Graduation ceremony is in full swing in Cambridge; slightly unusual timing but there is still a lot of catching up to do from last year. Yesterday, over 500 smiling, happy people proceeded to the Senate House in orderly, regularly spaced out groups, wearing all sorts of colour linings on their hoods – scarlet silk for PhDs, blue for MPhils, light-blue for MEds, and white fur for BAs, to name but a few. Let’s wish them good luck for the future!
I popped into Ted Baker’s the other day – not to browse through their garments, of course, but simply to look at the interior, and was pleasantly surprised to see some familiar Cambridge characters on the wall. There was Isaac Newton’s rough-hewn image with a piercing gaze, a strikingly young and handsome Lord Rayleigh, and a heavily bearded old Darwin deeply engrossed in his thoughts. ‘What a great idea’, I noted, ‘male scientists as role models to inspire the customers to aim high’.
Then a grand staircase leading to the women’s department caught my attention – and I was almost flying up the stairs before I knew it, in the anticipation of a close encounter with Rosalind Franklin perhaps, or Dorothy Hodgkin, or Jocelyn Bell Burnell. Guess whom or what I saw there instead? Just a couple of dead birds on the wall…
Guiding larger groups is now possible on the streets of Cambridge. According to the new rules:
– Gatherings of up to 30 are allowed outdoors since 17th May 2021. Hence, our guided tours in Cambridge are returning to the usual group size of maximum 20 people.
– Indoor guiding (if and when it becomes possible) will still be in goups of maximum 6 people, plus the guide.
– Social distancing is still important, but it will now be people’s *personal responsibility*, i.e. it will be up to individuals to decide how far they wish to distance themselves from each other. (As a guide, I will need to make sure there is enough room for everyone to be comfortably positioned on the narrow streets of Cambridge!)
– Tracking and tracing will be carried out as before.
From the beginning of this week (29.03.2021), we can meet in groups of six outdoors, or larger groups as long as they are no more than two households. Hence, Tangential Cambridge is resuming its tours, which will comply with COVID-19 regulations. Watch this space!
Excellent news from King’s College Chapel: guided tours are now being offered from Tuesday to Friday this week only (half-term) at the following times: 10:00 – 10.45am, 11:00 – 11.45am, 1:00 – 1.45pm, and 2:00 – 2.45pm. After this, public tours of the Chapel will be offered every Saturday from this coming weekend (31st October) until the end of term. To book: https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/visit/your-visit
A beautiful, quiet morning in Cambridge yesterday, with ripe, autumnal colours of the veg stalls in the market, art school students cosily settled by Great St. Mary’s sketching crisp townscapes, and a few locals sailing past casually on their bikes. No tourists – just the freshness and immediacy of a weekday morning…
