The Cambridge Diaries teaser
The Cambridge Diaries: A Tale of Friendship, Love and Economics is available in print format.
Chapter 1
A lot of people said a lot of different things when I told them I was thinking about it. My teachers at school said it would be a wonderful and enlightening experience for me. My Mum said it would hopefully lead to a ridiculously high-paid job so she could retire and go and live somewhere a little hotter than Preston. My friends said it would turn me posh and gay. I wasn’t sure what to think. In the end, I applied.
Chapter 2
I’d love to say that the journey down had been fun, but if the
truth be told, it hadn’t. Long car journeys with my Mum rarely
were. One of the problems was our differing taste in music.
Basically, mine was good, and hers was nothing short of awful.
John’s car had one of those six-CD multi-changer things, and Mum
and I were permitted to load three CDs each. And load was
definitely the operative term, because some of Mum’s CDs were
certainly lethal weapons. Whereas I had selected a broad range of
beautiful music from The Beatles to Coldplay, calling in at Bob
Dylan and Badly Drawn Boy along the way, Mum had opted for The
Love Album (40 love songs straight from the heart), and its two
equally painful sequels. The CD player was set to random mode, and
I felt like I was playing a game of Russian Roulette as I watched
the digits spin round and round. I found myself unable to enjoy
any of my songs, as I knew that by the law of averages, Lionel
Richie, and a subsequently slow and excruciating death, was only
moments away. When Ronan Keating started going on about a
rollercoaster, I nearly opened up the car door and jumped out. The
second problem was the system that decided who sat where. Now as
John was driving, he had a pretty legitimate claim on one of the
front seats. However, seeing I was a good eight inches taller than
my Mum, I reckoned my case for the extra leg room in the front was
significantly stronger than hers. But of course Mum feels sick
when she sits in the back of cars, and Mum is boss, and so it was
I that was forced to endure two-hundred-and-forty cramped-up
minutes spent sharing the backseat of a Vauxhall Astra with two
large suitcases, a duvet, and a desk lamp. To make matters worse
(I can hear the violins playing) the desk lamp was precariously
perched on top of one of the suitcases, and chose to constantly
remind me of its presence by thrusting its base into my head every
time we turned a corner. My only respite was the time it took us
each to eat a greasy, but nevertheless very tasty,
Bacon-Double-Cheeseburger in a service station just past
Birmingham. And so, when we eventually turned into the car-park of
St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, on an otherwise unremarkable
Saturday afternoon in the late September of 2000, I had no blood
left in my legs, permanently scarred ear-drums, and a couple of
butterflies tumbling around in my stomach.
There was no time to attempt to cure any of the above ailments, as
no sooner had the car stopped, than Mum leapt into action.
“Come on Josh, stop being so lazy!”.
This was an all too familiar phrase. Variety would be found in the
command that followed, selected by my Mum from a list of about
fifteen, including such gems as: Don’t leave your dirty washing in
your room, put it in the machine; Don’t leave your mug on the
table, put it in the sink; and who could forget: Don’t leave the
newspaper on the floor, put it in its proper place. Music to my
ears, from a CD that seemed to play all day, everyday. Today’s
command was a new release, chosen to fit our new surroundings:
“Quickly go and find out where we, or should I say you and John,
have to carry all your stuff to”.
“Yes Mother, anything you say, Mother”
Mum hated being called Mother.
I heaved my aching limbs out of the car, breathed in a gulp of
fresh Cambridge air, and headed towards the narrow stone archway
that stood at the end of the car park. I felt like a lost little
child who doesn’t want to be found just yet as I wandered around,
hands in my pockets, and head swinging loosely on my neck. I had
been here once before for my interview, but I had been too nervous
to notice anything back then. Now my eyes were wide open, trying
to take in every detail of this new world I found myself in.
Having ventured through the archway, I followed the little path
around, being careful not to trample on any precious flowers or
trip over my own feet and make an idiot of myself.
My eyes soon fell upon what would later come to be known to me as
Sherlock Court. Cambridge was very keen on its courts, and most
colleges housed a family of at least two or three. In the family
of St. Catharine’s College, Sherlock Court was the shy little
sister of Main Court, preferring to spend her days hidden out of
sight, as opposed to flaunting her wares in front of the gazing
public. The dominant feature of the Sherlock Court was the grass,
neatly cut, and laid in an L-shape across the ground. This smooth
carpet of green was bordered by a combination of paths, plants,
soil and bushes, and was shut off from the rest of the world by
the surrounding buildings. Some of these buildings looked old,
some looked new, some were a nice sandy colour, some were a dirty
white. I was about to avert my eyes from the surrounding buildings
when I found myself pausing for thought. Any two-year old who
wasn’t blind could have come up with that last remark. Surely I
could do better. After all, I was at Cambridge now, and it was
about time I started producing profound observations on such
matters. I stared at the buildings again. Most of them had doors,
but that wasn’t much better. I was no architect, but the buildings
had a few too many windows for my liking. Yes, too many windows.
Maybe that was symbolic of the importance of an open mind, or
clear thinking, or something deep like that. Great point, Josh. I
wondered if it was too late to transfer to a philosophy degree.
The Cambridge Diaries: A Tale of Friendship, Love and Economics is available in print format.