Over my three days in Cambridge I seem to have avoided capturing anything about the sociability of the conference I’ve been attending. So be it. The Sidgwick site is the utilitarian side of the University, none of this medieval architecture stuff: faculty rather than college buildings. But it was a decent place to spend half a week. Clare thinks this sculpture looks like ‘Minecraft Man’, by the way.
Another one of those shots that is basically an attempt to achieve some kind of perfect symmetry. Of course we are all imperfect beings so once again I cannot quite achieve it. I did wonder about asking the bloke at the back to move one seat to his left but perhaps he is the essential element that sets off everything else. Taken about fifteen minutes before our group presented at the conference — a few more people than him did turn up, honestly.
An exhibit in the Centre for Computing History, in Cambridge: basically a large unit on an industrial estate full of absolutely every old home computer and game system ever released (anyone remember the Jupiter Ace, for example?) — geek heaven in other words. This exhibit is, apparently, all real landfill waste from somewhere in the USA — disposed of after the Atari market collapsed in 1982, all because of a very cruddy E. T. game, apparently. So it can now seem a metaphor for our consumer society, or something. Good museum though.
Did I do punting on the Cam back in January, when I first came to Cambridge? Well, bugger it. I’m depicting it again. There are reasons.
Having never been to Cambridge in my life until January this year, it’s a definite discovery of 2016. I returned today for a seminar and will be back there in a fortnight, too. Parts of it are as beautiful as anywhere I have ever been, like a fairytale almost, particularly with the golden leaves of autumn. This picture depicts none of that, but I like it anyway; most of the place seems to look something like this, including all the bicycles.
By many reckonings, the University of Cambridge is considered the best in the world. Today was my first-ever visit there, and what struck me is that it’s so goddamn small. Even Oxford feels like a city, but this place is just a little town in the Fens. Beautiful though, even on another grey January day (I’ve literally seen ten minutes of sunshine all year thus far). I thought I might struggle to catch a photo of a punt, but there were loads of them on the River Cam, including two for the price of one in this shot. Tourists on the right, but the guy on the left does look as if he is just using the punt as your basic local transport option.
Being 42 