finally able to be fully honest and the effect is that an air of sadness hangs throughout, which you might expect in a murder-filled novel and yet, really, it is more a sadness for times past, experiences lost, memories faded and friends separated.

There are plenty of other sub-plots, themes and contrasts as well as the interactions, entanglements and oppositions of the past and the present - art and science, research and animal ethics, the logical and the supernatural, love and loss, friendship and fear - but in all, Ghostwalk was a pretty engaging read (not to mention the fact that it has characters and a plot - oh, and dialogue - all of which have been somewhat lacking in this year's forays into non-fiction).

I almost forgot, this morning, that I promised myself I would go for a run - outdoors and not on a treadmill - if the weather was nice enough but I remembered just in time, although the warm sun was rather deceptive given the strength of the wind. Back in my rowing days, I would row up and down the section of the River Nowhere between the two locks in town, several times a week but since then I have only really been as far as Tesco and even then only on a couple of occasions.

Actually, this is the first time I've been running in Nowheresville for years. Fed up with the small college gym, which was always full of the rugby jocks, I got into the habit of just running out of the back of college and through the science labs until I reached the village of Coton (sure to be pronounced "coh-un" given it's in the coun'ry), which sits in pride of place next to the world's most budgety motorway. I went to the more picturesque village of Litte FamousTeaRooms on a couple of occasions but was convinced I was going to get killed by the people who drive to the village in as crazy a manner as I do.

This was 2004, though, and I had yet to discover the joys of podcasts and I couldn't quite keep myself entertained just by listenig to music for more than about 30 minutes. In fact, I'm amazed I survived without podcasts as long as I did - I used to use the same playlist while running or at the gym, week after week, making only a few tweaks every so often. Now, I'm so used to being educated or entertained while running that I couldn't imagine doing it without a podcast (the possible exception being New York, where the cityscape is enough for me). Let's just say that I'm not exactly Thoreau or Emerson when it comes to quiet contemplation or reflection; no, I need constant aural or visual stimulation.

In any case, showered and changed, I now feel chilled out and as though I have earned a drink to go with my lunch with PhD Linguist. I am just hoping that I make it through the landfill site that the grass next to the fairground is bound to have become. Maybe I'll go the long way.

OK, I'm happy now; I have found a place in Nowheresville that produces a reliably good cappuccino (well, three times out of three, anyway): The Black Cat Café on Mill Road. I was meeting my friend for brunch and actually managed to get out of my house and over to Mill Road for a time that was still a.m. and the meal was thus worthy of the title "brunch."


Being all Californian and healthy, my friend just had a herbal tea and an egg-white omelette, but I went pigged out on (delicious) pancakes with maple syrup (American style pancakes, not crêpes) and a cappuccino. I didn't even mind that they had put chocolate on top (I don't like to mix the two pleasures of chocolate and coffee) as a) they used chocolate syrup and not cheap-ass Nesquik powder and b) it was so beautifully applied in the design of the Tudor Rose - artistic enough to give even Joe, The Art of Coffee a run for its money.

It may not be Marylebone High Street but the Black Cat was bustling this morning, so much so that CD and I had to allow people to perch at the edge of our table, which was already overflowing with crockery and the Grauniad (in which I learned that two favourite bands of mine are on tour in the UK and the restau the Graun believes the best NYC burgers are found). Definitely not a bad Saturday morning, by any means.

While uploading some of my holiday photos to the (no longer quite so irritating but still damn slow) flickr this morning, I was reminded of the striking contrast between autumn in Nowheresville and autumn in Mont Tremblant, just north of Montreal. Here are two photos of the same ilk, for comparison; I don't need to say which is which.

Almost by chance, I ended up going to see a French film at the Arts Picturehouse yesterday. I was beginning to lose faith in recent movies altogether and so perhaps it was partly because of this that I enjoyed Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) so much. Or maybe it was because the advance preview screening of the film involved a Q&A session with the director afterwards. It was only as the opening credits rolled that I realised that as Guillaume Canet was the director and as the director was going to be in the cinema after the film, therefore Guillaume Canet was going to be in the cinema after the film (go, go, propositional logic!).

In about 2000, everyone read Alex Garland's book The Beach, myself not excepted, though opinions were much more mixed about the film version, starring Leo DiCaprio. I loved it and even went to see it twice, partly because of the soundtrack and partly because Canet was playing the role of Étienne, the guy whose girlfriend Leo's character stole. More recently, I loved Jeux d'Enfants (Love Me If You Dare) about childhood friends who, since the age of about 8, have been involved in an increasingly high-stakes game of dare and mess with each other's heads and hearts a lot in the process.

I wasn't aware that Monsieur Canet had branched out into the world of direction but Tell No One was pretty awesome (gripping, convoluted, moving thriller with a strong emphasis on the love and passion the main character feels for his wife and with a fantastic score apparently composed in only two hours) and the Q&A was great too, Guillaume being very funny and witty and, well, sexy! For example, one of the scenes involved the main character having to run across the périphérique in Paris as part of a big chase scene, which involved this massively busy road being shut off for a whole day, close to Charles de Gaulle airport. Being France, no one announced this until the day itself at which point all of the local radio stations named, shamed and blamed Canet for the delays.

