Friday, November 11, 2005

Dreaming spires of dullness

"it wasn't the situation that radicalised me so much as the people. they were just so... boring."

-Red Pepper editor Hilary Wainwright describing how she had her political epiphany at Oxford, on some UKTV History docu about middle class radicals.

I wasn't radicalised by/at Oxford (I think it happened when we were doing 'animal rights' in year 7 at school and my mother launched into a rant along the lines of 'sod the animals, what about the rights of humans?!') but I entirely empathise with Wainwright's comment. People sometimes ask me about Oxford 'were the people really posh and snobbish?'. The answer to this question is: 'I don't really know, I fell asleep while they were talking'.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oxford is a stuck up aristocratic toff-house - burn the place down and see if the whimpering babies can get comfort from their teddy bears as their hunting jackets and coronets burn around them, as their toffee nosed girlfriends burn their fingers grabbing at their pearls.

2:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That WASNT me by the way...

I think its a good thing to have Universities which promote academic excellence, and of course some Unis will always be better than others. Its the associated cultural associations that get the hackles up (what is a 'hackle'?).

Its one thing to be chosen to study in an elite institution, its another thing entirely to confect a new accent, feel ashamed/aggressively proud of your background and run around drunkenly braying like a tit.

Although its easy to see how it happens when the port bottle has a round base. Innit.

JC

2:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Associated cultural associations"?

Sorry, its been a long day.

JC

2:55 PM  
Blogger dan hancox said...

yeah i dunno why the first poster felt the need to shield their identity when posting such a contentious argument as 'oxford is kinda posh'. look out for remarks on the pope's religious leanings in the coming weeks.

i maintain to this day that the obnoxious toffs were a very small (though vocal) minority; one that was treated with the level of contempt it deserved by the student body at large.

the larger problem oxford has as far as i was concerned is that the kind of people that got 3 A's at A-level are statistically more likely to be social retards.

as indeed turned out to be the case.

3:18 PM  
Blogger John said...

I know all about Oxford because my sister went to Hertford and I went to stay with her twice.

I thought most of the people were ok, most of them there were either Northern and selected for working class appearance or like my sister's ex-boyf, Eton scholarship tyoes, who were really pretty middle class.

I didn't like my friend Helen's party with graduates who talk about parties on the lawn with flamingoes and work for think tanks but that's only because I got drunk and they all patronised me. It was good to be on the other side of the class war, not a treat I get very much with you plebs.

12:00 PM  
Blogger dan hancox said...

people who work for think tanks are scum, standard.

northerners at oxford always tended to be nicer. actually i say that but my favourite ppl at oxford came either from london, oxfordshire, essex or germany. so scratch that.

12:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree. Anyone want to join my campaign to create a London City State? *sticks tongue in cheek*

It would be cool, apart from watching everyone else in Britain get all poor without our tax.

Think tank people do my head in. I cant really explain why - they work hard for little money, but its usually on the back of an unpaid internship only made possible by the pecuniary support of the Royal Bank of Mum and Dad.

JC

11:31 AM  
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5:34 AM  

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