10 of the Best Day Trips from London

While the sun has been shining, I've been revisiting my favourite UK destinations; Margate was delightful yesterday! Today, I'm sharing ten of the best day trips from London, all of which you can reach by public transport in under two hours.

How To Spend a Perfect Day in Cambridge (Updated 2026)

Long-time readers know I was lucky enough to call Cambridge my home for six years. Since moving to London in 2009, I haven't been back as often as I should. I decided to make the most of last Saturday's glorious weather by taking a day trip, exploring Cambridge's 'town' and 'gown' sides. Read on to discover my ultimate itinerary for a perfect day in Cambridge: things to do and places to eat, drink and shop.

Five Coffee Day Trips from London

Although one day isn't enough time to spend in many of the cities I visit, it's definitely a good start. And if you choose a day-trip destination that has a good or growing specialty coffee scene, you can combine sight-seeing with coffee-shop hopping.

The Caffeine Chronicles: The Espresso Library, Cambridge (CLOSED)

UPDATE: The Espresso Library is now permanently closed.

Given the amount of time I once spent in various Cambridge libraries, the name of The Espresso Library, a cycling-themed specialty coffee shop on Cambridge's East Road, appealed instantly.  The Espresso Library has long been on my list, and several friends had recommended it.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Stir, Cambridge

I studied and worked in Cambridge for seven years, arriving in 2002, spending four years studying linguistics and then starting my career in scientific publishing. By 2010, I was no longer living or working in the city and my visits became less frequent. My last trip was two years ago, when I went to second Hot Numbers on Trumpington Street in 2015, and the penultimate trip was in 2013, when I went to the original Hot Numbers and mused on the flutterings of change in Cambridge's coffee-shop culture.

Cambridge Day Trip: Hot Numbers II and a College Reunion

I don't have too many reasons to return to Cambridge, the town in which I studied and worked for a total of seven years, these days, but a reunion lunch in my college yesterday brought a number of my friends back into town. After weeks of sunshine, the heavens opened almost as soon as the train passed under the North Circular, and as I had a little time to spare before lunch, I sought shelter in Hot Numbers' second branch on Trumpington Street.

"What's the Equation? That's the Question"

In my capacity as a press officer for a scientific journal, I was excited last month to receive a phone call from the distribution company working on The Theory of Everything — James Marsh's new movie about Stephen Hawking and Hawking's first wife, Jane Wilde. They were inviting someone from our journal to the film's London premiere last month, but somewhat unsurprisingly, they were after one of our journalists and I didn't get to go.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Hot Numbers, Cambridge

Back in my relatively early days of coffee obsession, when I was at university in Cambridge, I would "treat" myself to a mocha at Nero if I had finished an essay or worked particularly hard. It wasn't as though there were that many other caffeine options at the time. Clowns, an Italian-run café on King Street was all right (better after the smoking ban kicked in), and CB1 on Mill Road (and its more restauranty sister CB2) wasn't too bad, although it was more about the cyber than the coffee.

Plus Ça Change: A Return to Cambridge

I can't believe it's been two years since my last visit to Cambridge, but since Dr E moved to Australia, I don't really know anyone there. It's a shame because on a lovely summer Saturday, it's a lovely place. Yesterday was more autumnal, but it was nice to be back. I was meeting some friends and former colleagues for lunch, but I had half an hour to kill first, so I decided to re-caffeinate. 

When I lived in Cambridge, there weren't any decent independent espresso bars, but the internets pointed me in the direction of Hot Numbers, just off Mill Road, which I'll review in full soon. Spoiler alert: I was impressed.

Hot Numbers Coffee on Gwydir Street.

Cambridge Nostalgia

After four years at the University of Cantab, I wanted to stay in Cambridge partly because R was going to be there doing his master's and partly because I wasn't ready for London yet and the only other place I could imagine living was Oxford, which was where I grew up. Two years later, as more of my friends gravitated London-ward, I finally took the plunge and left Cambridge behind.

I'm glad I wasn't planning to get the 21:45 then...

