Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 00:50:07 +0000 (GMT) From: Alyosha Efros Subject: Tales of Oxford "You disappeared like a gray donkey into the English mist..." -K.M. I am settling in, slowly, thoughtfully. Meanwhile, the impressionist autumn has faded into the winter grayness. But I am happy for the opportunity to stay indoors, to watch the raindrops slowly traverse the length of my window, behind them a black nothingness. I drink tea, I listen to the radio. It's wonderful to listen to the BBC! It's just so British! Last night they had an interview with former ambassador to the US. He talked about this and that, serious political issues, but then, in between, he would suddenly say something like "First hearing Robert Johnson was a revelation to me..." and then, all of a sudden, they are playing the Crossroads Blues. Turns out that this program, called "Desert Island Disks", all the people being interviewed get to play their favorite music. This is really a brilliant idea -- you can learn much more about a man by the music he likes than by what he says. Last week I was invited to have dinner in Formal Hall, at the High Table. It's a whole evening affair with suits, ties, and gowns. First, we went to the Buttery. There is one in every college and I suppose in the olden days it was where the students could buy butter and other food and drink. Now the butter is all but forgotten but the drinks are still good (although the colleges don't brew their own beer anymore). We had gin & tonics and I felt very sophisticated. Then, we went to the Senior Common Room to mingle with the Fellows and other guests (including, this time, a Serbian ambassador) and, of course, for more drinks (champagne). Suddenly, this penguin-dressed butler appears at the door with a broomstick, hits the stick against the floor and announces (now you won't believe me, but it's the truth!) in this booming British voice: "Dinner is Served"!!! I almost fell over laughing... The High Table is indeed a bit higher than the rest of the dining hall. It's sitting on this sort of a stage that is raised about one foot, just high enough so that if some student, on seeing his tutor at dinner, decides to come up and ask him a question about Feminism and the Holy Roman Empire, he will undoubtedly trip over and land face down right into his professor's soup. But anyway, the food's better at the high table and that's all that matters. First, grace is said in Latin. Our college is rather liberal, and the grace is very short, essentially two incoherent words that I am sure mean something like "let's eat!". I was seated in front of this huge, old don -- typical old white male that the modern progressives so despise. The booming laugh, the belly falling out of the suit, the amazing amounts of wine consumed -- he was great! "I tell you", he was yelling to me so that the entire Hall could hear, "this Oxford or Cambridge fame, it's all a bag of rubbish! I studied at Cambridge myself, and, you know what?", he leans over and proceeds in a booming whisper, "more than half of the students were quite thick! Yes, yes, very thick indeed. This is the greatness of our nation, to make do with thick people! For instance, I knew this chap, and he was quite styupid [not stupid, stYUpid - AE], and everyone knew that, so they made him the director of the BBC. And he is doing a marvelous job there!"... After dinner everyone goes down to a smaller hall for "second desserts" -- nuts, exotic fruit, hand-made chocolates, and of course port, three kinds. With port, you always have to keep passing it around the table, so that whenever a glass is becoming less than full, the situation is quickly remedied. After that, it's back to the Common Room for tea, coffee, and whiskey. At this point, I can't drink anymore, so I look around and find this old book lying on a table. Turns out it's a "Betting Book". It starts around the turn of the 20th century with entries like this: "Mr. Simmons wagers Mr. Smith a bottle of 1927 Port that the British Rugby Team will not make the finals next year due to war being declared against Germany" (signed, witnessed, and dated sometime in 1939). Then there was more drinking, more talking. I was arguing with a theologian whether Artificial Intelligence is possible (we both had quite a lot to drink at that point, so he was arguing that yes, it's possible, while I declared that it's not, on religious grounds). I went home around 1am, taking a slow walk along the deserted ancient streets before finally disappearing in the December mist... Then, this weekend, I went to London for Thanksgiving with Kristof and visiting Hannah. It was great, just like the old times -- Bach on the radio, wine on the table, food prepared by Safeway (yes, Kristof found a Safeway even here!), plus my salad, plus Hannah's mashed potatoes, plus Kristof's advice on cooking. With all his Lukach education, Kristof is a capitalist piglet, if I ever saw one! This apartment that he somehow has access to (no details are given: "oj-oj-oj, it's zeeeery triiicky") is amazing -- right on the Thames, with a view of the Tower of London and its own maria with sail boats! Very decadent. We went to Tate Modern, which, to my surprise, I really liked. We also saw a wonderful Ibsen play, somewhere on the edge of the city, in a tiny theatre above some pub (yes, you can buy beer and bring it in). It was an incredibly powerful performance, very much in the Russian theatrical tradition (very emotional, almost, but not quite, melodramatic), and I felt very guilty that these wonderful actors were slaving away for three hours just for the 30 or so of us (the place doesn't fit more). But apparently, this is normal here... We also went to a Bach and Ligeti piano recital that was held in a museum full to the brim with Rococo paintings. Predictably, the pianist's name was Gabor. We also dropped by to the National Gallery (all museums in London are free, so you can, in fact, just drop by to look at your favorite painting during your lunch break) and Kristof showed us the famous Van Eyk painting with the mirror that I, for some reason, was in vain looking for in the Louvre. Then I took the tube back to the station ("mind the gap"), and back to Oxford. As I was getting into the train, it started to rain again. -a. Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 19:26:55 +0000 (GMT) From: Alyosha Efros Subject: A Sunday Walk Today, all of a sudden, the sun was shining right through my frosted window and the sky was of that striking winter blue that only happens after a week of rain or snow. I am certain that it is these bright cheerful mornings, that arrive so suddenly, which keep us alive. I got out of bed, ate an apple, and set off through the bright, smiling streets toward the center of town. Yesterday was the end of term and now all the students were busy moving out (papa Brits and mama Brits in their little Volkswagens coming to take their hungover sons and daughters home for the holidays -- very charming!). I crossed the town and walked for a while along the Oxford canal, which is lined with moored, brightly painted barges complete with their own mailboxes and names like "Mike's Lizard" and "The Hobbitat". After about a mile I left the canal, crossed a huge grassy meadow and finally got to my goal -- the River Thames. The day looked even more beautiful reflected in the surface of the river, with ducks and geese and swans, and little ripples carried upstream by the steady breeze. I joined the Thames Path (a tow-path which starts from the source of the Thames and ends 180 miles later in London) going upstream. I crossed some more meadows which endlessly go right into the horizon, and after a couple of miles came to Godstow Lock, next to the ruins of the the Godstow Nunnery. The Nunnery was founded in the 12th century and had quite an exciting if not too righteous history (it was known for its "hospitality" toward the young monks of Oxford while one of it's nuns, Rosamund the Fair, was a mistress of Henry II) until it was destroyed in the 17th century during the Siege of Oxford. The meadow next to the ruins was apparently the picnic spot where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (who took his boss's three daughters Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddel on a boating trip up from Oxford on a particularly hot summer day), first started telling them the story with the White Rabbit. On the other side of the river is the famous Trout Inn, a great riverside pub (if you ever seen Inspector Morse on TV you will recognize the place). The pub apparently serves very good fish, but I wasn't too hungry so I just had a glass of gluwien before setting off again. After another mile I came up to King's Lock -- a cute little manual lock with a cute little lock-keeper's house and a sign outside the door giving the instructions on how to operate the lock if the lock-keeper is away. I wondered a bit further but it was apparent that the river won't come to a bus stop any time soon and, as the sun was already hanging a bit too close to the horizon, I decided to turn back. On the way back, I stopped by the supermarket and bought a bottle of port to keep me company. -a. Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 21:41:40 +0000 (GMT) From: Alyosha Efros Subject: Another Sunday on the Thames It's Sunday, once again. This time I went downstream, 8 miles along the Thames to Abingdon (from Jerome K. Jerome: "Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller order -- quiet, eminently respectable, clean, and desperately dull"). It was a very quiet, beautiful walk, with short spells of sunshine sandwiched between huge rolling clouds. No one was around for miles... I was happily slurping along the muddy path, munching on an apple, singing sad Russian songs when suddenly I came upon a little old lady. She had a red coat and a wooden stick and was going the same direction I was but very slowly, stopping every so often, she said, "to look at the birds which just flew in from Russia for the winter". I jokingly answered "me too" and turned to take a picture. When I was done, the little old lady was nowhere to be seen! I looked around and finally, far in the distance where the path meets the horizon, I was able to spot her bright red coat just before it disappeared. I started off along the path again. I was putting in good speed now, my shoes sending the mug flying in all directions: pluf, pluf, pluf. I didn't sing anymore, didn't look around, even threw away the apple, but it was all in vain. An hour later I practically ran into Abingdon without catching up with her. Completely exhausted (not to mention humiliated), I tried to repair my wounded pride with a pickle bought from a Polish store before flagging down a friendly Oxford bus which whisked me back home to safety. The morale of this sad tale is simple: say what you will about British women, but they can run really fast. -a. Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:45:57 +0000 (GMT) From: Alyosha Efros Subject: Oxford Tidbits * * * I love reading English signs, notices, and advertisements. In Marks&Spenser supermarket, I saw a sign: "A Funny Little Number" on the package of a fruit that looks a cross between an apple and a pear, but tastes like neither. At the corner of Cornmarket and Broad Street, I read a notice: "For your own safely, please wait until the GREEN MAN shows up." * * * Last week I had guests. They refused my apples so I went to the supermarket to buy some bread. I couldn't decide which one of the pre-proccessed, pre-packaged, pre-cut loaves I should buy, so I asked a nearby kind-looking lady, which one is the best-tasting bread. "Ohhh," she said, quite puzzled, "I really don't know. I don't pay attention to taste, I just eat it". * * * English often name places in quite poetic ways. In Cotswards there are towns with names like: Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Norton, Stow-on-the-Wold, The Slaughters, and the ever so honest Moreton-in-Marsh. But my favorites are actually very close by: a little street in Oxford called Turn Again Lane, and a lovely nearby village named Littlemore. * * * Balliol College of Oxford University recently held a meeting to discuss the way housing is allocated to its Fellows. Currently, the priority is given to older members of the College but Fellows with children have argued that housing should be granted on the basis of need. At this point an old don rose up and proclaimed: "Do we really want to reward people for their lack of self-control?" -a. fully in control