Incidentally, the film is based on the "best-selling US thriller of the same name by Harlan Coben" and some American director originally had the rights to make a film version starring George Clooney or Keanu Reeves (Monsieur Canet was not consistent in this anecdote but with those two, I'm easy either way!) but that was very different from the book (and from Canet's film). For example, the main character remarried after his wife's death in this US version because "it just isn't believable that George Clooney could stay single."


I was cursing afterwards though when I morphed into a fangirl and ran off to get his autograph as I had forgotten to bring my camera with me (or not thought that I might need it) and my mobile phone is pretty '90s and so I had to make do with an autograph in my Moleskine.

Below: Magdalen College Chapel Tower and Magdalen Bridge



If I were in Oxford now, I would probably still be in the pub, staying in for a lock-in before heading off to Magdalen Bridge at 6 a.m. to hear the choir of Magdalen College sing from the top of their chapel tower. Late-night drinking laws have meant that lock-ins have become a less enticing option if not a complete anachronism.

Having grown up in Oxford, I assumed that May Morning was a national event but my enjoyment thereof was always thwarted by the fact that a) I lived in a tiny village outside of Oxford and was - until the age of 18 - without a car and b) I almost always had school the following day. I was so excited when I went up to Cambridge and found that I was living in the centre of town - party on! Or not... I was sad to discover that the celebrations this side of the world are, like most things, less exciting than outside of Nowhereshire.

The first May Morning I went to, I was about ten. I camped in the garden with my dad and brother the night before and then we all went into Oxford at about four-thirty. The town was heaving and we watched some morris dancing in Radcliffe Square before going to watch the singing.

The last May Morning I attended (on account of studying in the Other Place, which is now my "here") was during my last year of school. I stayed up drinking in the pub until midnight, got a lift home, slept until 3 a.m. and then drove back into town to work a 5-hour shift in the Sandwich Shop of Dreams, which was right next to Magdalen Bridge. That shift was pretty entertaining given that all of the customers were absolutely wasted and in serious need of coffee and bacon sarnies, hence orders such as, "Give me two quadruple espressos and a large breakfast bap!" were the norm. At 8 a.m. I drove to school and had a full day of lessons and then, as if all that wasn't enough, drove to my rowing club after school for a two-hour outing on the river! Not everyone's idea of fun but it was certainly an experience.

I imagine that 1st May, 2007 will pass - as most days tend to in Cambridge - without event. At least us Cambridge students are far too sensible to throw ourselves off bridges into water that is way too shallow (ah hem - except during May Week, but that's not until June!), despite the police's best attempts to prevent them from doing so and thus spending May Day in hospital. In comparison, work seems almost fun.

Perhaps I’m too cynical for my own good but when I heard that Wagamama, the now ubiquitous chain of Asian fusion noodle restaurants, were opening a new branch in Cambridge this week (they must know they have hit it big when they open a branch in Cambridge) and were offering a free lunch to all of those quick enough to sign up for a slot from the cunningly hidden link on the website, I was convinced it was too good to be true.

“Certainly, Madam. Here’s the bill for your free lunch…”

Nonetheless, a bunch of us signed up and booked our slot at 1.30p.m. today and when we turned up, they were even able to seat all seven of us together at the semi-communal tables. The staff were all helpful and eager-to-please and it turned out that the free meal didn’t consist of a measly side dish; far from it, in fact: we were each entitled to choose one main and one side dish from the menu, along with two drinks (and free bottled water).

The meal selection process was a little simpler for me than for the others on account of my extreme fussiness, but there was one dish whose ingredients were all to my liking – yaki soba, which consisted of an alpine mountain of noodles, chicken, ginger, peppers, sesame and spring onion. I tried some negima yakitori (chicken kebabs) on the side and washed it all down with a couple of juices, one being apple and lime (which I had tried before at their Knightsbridge branch) and the other being a mixed fruit juice, both of which were delicious and certainly a refreshing change from the generic carton-ed liquid you usually find in restaurants.

We were presented with a bill at the end but this was only so that we could correctly calculate the (optional, of course) gratuity. 10% worked out at about £2 each – not bad for a two course meal with two drinks.

And there was no catch! We just filled in some comment cards on our way out and promised we would be back (which, given how cheap the main courses were, seems like a sure thing).

• What is the metal extracted from bauxite? Aluminium

• What does someone with ophidiophobia fear? Snakes

• Which former soap star had a hit with the song All I Wanna Do? Dannii Minogue

• Which flower's name means lion's tooth? Dandelion

• What is a mistral? A wind (in Provence)

At least, they are (mostly) indisputable facts, though. Other things are much more ambiguous and that is where the trouble begins... Here's a tougher question: was Karl Marx correct when he said that history tends to repeat itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, and if so, who is laughing right now?