Children of the Sun
When I went up to Oxford in the early 1980s, my generation (at least those of us who weren't wearing donkey jackets to show solidarity with the striking miners or voting to rename the college JCR the Mandela Room) were obsessed with Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.
One of my friends in my college - Christ Church - actually wandered round clutching a teddy bear, just like Sebastian Flyte in the book (and TV series) who was also in Christ Church. I meanwhile used to drink Brandy Alexanders (brandy, creme de cacao and cream) because that's what Anthony Blanche used to drink in the book. The building from which he declaims The Waste Land is the one I lived in in my first year, Meadows. (If you want to know why Peter Robinson is so elegant and refined look no further: Peter is a House man too - which is what people who went to Christ Church are called. Hence the campaign slogan when it was first mooted that women might be admitted to the college "A woman's place is in the home. Not the House.")
Anyway, I mention this by way of introduction to this week's Radio Free Delingpole podcast with one of my old Oxford muckers Toby Young. Since Oxford Toby has acquired great fame/notoriety as a sassy journalist (including a stint at Vanity Fair) and blogger, the author of a bestselling book turned movie (How To Lose Friends And Alienate People), a judge on that chef series I haven't seen but you probably have because it's in the US, and, most recently, as founder of one of Britain's new Free Schools. (Free Schools are like Charter Schools in the US: schools set up by volunteers with government money to provide schools which actually think it's a good idea to teach kids facts and discipline and manners as opposed to, say, global warming guilt, grievance studies and knife crime skills).
We were part of a remarkably successful generation. Our friends at the time included David Cameron (now Prime Minister); Boris Johnson (now Mayor of London); Michael Gove (the government minister now in charge of schools reform); Frank Luntz (the Republican strategist); Radek Sikorski (the Foreign Minister of Poland); and probably others I've forgotten. (No one of any importance, I can't help noticing, went to Cambridge - which is a quiet, attractive university you might not have heard of in the flat Fenland country of Eastern England).
In fact, we were so gilded and successful in our way that it wouldn't surprise me if in about 20 years, undergraduates at Oxford fantasize about how wonderful the place must have been in the Golden Era when those Children of the Sun Cameron, Johnson, Gove, Luntz, Sikorski, Young and, yes, Delingpole swanned round the quads in their baggy cords, quaffing Brandy Alexanders and exchanging Wildean bons mots.
It wasn't like that at all, though. Not very.
If you want to know what it was really like, read this book.
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Re: Children of the Sun
Actually, to be fair, I've just thought of one person who did go to Cambridge: Andrew Roberts, star of this week's Uncommon Knowledge. He's a splendid fellow. But he is still a Tab.
Re: Children of the Sun
James Delingpole:
One of my friends in my college - Christ Church - actually wandered round clutching a teddy bear, just like Sebastian Flyte in the book (and TV series) who was also in Christ Church.
That's why the rest of us made fun of Christ Church, James.
Not that there was no reason to make fun of Balliol, mind you. (For those not in on the inside-jokes, Balliol had a college tortoise named Rosa Luxemburg, which says it all.)
Oct '10
Re: Children of the Sun
If the book is half as good as Jennie Neale's review on Amazon, buy now:
That is, as good as the review is, not as good as the review says the book is.
Re: Children of the Sun
@claire. A lot of my best friends came from Balliol. They were an eccentric, talented crowd. Besides Boris there was Aidan Hartley (Wild Life correspondent in the Spectator; brilliant foreign corr); Lloyd Evans (the Spectator's equally brilliant theatre critic); Robert Twigger (author, inter alia, of Angry White Pajamas)....
Re: Children of the Sun
@genferei - it's at least as good as that. Possibly my Meisterwerk!
Mar '11
Re: Children of the Sun
You mean other than Newton, Hawking and Crick&Watson?
Well, yes, Cambridge is better known for Science, whereas Oxford is for what used to be called Humanities. Maybe still one of the few places that turns out more conservatives than Marxists?
Btw, James, I noticed (UK Spectator $) your appeal for suggestions on where to live in the UK. Other than Malvern (which doesn't meet all your criteria - but nowhere does), if I had more money I'd think about the Cotswolds, near Oxford. You could move to Mr Cameron's constituency, and vote him outa office ;-)
Aug '11
Re: Children of the Sun
Hmmm.
All politicians. Didn't you know anyone who could find honest work?
