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    Anyone spot themselves in these?

    Just to shit-disturb, I'll leave this here.

    https://us.cnn.com/style/article/daf...rah/index.html

    #2
    That has almost made me physically unwell.

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      #3
      I might as well confess that I did go to a couple of New College balls in my early twenties. Never became one of the beautiful people, though. And I still can't afford my own property.

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        #4
        In the mid-80s, as a young teenager living in Oxford, the idea of the New College Ball (or the Christchurch Ball, or the St John's Ball or... well, you know) seemed impossibly romantic and awesome. Live music, hot girls, never ending champagne. You could hear the music, you heard rumours of sex and drugs, of people climbing over college walls to break in. As a 14 year old with little self-awareness, it seemed like one of the best things ever.

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          #5
          I’ve underestimated the impact of your youth as a Thirsty Townie, SB

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            #6
            Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
            In the mid-80s, as a young teenager living in Oxford, the idea of the New College Ball (or the Christchurch Ball, or the St John's Ball or... well, you know) seemed impossibly romantic and awesome. Live music, hot girls, never ending champagne. You could hear the music, you heard rumours of sex and drugs, of people climbing over college walls to break in. As a 14 year old with little self-awareness, it seemed like one of the best things ever.
            I always wondered whether the "climbing over walls to get in" thing happened all that often. How do you do that in white tie?

            As for the sex and drugs - no more than you'd expect from anyone that age, I'd have thought. More coke than pot.

            It's not something I look back on with arcadian nostalgia, but I'm sure some do.

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              #7
              Sure...rub it in, just as he's getting over it.

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                #8
                I was a townie, but from an academic family, so I didn't view the university's less palatable traditions with the disdain that they may have deserved.

                It was, of course, the Coke and Champagne that appealed - we all knew that there was beer and pot in our future, but glamourous-drugs-and-booze was another thing.
                Last edited by San Bernardhinault; 17-09-2018, 15:17.

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                  #9
                  And whither Benita Douglas-Robertson? I'd love to hear her thoughts on that pic today.

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                    #10
                    I always wondered whether the "climbing over walls to get in" thing happened all that often. How do you do that in white tie?

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                      #11
                      She apparently still uses her maiden name, and is Principal Under Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                        Oh, well if you're allowed to have a duck on your head, then of course that makes it much easier.

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                          #13
                          That's not me jumping over that burning boat in 1984, but I did stand next to a burning boat in 1991. It's a tradition for colleges who've won the Head of the River, I think. I remember at the time thinking it was a bit much, and I can't stand rowing. But I did have a great time at the celebration dinner to which I cadged a free ticket.

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                            #14
                            I went to a May Ball and did the jumping over a burning boat thing.

                            The upper classes essentially used a classic rope-a-dope strategy in the 1980s. They managed to convince the mass of less objectionable people that their nonsense was a quaint and picturesque throwback that could be indulged (to a degree) because they were on the way out. It hasn't really panned out like that.

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                              #15
                              People used to climb over the wall to get into the Fly Club Garden Party (which was the closest that "we" got to this kind of thing, but was nowhere close (for one thing, it started in the early afternoon and didn't require any tie, let alone white tie).

                              Doing so was just performative, though, as it wasn't hard to get invited if you had any interest in going.

                              I wonder how the boat burning tradition has been effected by the transition to fibreglass and composite shells.

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                                #16
                                It was still going in 2009. A student got badly burned.

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                                  #17
                                  So that's what happened to all of our wooden shells.

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                                    #18
                                    Looks like this is fairly recent.

                                    https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/maggie-ret...ship-may-bumps

                                    St John's Cambridge burned "an old boat". How does this work, do they have burnable old boats? Or does a local Arthur Daley phone up the winners about 5 o'clock on the Saturday with a suitable boat?

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                      I wonder how the boat burning tradition has been effected by the transition to fibreglass and composite shells.
                                      When I was there (late '80s) the competitive eights were already using those, but there were plenty of wooden clunkers left for the novice and social boats to use before meeting a fiery end. Presumably the supply will eventually be exhausted, depending upon how successful the college is. The university would like to ban the practice, because it is as stupid an idea as it looks, but the individual colleges still sanction it. The Junior Common Room (the undergraduate body) can also vote not to allow boat burning, but a lot of students still enjoy the dressing up and twatting about side of things.

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Lucy Waterman View Post
                                        She apparently still uses her maiden name, and is Principal Under Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union.
                                        Why am I not surprised by this information?

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                                          #21
                                          She's on Facebook as well and seems to be having a nice life - lots of pictures of her on tropical beaches.

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                                            #22
                                            One of the many weird things about my old pile of bricks is that "our" Junior Common Rooms were just rooms.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                              One of the many weird things about my old pile of bricks is that "our" Junior Common Rooms were just rooms.
                                              You are being too polite; just a room ought very much to be the default setting here.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                                Why am I not surprised by this information?
                                                Afraid I was being facetious.

                                                She is actually the first lady of Cambodia.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by Lucy Waterman View Post
                                                  Afraid I was being facetious.

                                                  She is actually the first lady of Cambodia.
                                                  Your credibility is falling apart by the minute.

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