Fitzwilliam Museum

Backtracking a bit, I visited the Fitzwilliam museum for the first time on Saturday. It's incredible, for sure the best university museum I've ever visited, and probably the best art museum I've visited (so far) as well, although Philadelphia's is pretty good too. The renaissance art collection was impressive, as were the antiquities, but finding myself in a single room with four Monets and a Van Gogh was incredible. There was one Dutch painting in particular that I couldn't take my eyes off, it was so intricate and beautifully executed.

The tour of the Fitz was organized by the "Fellow Borderer" at Johns, a retired professor of Italian and Classics who has created this position for himself, supposedly to serve as a bridge between the fellows and the graduate students, but considering how gregarious the man is, I think it's more likely the main purpose was just to give himself a continuous stream of social events to organize and attend.

Wound up at a fun post-Halloween party afterwards, where among other costumes were "Hawaiian Punch" (a married couple, one dressed as a Hawaiian tourist and the other as a boxer) and "The Van of Life" (a three man costume built around a gigantic cardboard box, representing a food van that sells greasy late night sustenance on market square.

Guy

I spent most of Guy Fawkes day in London for an interview, didn't get back to Cambridge until just as the fireworks were finishing: I saw the last burst of the display, I think, over the train station roof as I was walking down the platform, but that was it. Might have been my only Guy Fawkes day in the UK, too... but mulled wine at the SBR and a late night trip to Gardenia's for a pitta burger solved that problem. Unfortunately, I'm feeling pretty ghastly ill at the moment, but hopefully that will get better over the next day or two...

Corpus Formal Hall

On Friday night, I attended formal hall at Corpus Christi. I was actually a little late, because I was coming straight from the All Souls service at St John's Chapel, which had run over by about 15 minutes. I figured that if any excuse for missing the opening grace at Corpus hall would be acceptable, "I was at church" would work. Corpus has a beautiful hall: traditional, good balance, with lots of pelicans piercing their breasts scattered about. One little alcove has the walls painted blue, with silver stars. The food was good, and a couple of undergrad freshers down the table had their dessert pennied: usually, pennying involves dropping a penny into someone's wine, which they then must down immediately in order to "save the Queen from drowning;" in this case, it means they must eat their dessert without their hands. After Corpus hall, retired to Clare's MCR bar for Scotch, a bit of amateur matchmaking, and an absurd game of stairwell twister in suits and gowns.

Queen's Formal Hall

I attended Formal Hall at Queen's College last night and had a nice time. Free sherry before dinner in the "Q-bar" and a surprising number of other guests: simultaneously, Queen's was playing host to an exchange with Magdalene College in addition to St Johns. There are apparently two halls at Queen's: an old one and a new one, which is much larger. Because of the growth of the college, formals are now held in the new hall, which is huge but very modern and somewhat institutional in its architecture and design. Service was a mixture of "help yourself" (like Christ's) and direct service (John's). The food itself was fairly good, but I had heard that Queen's has a Michelin-star chef so I came in with high expectations. Apparently it's hit or miss, depending which chef has set the menu for each hall. Dessert was tasty, though: white chocolate fudge cake with raspberry sauce, and it was followed by a free glass of port in hall, something John's could learn from! No corkage fee for wine brought in, but there is a limit of one bottle per member of the college. Company was excellent, Queensmen (that's what they're called, apparently) sitting on one side of the table (a married couple, in my case) and guests on the other. Retired afterwards to the Q-bar for some refreshments - at which point I got a phone call from my advisor at 10pm. His first words? "Hello! Are... you at the pub?" Luckily, he was calling to let me know he has approved my thesis proposal - and conveniently enough, I didn't have far to go to celebrate.

Queen's Ergs

I had my first rowing competition Tuesday night: Queen's Ergs - an indoor rowing relay race on machines. The atmosphere was intensely competitive and exciting. Went down with a couple of teammates earlier in the evening (our heat wasn't until 9pm) and saw what it was all about, cheering on the Lady Margaret Boat Club (St Johns) boats in the earlier heats.

