Tuesday, May 10, 2005

My team won last night! Yes, Corpus Christi College Oxford trounced University College London in the finals of University Challenge, and today I am basking in reflected glory. The triumphant victors - the bald guy who bounced up and down in his seat whenever he knew the answer, the chinese italian guy who has clearly done NOTHING except memorize encyclopedias since he was 3, the guy with the trendy haircut gone wrong who never answered anything unless it really really mattered, and the guy with floppy ginger hair who just could not conceal his utter joyfulness every time they banged another nail in the coffin of those losers from UCL - these are my fellow corpuscles, and their honour is my honour.

However, watching them did remind me of my time there back in the late 70s, when the place was full of similarly intimidating brainboxes. I arrived at Oxford fresh from the experience of being one of the cleverest boys in my school, to suddenly feel totally out of my depth swimming in this river of intellectual sharks. Along with the glory, watching the winning team last night also brought back some memories of that unnerving time.

2 comments:

Peter said...

Oh dear! When we finally get this wargame organized, it looks like it might be a grudge match....

Phil said...

The good thing is, neither of you were on the teams, and that's the only way you could have really cared about the outcome. As I tried to explain to Dad over again - he's not at Corpus any more, and he didn't help them win.