{"id":18497,"date":"2018-10-12T00:57:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T23:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=18497"},"modified":"2018-10-12T00:57:39","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T23:57:39","slug":"from-my-diary-421","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2018\/10\/12\/from-my-diary-421\/","title":{"rendered":"From my diary"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the year grows older, bright warm days grow fewer, and more precious.\u00a0 Fortunately this week we had two; yesterday and today.\u00a0 I resolved to take a break from contract-hunting, and\u00a0go somewhere.\u00a0 After some thought, a trip to Cambridge beckoned.<\/p>\n

I started as I usually do, by visiting the University Library.\u00a0 I dropped in during the summer and renewed my library card.\u00a0 But at that time I’d got a photocopy of an article and forgotten one page.\u00a0 So that was something.\u00a0\u00a0Likewise I wanted to look at Bousset’s book on the Apophthegmata<\/em> for a blog post.\u00a0 That was something else to do.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Cambridge University Library in the sunshine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everywhere there were cyclists.\u00a0 In the library there were welcome desks, and tours.\u00a0 Clearly it was freshers’ week.\u00a0 All those young faces.\u00a0\u00a0Others walked hand in hand.\u00a0 I wished for a moment that I had made more effort to meet someone at university.\u00a0 It gets so much harder to find someone\u00a0suitable after!\u00a0 Among these strode or cycled the occasional third year, faces which seemed too knowing\u00a0or mature for their years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A corridor of books, and students<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My mobile phone kept buzzing, but I’d set it to silent.\u00a0 I did sneak out to the courtyard to talk to one agent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Every time I make one of my infrequent visits I find that\u00a0something is different.\u00a0 This year there was no photocopying room any more; just photocopiers scattered around.\u00a0 I got the missing page easily.\u00a0 The search engine on the website was different too.\u00a0 Whatever happened to “Newton”?<\/p>\n

Bossuet appeared in 1923, which means he is not online; but was in the Rare Books Room.\u00a0 I hadn’t been there for years and years.\u00a0 It was much the same, except that now we could use our mobile phone cameras!\u00a0 The assistant told me that I wasn’t allowed to photograph, except for personal purposes, or put the results on the web.\u00a0 The prohibitions were, of course, quite unenforceable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Rare Books Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I settled down to snap some photos.\u00a0 Fortunately I quickly realised that Bousset contained little that I needed, and a couple of dozen photos would serve my needs.\u00a0 Because I wanted to be out in the sunshine!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bousset’a “Apophthegmata” in the Rare Books Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I was done.\u00a0 Back I went out of the library, showing my card as I did so.\u00a0 Into the sunshine, and walked down towards the backs.\u00a0 So many cyclists!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Into Cambridge!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the river I went at the backs…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Looking left from the bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the bridge…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Into the town…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Still the sun shone.<\/p>\n

I was making for a sandwich shop next to the Round Church in Cambridge.\u00a0 But it wasn’t there any more!\u00a0 How long, I wondered, since I had last walked the pavements of Cambridge.\u00a0 I made do with a not-very-good teashop nearby, for I was hungry.<\/p>\n

My next stop was Heffers, the university bookshop.\u00a0 But I was shocked… the basement, in which there were always shelves of history and theology books, was now turned over to Harry Potter junk.\u00a0 The whole shop was a shadow of itself.\u00a0 Doubtless Amazon is to blame.\u00a0 When I found the classics section it consisted of two cases only.\u00a0 I walked from there down Green Street to Galloway and Porter, where I had bought many a remaindered textbook back in the day.\u00a0 But it was gone.\u00a0 Bookshops were at a discount.<\/p>\n

I ended up walking along to CLC, the Christian bookshop.\u00a0 It still existed, thankfully, but around it were endless ethnic restaurants, with name boards in scripts even I don’t know.\u00a0 But within it too was a husk, or so it seemed to me.\u00a0 Then again, what is gone is gone.<\/p>\n

The sun shone, the streets were full of young and happy folk.\u00a0 The city bustled with life.\u00a0 The University Hotel had been rebuilt after a fire with a quite magnificent stone portico, of a sort that evoked the Victorian age.\u00a0 On the side they had proudly chiselled MMXVII.\u00a0 That’s the spirit!<\/p>\n

Finally I passed by Kings, and headed back to the UL and my car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kings College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After that, a long journey to the outskirts, and then home.\u00a0 But it was a lovely day.\u00a0 I haven’t done any trips anywhere for over a year.\u00a0 This was a nice exception.\u00a0 It’s really important to make time for fun<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the year grows older, bright warm days grow fewer, and more precious.\u00a0 Fortunately this week we had two; yesterday and today.\u00a0 I resolved to take a break from contract-hunting, and\u00a0go somewhere.\u00a0 After some thought, a trip to Cambridge beckoned. I started as I usually do, by visiting the University Library.\u00a0 I dropped in during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[363],"class_list":["post-18497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-cambridge"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}