When it came down to it, our boat (LMBC M6: The Captain's VIII, aka "The Grad Boat," aka "Past our Prime") did pretty well. We placed second in our heat (out of 14), and came in sixth among all the lower-division boats. While we are technically M6 (the sixth men's boat at Johns), it's only because we're the grad boat, so we surprised a lot of people who never expected a decent performance out of a sixth boat. We beat three M1 boats, 14 second boats, and every third boat except our own LMBC M3.

After our own heat, and recovering with a drink in the Queens College Bar, we stayed around to support the three LMBC boats competing in the finals (W1, M1 and M2). Great atmosphere, cheering from the balcony, and I adapted a University of Florida tradition (orange/blue!) to Cambridge, leading an alternating "LM! BC!" between the two balconies. While Johns didn't take first in either final, the performances were impressive. Several friends were rowing for other colleges and did very well as well. While I didn't expect it at first, I now see how easy it is to get extremely competitive about rowing here. I can't wait to get in a few more water outings so we can get racing for Maggie on the river Cam as soon as possible.

And on that note, since I need to be at the boathouse at 7am tomorrow morning, it's time to sleep.

Solemn Sung Eucharist at Johns

Thanks to daylight savings time, I showed up for the Solemn Sung Eucharist this morning at St Johns Chapel an hour early - normally that would be upsetting, but it gave me the chance to join in chapel breakfast in the formal hall, at high table in between the 8:30 and the 10:30 services. There, chapelgoers eat breakfast (either continental, for free, or a cooked breakfast which is half-subsidized by the chaplain) together, then participate in the Johnian tradition of toast-slinging, which involves going out to the Old Bridge and trying to throw the leftover pieces of toast across the Bridge of Sighs - a feat I had previously imagined to be impossible, but after seeing two people come very close today, I think it's likely I'll see it accomplished this term.

The service itself was brilliant - the choir was excellent, as always, but the principal difference from the usual 10:30 service was the addition of incense and extra-formal attire worn by the clergy. Since it didn't take any longer than a regular service, and it was so nice an addition, I'm surprised they don't do the "solemn" mass more than once a term. As a Johnian, I wore a white surplice along with the other members of the college with whom I was attending. Some chapels may be bigger, some may be older, but in terms of overall experience and balance, so far St Johns remains unchallenged, at least for me.

This House has No Confidence in Her Majesty's Government

The Cambridge Union Society's debate Thursday night on the titular proposition was outstanding: entertaining, stimulating, and on a couple of occasions unintentionally funny. Speaking in favor of the motion were:

• Nick Herbert MP, Shadow Justice Secretary, who weakly accused the present government of hypocrisy and excessive "spin," leaving this observer with the sense that if that's the best criticism the Tories can put up, it's not surprising they've spent the last ten years in opposition.

• The Earl of Onslow, who proudly proclaimed himself a relic of the 18th century and whose anachronism was refreshing and entertaining.

• Iain Duncan Smith MP, Former Leader of the Conservative Party and by far the finest speaker of the night, who lambasted Labour for the state of the NHS, lack of promised improvement in inequality and poverty, and made it clear that a vote for the motion was not a vote for the Conservatives, but simply an indictment of Labour's failures.

In opposition to the motion:

• Quentin Davies MP, who defected to Labour several months ago and was roundly criticised by the other side for his floor-crossing, but was a very engaging and impressive speaker.

• Daniel Zeichner, current Labour candidate for the Cambridge area, who seemed a populist Labour leftist but a forgettable speaker.

• William Redfearn, Publicity Officer of the Cambridge University Labour Club, who I hear was notified just hours before that he would be replacing a local union leader on the slate of speakers and made a valiant attempt despite being thoroughly outgunned. The Earl of Onslow correctly but cruelly declared "A wise move," when Mr Redfearn indicated that he would be wrapping up his remarks.

The motion carried, 302 - 59, the opposite conclusion (naturally) from the one reached by the Oxford Union a few weeks ago.

In other news, the Union decided in the emergency debate beforehand that Facebook does not cause more harm than good. Between the "no confidence" debate and the unintentionally hilarious Qaddafi speech earlier in the week, I think I'm well on my way to getting my money's worth out of my Union membership.