Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but punting in Oxford is traditionally carried out from inside the boat. Whereas Cambridge, my preferred Boat Race choice, stalwartly stand on the back. It's just that I've got a hazy memory of being poled down the Cam by a friend many years ago, who stood safely within the punt, and as we passed King's a chap in another boat shouted out "Oxford bastard!'. So I soon learnt very quickly to balance myself on the stern (?) and only once have I been left stranded mid-stream hanging on to a slowly declining pole. So imagine my dismay on Sunday afternoon to poke my nose over Magdalen Bridge in Oxford and see this. The 'boater' is not just inside the craft, but lounging back with a bottle of Oasis and languidly pedalling. What on earth's going on? The last thing I expected to see on these hallowed waters was a pedalo. What next? Lilos on the bank? Windsurfing? Pink Lycra? Loudspeakers instead of May morning choristers on Magdalen tower? Hurrumph, hurrumph.
Kelsale, Suffolk
2 days ago
8 comments:
Oasis: a non-alcoholic beverage.
Sunday afternoon: not watching England demolish Les Bleus.
Ergo: obviously not students, no concept of tradition.
Stands the place-of-worship clock at 14:50?
And is there still a calorie-reduced-no-salt-chickpea-wrap for tea?
Oh Sue, you know there is.
yeah yeah - calm down! Quite obviously mistakenly identified as a shot fom Peter's recent trouser- running-in trip to Oxford, in fact this frame has been left "un-downloaded" from his earlier trip to Delhi, where infact the pedalo, (or water scooter) was invented.
Is this the next stage for us to become even more European?
Pedalos? On the Isis? I think I'll have to go and lie down. After a glass of Pimms of course.
I am pleased to say that I had never heard of Oasis, in the beverage sense of course. Is it a green drink? And is the glass rimmed with sand?
And those pesky bits of palm leaf between your teeth.
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