Category: Cambridge
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The Cambridge-Heidelberg Youth Orchestra in 1972
In 1972, with a number, I can't remember how many, of other young Cambridge musicians, I was selected to be part of the exchange trip to Heidelberg. These began in 1962, hence the fiftieth anniversary celebrations at which I write these reminiscences. In alternate years a group would make its way from one city to…
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Fest-Konzert ‘O Fortuna”
I am in Heidelberg for the fiftieth anniversary of the Cambridge-Heidelberg-Montpellier youth orchestra and have just heard the most sensational concert. I was last here forty years ago when I was lucky enough to be picked as one of the Cambridge contingent to visit Heidelberg for ten days of rehearsals, culminating in a concert at…
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Tower of porn (with apologies to Leonard Cohen)
Anne Jarvis, the University Librarian, disappointed her audience at Senate House by telling us that the undergraduate rumours that the tower of Cambridge’s University Library is stuffed full of pornography acquired under legal deposit are baseless. In fact, there is now a project to exploit and make known the riches of the collection in the tower,…
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Cambridge
In Cambridge for the first time since 2008, to attend the Cambridge Greek Play, and staying in a hotel opposite the house where I spent my childhood, I had the chance to reproduce nearly exactly the TAG route, that is to say, Trumpington and Grantchester, a family tradition. The word tag thus came to stand…
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Boat Race day
It’s a pleasant coincidence that this year the Oxford and Cambridge boat race should fall on my father’s birthday. He would have been ninety-eight, but he died thirteen years ago. It was an event he enjoyed immensely, for he was part of that peculiarly Cambridge medico-athletic milieu; it is also frequently referred to in the…
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Most highly flavoured gravy
Today, 25 March, is the feast of the annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. May I reassure regular readers that my normal stance of militant atheism has not given way to religious mania, still less to Mariolatry? I continue to strive for the day when all priests, rabbis, mullahs, lamas, shamen and other functionaries of…
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CYCO
I heard a piece of music on the radio that I had not heard for forty years, Torelli’s Trumpet Concerto. It is a commonplace piece of baroque writing for the trumpet, but the opening figure, played first by the orchestra and then by the soloist, has stayed in my head ever since I first heard…
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De Arte Natandi
Continuing to catch up with delayed posts, my attention was caught by a piece in the Guardian magazine a couple of weekends ago, on river and lake swimming. Two books have recently appeared on the subject, and this was a review by Margaret Drabble of one of them, by Kate Rew, published by the newspaper…
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Usque conabor
I’m not sure I would ever use my old school motto in a speech; it doesn’t seem to me to strike the right note. Mind you, mine, from the Perse school, was ‘qui facit per alium, facit per se’, that is to say who does things for others, does them for himself, an example of…
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Stanmer Park again
Yesterday I managed a short run round Stanmer park again, with Claire, Jana and Rainy, in spite of invigilation and meetings and the like.
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Last ever TAG?
I ran yesterday morning what might turn out to be my last ever TAG. Time: 46:47 Distance: 4.76 Pace: 9.52 (8.24)
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Four days to go, three runs in one post
There’s now four days to go to the Beachy Head Marathon. I’ve been in Cambridge, but have three runs to record, one at home, out to High and Over for a one hour trip, the first half hour in dry weather, but then the rain started; but I saw the ponies again. The second was…
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Barton, Comberton, Toft and Kingston
Training has been disrupted by family illness, and I lost a hill session I should have run on Saturday. Indeed I did not feel like running yesterday morning, but in the warm evening, after a day’s hospital visiting, I relived the stress with a 2 hour 15 minutes run out of Cambridge as far as…
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Two runs in one post again
I find myself back in Cambridge due to family illness. Monday was a rest day and I was unable to run on Tuesday, so yesterday and today I ran the sessions that should have been run on Tuesday and Wednesday, 4 X 1 km repetitions with 3 minute recoveries and a four mile easy run.…
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Two runs in one post: Saturday’s 5 mile easy and Sunday long run
Yesterday I ran a 5 mile easy run to Seaford front before the triathletes took over. Today, In Cambridge, I ran my long run to Haslingfield, beyond up Barrington Hill and a little way round the perimeter of the cement works. Saturday: Time: 48:02 Distance: 5.02 Pace: 9.34 (best 8.11) Average heart rate: 139 Sunday:…
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Trumpington and Grantchester
The weather is improving, indeed it may be hot for Sunday’s Seaford half-marathon. Being in Cambridge still, I ran the TAG route, with a little extra on the end as the Sheep’s Green bridge is still closed, and I have seen no sign of anyone working on it. I passed a swan’s nest in Grantchester…
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Trumpington and Grantchester
I had a wet run this morning, on the Trumpington and Grantchester route, with a little extra distance at the end because of the closure of the Sheep’s Green footbridge. Time: 49:15 Distance: 5.43 Pace: 9.04 (best 7.21) Average heart rate: 155 Total last week: 22.64, not very impressive, but on Tuesday I’m going to…
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Three runs for the price of one
I’ve been away for a while, so this post must combine three runs. Run 1: in Cambridge, I went out to Haslingfield on Easter Sunday morning, ran a circuit of the village, and back. It was cloudy. Time: 1:30:39 Distance: 9.45 Pace: 9.35 (best 7.40) Average heart rate: 149 Run 2: a slightly elongated version…