Saturday 10 October 2009

Day 29/99: Americans? Inappropriate? Never!

In Butler's Class of 1942 Lounge, there stands this plaque:


(Within this college from 1964 until 2007 stood Class of 1941 Hall

Given in memory of the members of the class who gave their lives in the service of their country

Glory uneroded and shining
lights them down the ages)

Reflect for a moment: what would be an appropriate tribute to the Princeton students who died in the Second World War? I guess a picture of a tiger, sitting on top of Earth, modified to look like Hitler, would be pretty inappropriate, right?



Oh, you wacky Americans. I guess it makes sense when you consider that they demolished 1941, 1942 and 1943 Halls two years ago.

Lest anyone accuse them of being ambivalent towards Hitler, there's a badge:




And, for those formal occasions where they want to be classy, a Tiger-Hitler-Globe tie:




There's also a polo shirt and a cummerbund with the logo on, but my camera's on the blink.

In other news, my new favourite hobby is telling Americans about arcane Oxford customs ("I have people who dust my room", "we take exams in gowns" and "we eat dinner in gowns and have our food served to us" being the favourites). One guy got confused between scouts and public-school fags and thought that younger students were made to empty my bins; when I introduced the "formal hall" thing by saying we had four meals a day, he also interjected with "afternoon tea?". Which got me thinking...

Sainsbury's sell six-packs of scones, and do a 2-packs-for-£1 deal (gotta love http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/). Cucumbers only cost 70p, bread, clotted cream and jam are all relatively cheap, so £5 could buy me six days' worth of cucumber sandwiches, tea and two scones. I think this may need to be an institution in 59 Holywell come my return to Oxford...

3 comments:

  1. ... is that tiger wearing ice-skates?

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  2. S'pose you're including all the major food groups (just). Will your 5-a-day fruit 'n veg come from the cucumber or the jam?
    Kate P

    ReplyDelete
  3. There's flour in scones - wheat's a vegetable, right?

    ReplyDelete