National Treasure

[Guest]

[Roz]

Ooh booo hisssssssss (Oxford )

I had a friend who did the Classics course at Oxford. I remember before he started he particularly looked down on those who did the course that required no previous experience of Latin or Greek (at the start, I think it's only recently been introduced). All the people on the fast track Latin/Greek course  quickly caught up with him so he had to eat his words   - the last I heard from him he had had one too many and tried to get on a bike from one side and fell off the other ahhh happy days.

(and that's why shunning the trend I skate around Cambridge and don't bike although that will all change next year )

[kevinryall]

and thats why when i was at college i never had a bike as all my friends ended up with scars in one place or another from horrific drunken biking accidents

i just used to take the bus or walk everywhere when i was a student its not so dangerous when you fall over


but why are you giving up skating next year?

kevin

[Roz]

Well Mark is moving quite a way out to one of the surrounding villages - and the roads on the way there are a bit major - so I'll have to get a bike

boo!

I will still have my nice 'in College', riverside room (yeah the house is so old that when I asked Mark to put the desk in the corner nice and straight - he asked "which wall would you like it straight with?" I find it marginally disturbing that I live in a house built by people incapable of using right angles   )

[kevinryall]

i only visited cambridge a few times but i always liked the way the colleges sit on the river.

of course oxford is miles better in all other respects  

kevin

[Roz]

i only visited cambridge a few times but i always liked the way the colleges sit on the river.

of course oxford is miles better in all other respects  

kevin

How very difficult it is not to moderate your post hee hee we are all entitled to our opinions although those from "the other place" are of course all wrong

Is it true you call us "tabs"? I have a friend (English graduate)who constantly refers to Cambridge as Tabland (presumably deriving from Cantab... but it's very odd - and all too easy to call you all Oxen after that

Which brings us to our Bovine Connection the Yak Shack... hmm perhaps Mark (owner of the Yak Shack) is an Oxford Graduate Sympathiser

[kevinryall]

Is it true you call us "tabs"? I have a friend (English graduate)who constantly refers to Cambridge as Tabland (presumably deriving from Cantab... but it's very odd - and all too easy to call you all Oxen after that

I never heard of that before but you would be justified in calling us oxies if we called you tabs.

Strictly speaking you would be an alumna Cantabrigiensis and I would be an alumnus Oxoniensis as graduates of the two 'varsities.

Neither of the places has very exciting names - bridge over the Cam v. the place where the cows (or yaks) ford the river.

Still both are very pretty in different ways

perhaps we should agree to differ  

kevin

[ferdinand_the_yak]

Oh you two snobs, you!

[kevinryall]

OK - I admit it!  

[Roz]

Still both are very pretty in different ways

perhaps we should agree to differ  

Oh go on then since it's Christmas

Actually I never intended to go to either University but you go where the funding is don't you I haven't been to Oxford mucheither to be honest. I had a whistlestop tour once by a friend who had been there for almost 3 years. All I remember is having tired legs and peering into Tolkien's old office

The Magdalene over there looks rather forbidding (which I like) my Magdalene has a homely cottagey feel (which is good whilst you are studying here of course )

[ferdinand_the_yak]

Magdalene? What's that in the context of Cambridge and Oxford?

[Roz]

It's a College... hmm.. how to describe it? It's like a glorified halls of residence for postgraduates, but as an undergraduate you are taught in College (in supplement to your basic lecture courses in the main department. Each lecturer (called a don or fellow) is affiliated with a College - so if you are an undergraduate, a College  then a good deal of your one on one (or two students to one lecturer) teaching is done by the Fellows attached to that College.

They also sort out your accommodation (for a price ) and host nightly formal dinners (where yes I have to wear a gown... and no it cannot be cut up and used for Cambridge costume cards )

Does any of that make any sense or was it all babble  

[kevinryall]

it made sense to me 'cos it's basically the same at Oxford.

We like to stress the differences between us and Cambridge so our 'Magdalene' is spelt 'Magdalen' (pronounced 'maudlin').

It wouldn't do to be the same.

The college I went to all those years ago was Wadham, quite a new college built in 1600 or so...

kevin

[kevinryall]

- oh and our Magdalen has its own deer park attached to the college.

back to the snobbery

to be honest i didn't and still don't really go for any of that tradionalist stuff being at heart a good working class boy (don't ask me to explain the British class system  )

kevin

[Roz]

Magdalen has it's own school doesn't it?? I think St John's in Cambridge is perhaps a better comparison College to be honest [big, ornate, money coming out of it's ears]

Ours is pronounced Maudlin too! It's so funny to go to chapel and hear them say Mary *Maudlin*

[kevinryall]

yes magdalen has a school.

they used to say that you could walk from st johns oxford to st johns cambridge entirely on land owned by st johns

wadham (my college) is quite poor by comparison with the big ones like those. wadham had (has) a rep as being quite left wing and progressive - one of the first to go mixed. when i was there one of the quads was renamed 'ho chi minh quad' by the JCR

kevin

[Roz]

Wow, very progressive

Magdalene Cambridge is quite the opposite it would seem! They first let women into the College in 1989   apparently some of the older Don's wore black arm bands and carried a coffin around first court in protest!

It's another world isn't it!!!!??

[kevinryall]

yes wadham was very progressive they even had mixed staircases

wadham has been mixed since the 1970s!

 

[savage727]

Hello there Oxford & Cambridge!!    Tell me - is there a local movie theater in the town's where your schools are located and if so how many screens do they have?

Also how many students attend each school in total?

[kevinryall]

I can only speak for Oxford.

btw we dont call it a school - a university. and i attended it 20 years ago! (still live there tho)

movie theatres -

city centre

2 odeon (uk cinema chain) one with 2 screens, one with 5 or 6
1 independent with 2 screens

out of town a multiplex with 5 or 6 screens

total students at Oxford across all colleges (see Roz's post above for definition of college) is about 17,000.

are you thinking of visiting Oxford or Cambridge and want to see a movie?

kevin

[savage727]

Hi Kevin:

Mark & Roz are friends of mine and someday I will visit them at Cambridge and I would also like to see Oxford.
I know both of your institutions are Universities but we here in the States refer to both colleges and universities as schools in a general sense and no offense was meant!  

Both your Universities have so much history and tradition that I could spend a summer researching each.  As far as the question about movie theatres I was just curious what was available to the students in each area.  I always enjoyed going to my local movie house when I was a student in College.  

Mark told me about his visit to Professor Tolkien's old office at Oxford.  Since the popularity of The Lord of the Rings movies have you noticed an increase in visitors to see where he worked?