Croquet in Cambridge (law-di-daw)

Myself and Quasi-Mojo took a trip to Cambridge, England this weekend to visit Diarmuid, play Croquet, and soak up a little of the life we'd like to have (and probably could have were we just a little more adventurous and willing to do the research to make it happen - which so far we're not).

Q-M rode for free as neither Ryanair, National Rail, nor Taxi Drivers charge extra for imaginary monkeys. Nonetheless, Quasi-Mojo declared loudly and repeatedly on our flight that he was not going to pay for his seat as he shared it with a six-year-old boy who kicked, grabbed, and otherwise molested him as if he were "some kind of unthunking gunk." He finds it difficult to express himself sensibly when he's bemuddled. I wouldn't have expected it, but he's actually a nervous flyer and does sit down for take-off and landing - not sure what he got up to during the flight as I was asleep but he usually finds some entertainment (the fewer questions asked the better) with the crew.

I was surprised to find myself enjoying croquet so much. It's quite a clever game and requires a fair bit of skill and finesse, but it happily proved to be both friendly to novices and cruel to more experienced players. Throw in pims, bad-losers, trash-talk, strawberries and cream, and more sandwiches than you can shake a croquet mallet at; and you've got yourself a very fun day indeed.

The formal dinner was attended with mixed degrees of formality from the expensive tuxedos (not that there are any cheap ones) with fancy cuff-links and shiny shoes to the post-fancy, perhaps even meta-fancy (or some other kind of ultra-modern-fancy that defies the usual coherence of lanuage for the sake of hyperbolae) which consits of something like ripped jeans with a tuxedo jacket. I also saw one guy in a skirt/kilt that I think was made from a shawl with a hat pin in it; very Jude Law (or equivalent) indeed! Personally the only innovations I made to the norm was wearing what was an entirely second-hand ill-fitting tux (bar the bow-tie which was new and fitted rather nicely thank you very much), the cuffs of which were linked with safety pins thanks to the 'you-always-forget-something factor' which unfortunately could hardly be mistaken for the deliberate fasion vrais-pas (?) mentioned earlier. From what I could see, the women were more traditionally clad - which I appreciated because I get confused rather easily. Hmmm. Well let's not turn this into a 'Hello' column. Moving along...


Very much like my last visit to Cambridge, it was the experience of the people I had the privilege to speak to and hang-out with that I valued most. I find Diarmuid's associates very interesting and receptive and surprisingly mute on their areas of research. Naturally,in the spirit of politeness and genuine curiosity, I did ask a lot of the time but it is generally something that isn't really considered socially important. This may have worked in my favour when one way or another it became suggested (possibly by me but that's beside the point) that I was an orphan, a juvenile delinquant or both as a result of my contact with bon jovi (I promise this stroy makes sense - it would just take too long to explain), but a stronger pssibility is that it was a sufficient deviation from the Cambridge norm to leave me looking quite sketchy and undesirable indeed. Funnily, my only regret is attempting to salvage some dignity and clarify the rumour. This attempt was poorly executed, and Quasi-Mojo mocked me at length for attempting it as it betrayed a certain soft-spot I was politely consealing as one usually does, and led to Quasi-Mojo continually doing kissy faces and conspicuously caressing a certain individual in an attempt to embarrass me. Thankfully I've become accustomed to his ways and talented at ignoring him when necessary.

Well let's not lose sight of the important things. Everyone in Cambridge is just delgihtful and I was taught a new word: defenestrate. The meaning of this word essentially is to summarise the cumbersome description, 'to throw out of a window'. Quasi-Mojo also learned something new: that he can stick paper with a (now patented) mixture of his own bodily secretions.

Didn't go punting in the end but a fine time was had by all.