Feb '11
Re: Children of the Sun
I think the podcast was interesting blend of what Charles Murray would call educational romanticism and realism. The idea that everyone could benefit from an education such as you spoke of seems highly romantic. That you and Toby Young are providing it for anyone is something highly commendable and hopefully this will be a self-selecting group.
And Tennis Court Road is at Cambridge, and more than a few people have spent time there and had an enormous beneficial impact on the world, far more so than politicians.
Edited on Jan 13 at 5:55amRe: Children of the Sun
@Johnrussell Point taken. But Toby and I aren't politicians. And we do give 'em hell...
Apr '11
Re: Children of the Sun
So either politicians or pundits? It is kind of a nice closed ecosystem.
Apr '11
Re: Children of the Sun
I loved Toby Young on Top Chef (and wish they'd have him back). I remember him saying, in response to eating some hapless chef's failed dish, "I believe I have found the weapons of mass destruction."
Looking forward to listening to the new podcast.
Re: Children of the Sun
They were. And my life really couldn't seem further from them right now.
Aug '10
Re: Children of the Sun
Alan Turing, Ernest Rutherford, and Niels Bohr went to the University of Manchester.
Win.
Jun '10
Re: Children of the Sun
C. S. Lewis: educated at Oxford, taught at Oxford. In 1954, takes his talents to Cambridge. Is this like Lebron leaving Cleveland, or is it something else?
How in heaven's name does the word (Magdalen) (Mag-da-len) get turned into "Maudlin"? Or St. James into Sinjin?
Edited on Jan 13 at 7:59amAug '10
Re: Children of the Sun
So tell us about Dickie Coward ......
May '10
Re: Children of the Sun
tabula rasa: C. S. Lewis: educated at Oxford, taught at Oxford. In 1954, takes his talents to Cambridge. Is this like Lebron leaving Cleveland, or is it something else?
How in heaven's name does the word (Magdalen) (Mag-da-len) get turned into "Maudlin"? Or St. James into Sinjin? · Jan 13 at 7:57am
Edited on Jan 13 at 07:59 am
The least reliable authorities on how to pronounce a place name are the people who live there. Residents of Louisville call it Lulvul. Residents of Baltimore say Balmir. My home town of Bronson, Michigan I call Bruns'n. Familiarity breeds contempt, or more precisely in this case, laziness. And if there's hundreds of years of history to work with, as in England, quite a bit of detail can be eroded away.
Edited on Jan 13 at 9:28amOct '10
Re: Children of the Sun
Fredösphere
Or St. James into Sinjin? · Jan 13 at 7:57am
Edited on Jan 13 at 07:59 am
The least reliable authorities on how to pronounce a place name are the people who live there. Edited on Jan 13 at 09:28 am
Isn't it Saint John = Sinjin?
Meanwhile Fredoesphere's comment seems just wrong. This is distinct from non-residents having a different name for a place, such as the English spelling of Marseilles and Lyons, or Peking for Beijing (something the French have no problem with).
I do like the story of London being pronounced 'Lun-un' until people started seeing it written more regularly.
May '10
Re: Children of the Sun
genferei
Fredösphere
Or St. James into Sinjin? · Jan 13 at 7:57am
Edited on Jan 13 at 07:59 am
The least reliable authorities on how to pronounce a place name are the people who live there. Edited on Jan 13 at 09:28 am
Isn't it Saint John = Sinjin?
Meanwhile Fredoesphere's comment seems just wrong. · Jan 13 at 9:44am
I'm certain I'm right, but I admit to being just a little strident on this issue. I feel lingering bitterness over the time I pronounced Louisville as Loo-ee-vil and my father corrected it to the (in my opinion, vulgar and swallowed) L'l-v'l.
Aug '10
Re: Children of the Sun
I dunno. How do residents of New Orleans feel when visitors refer to it as New Oar-Leeens?
Jun '10
Re: Children of the Sun
genferei
Fredösphere
Or St. James into Sinjin? · Jan 13 at 7:57am
Edited on Jan 13 at 07:59 am
The least reliable authorities on how to pronounce a place name are the people who live there. Edited on Jan 13 at 09:28 am
Isn't it Saint John = Sinjin?
Meanwhile Fredoesphere's comment seems just wrong. This is distinct from non-residents having a different name for a place, such as the English spelling of Marseilles and Lyons, or Peking for Beijing (something the French have no problem with).
I do like the story of London being pronounced 'Lun-un' until people started seeing it written more regularly. · Jan 13 at 9:44am
My bad. It is St. John. Still don't know how you get there.