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Back in 1989-90, I served as Deputy President (Services) of Cambridge University Student Union. CUSU had only three members of staff, plus a part-time assistant in the shop. My year was the first to have four sabbatical students union officers. At NUS meetings, I marvelled at the resources available to my peers at other institutions. My role ( Read more... )

In Loco Parentis: A light-hearted look at the role of a Cambridge Tutor is a memoir by Ken Riley, who was the Senior Tutor of Clare College, Cambridge, for 22 years from the 1970s to the 1990s, including my time there (1986-91). (If you want, you can download it from hereIt's actually rather interesting and a little peculiar to see college life ( Read more... )

Well, I had a tremendous time at Eastercon. The unprecedented fact that it had sold all available memberships beforehand boded well; and the hard work put in by the team paid off in almost every way.

( panels )

Anyone recognise this room?


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Back when I was an undergraduate I spent two years living in the "Colony", the sprawl of buildings owned by Clare College at the foot of Castle Hill. The central building of the complex is a late Victorian mansion called Castlebrae, which had the following inscription on a plaque in the front hall:
This house was originally the home of ( Read more... )

It's been the year for reunions. Back in April I went to the 25-years-on reunion for Rathmore Grammar School; and although Cambridge undergraduate courses are only three years long, combined with my year off between school and university and the fact that our year gets rolled in with the year below, we had the 20-years-on reunion for Clare College ( Read more... )

I note that two of the nominees for the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award are by graduates of Clare College, Cambridge. Marcel Theroux was a contemporary of mine - we both matriculated in 1986 and got our BAs in 1989. I didn't know him particularly well, but I do remember moving into a house on Newnham Road just after graduation as he was moving out of ( Read more... )

I took a detour from my usual intellectual pursuits at lunchtime yesterday and wandered over to my former workplace at CEPS, to hear the Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett talk about her book, Fool's Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe. I was CEPS' researcher on Balkan issues ( Read more... )

21) Starter for Ten, by David Nicholls. (.co.uk, .com)

I picked this up in Vienna, thinking, oh well, it's the book of the the film, and I'll probably never see the film, so it's a heavily-discounted and thus acceptable substitute. But in fact it turns out the be the source on which the recent film was based. And Dear God, I enjoyed this book.

OK ( Read more... )