Well, after class, I should have gone to the library to grapple with string theory but instead the beautiful day beckoned me outside and I decided to embark on my first country cycle trip.
The whole album of photos including a little satellite map of my route can be found here.
I left at about 3pm and got back at about 4:15pm and had a thoroughly good and relaxing time. I obviously took it very slowly and stopped often to take photos and experience the sights. The most remarkable thing was the experience of getting away from Cambridge and getting some good fresh country air. It is worth pointing out that Cambridge is a small town with about as good country air as you can get but psychologically the trip made the excursion seem more adventurous than that. I suppose this is because everything I do on a day to day basis happens within a two square kilometre block. Getting out of that block was great!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the photos.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Master's Concerts
Another interesting part of my life here at Cambridge are the music concerts at the Master's lodge. They occur 2 to 3 times per term and are held in the Master's lodge which is a large house on St John's College grounds.
The lodge is quite a fancy affair which is an interesting blend of very old and not so old. The rooms can't help but looking very upper crust but the many excellent portraits (mostly of very famous people, including royalty) give the rooms quite a stately/regal feel. The concerts are held in a largish room which seats about 100 or so people. Of course, besides the Master and his guests the audience can be a mixed bag of fellows, graduates and under graduates.
The quality of the music is very high with the resume's of the musicians being quite impressive. Once, musicians were especially flown in for our little concert. Most performances include the piano. Opera singers and violin players have been added into the mix as well.
They generally get it right to organise the evening to coincide with other great entertainment such as dining with fellows and such like (see other posts). This lends quite an extravagant atmosphere to the whole event as everyone is in formal gowns and has already been wined and dined for a while.
After the music there is a wine reception in the entrance hall to the lodge where the guests get to chat and soak up the plush atmosphere. Twice during this reception time, interesting, out of the ordinary events, have transpired. Firstly, I heard that in the cloak room, one could find Paul Dirac's old university gown. Dirac was a great physicist whose theories I am busy studying and underpin much of the great advances of today's high energy physics. And he was a fellow at St John's. Besides looking a tad worn the gown was the genuine article replete with a note from him regarding the storage of the gown while he was out of town. Secondly, the Master decided to take a small group of us on a tour through the rest of the lodge. It was quite and amazing tour with room after room having such a rich history surrounding it. The only detail I can now recall is that on a desk in the Master's study lie William Wilberforce's silver candlesticks, with inscriptions. he too, was at St John's.
I hope these few words record something of the fun and class of the Master's Concerts.
The lodge is quite a fancy affair which is an interesting blend of very old and not so old. The rooms can't help but looking very upper crust but the many excellent portraits (mostly of very famous people, including royalty) give the rooms quite a stately/regal feel. The concerts are held in a largish room which seats about 100 or so people. Of course, besides the Master and his guests the audience can be a mixed bag of fellows, graduates and under graduates.
The quality of the music is very high with the resume's of the musicians being quite impressive. Once, musicians were especially flown in for our little concert. Most performances include the piano. Opera singers and violin players have been added into the mix as well.
They generally get it right to organise the evening to coincide with other great entertainment such as dining with fellows and such like (see other posts). This lends quite an extravagant atmosphere to the whole event as everyone is in formal gowns and has already been wined and dined for a while.
After the music there is a wine reception in the entrance hall to the lodge where the guests get to chat and soak up the plush atmosphere. Twice during this reception time, interesting, out of the ordinary events, have transpired. Firstly, I heard that in the cloak room, one could find Paul Dirac's old university gown. Dirac was a great physicist whose theories I am busy studying and underpin much of the great advances of today's high energy physics. And he was a fellow at St John's. Besides looking a tad worn the gown was the genuine article replete with a note from him regarding the storage of the gown while he was out of town. Secondly, the Master decided to take a small group of us on a tour through the rest of the lodge. It was quite and amazing tour with room after room having such a rich history surrounding it. The only detail I can now recall is that on a desk in the Master's study lie William Wilberforce's silver candlesticks, with inscriptions. he too, was at St John's.
I hope these few words record something of the fun and class of the Master's Concerts.
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