Illness and Eccentricity

I must apologise for my absence yesterday, the reasons are twofold.

Firstly, I’m afraid, like those computers into which you are currently staring, I am not invulnerable to viruses. Have come down with a cold, and feeling sorry for myself. Men have it hard, though – the merest mention of a cold, and all females within hearing-distance thrown up their hands and cry “Man-cold! Man-cold!” Well, this is not a Man-cold, I am merely inconvenienced and grumbly. And consequently I’m not talking about books, just for today.

Instead, I have a lovely eccentric Oxford story, for those of you who like to hear about Oxford’s, erm, eccentricities.

At the end of our exams, each subject has ‘School’s Dinner’, where all the students and tutors for your subject, in your college, come together for a lavish dinner. The English one was yesterday, so of course Yours Truly was in attendance. I had asparagus, goat’s cheese mousse, mushroom ravioli, Summer pudding. Yum. But this all came with a side order of oddness – the tutor who arranged it is Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, affectionately known as ‘Bobby’ amongst his fond pupils. He decided it would be witty to write “Dress Code : Daring” on our invitations. Not black tie for this little gathering. And we chose not to follow our usual path, or taking everything Bobby says with a pinch (or a tablespoon) of salt – and, indeed, went a little daring. Daring in terms of ignoring usual dress decorum, anyway.

I went in my dressing gown.