I don't miss the crap shopping, the lack of independent espresso bars, the fact that not much happens, the killer bikes, the killer tourists or the crap transportation (see photo). But this evening, I went back to catch up with some old friends, and I remembered that there are some things I do miss about Nowheresville (these are all from the "town" rather than "gown" perspective):

• Spending a sunny Friday evening at one of the riverside pubs, sipping a G and T and watching the punt chaos on the Cam.
• The Arts Picturehouse — a lovely independent cinema — and reasonably priced cinema tickets.
• The prettiness of most parts of the city centre compared to London.
• Overhearing the random chatter of overconfident, over-intelligent and over-loud people (mainly students).
• Bumping into people you know: I was only in town for a few hours and I saw someone from my office and some guys from St John's.
• After three years in London, the Cambridge air felt incredibly clean.
• The almost eerie peacefulness: in the gown-dominated parts of town, like Pembroke Street, even on a summer Friday night, you can roam the streets and meet only a handful of quiet, civilised folks.

I wouldn't move back, of course, but I do feel grateful that I still have reasons to visit.

Tidying up the Mill Pond punts

I'm Having Such a Good Time, I'm Having a Ball

This year, St John's turned 500 and as part of the celebrations, the annual May Ball was bigger and better than ever and, importantly for me, provided more tickets than usual for alumni, although apparently, I was still pretty lucky to win a double ticket in the ballot. While I was a student I went to our college's Ball every year — yes, there are other balls to try but the college next door's is the only one that comes close and their tickets were too hard to obtain. It was the same every year (technically, the themes changed from year to year but this had minimal effect on the overall experience) but it was fantastic every year and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

After a five year break, it was fantastic to come back and celebrate St John's from MDXI to MMI. Actually, although the Ball was bigger, it wasn't all that different from most of the others I attended. There was a huge range of different food and drink on offer. I consumed, in approximate chronological order: strawberries and Champagne, pick and mix sweets, a burger, a raspberry martini, a Curiosity Cola, some very fine cheese, a Pimm's-like Summer Cup, a blueberry cupcake, candy floss, a Yorkshire pudding (no room for beef), fish and chips, some treacle tart, a G and T, a bacon bap and some coffee. In small portions, of course, so I didn't fill myself up. 

Also on offer were: Bloody Margarets (in honour of the foundress), curries, hog roast, ice cream, a fruit mountain, pancakes and plenty more. The best thing is that the food and drink rarely runs out (unlike at lesser balls) and because the variety is so great, the queues are never too long.

Lotus Leap in "India"

The theme this year was the college's history, focusing on six notable alumni (a social reformer, a poet, a former PM, a polar explorer, the Indian PM and a science fiction writer) and the aforementioned foundress. They aren't necessarily the most famous alumni, although several of them have rooms named after them in college, but were clearly chosen in part to provide themes to the different sections of the Ball, each hosted in a separate court. One court, for example, became India, with a giant, gold elephant, a painting of the Taj Mahal, curry and Cobra beer, and a chill-out tent, as well as the stage for the main music acts. Another section, in honour of the polar explorer, held fake snow, penguins, frozen vodka and ice cream.

The Gents in action

As I said before, though, the themes are always somewhat incidental as there is such a huge range of different things to do, from live music (including the rapper Big Boi who, according to the ents committee member standing behind me in a queue, who had met him, "isn't very big; he's only five eight. He's quite fat though,"; folk, jazz, D&B, and various bands doing covers, as well as the college's choir who performed a cappella versions of various pop songs at five am), to stand-up comedy, dodgems, a casino, a caricature artist, magicians, dancing, massages, and so on. Unless there is a music act you particularly like (this year there wasn't), you can just wander from court to court eating, drinking and enjoying the show.

The spectacular May Ball fireworks

And of course, the fireworks are always excellent. They seemed bigger, better and longer than usual this year but this might just be because I've had to put up with mediocre fireworks for the past five years. The Backs are the perfect setting for a spectacular show.

The weather behaved perfectly — not a drop from yesterday afternoon until I left my B&B this lunchtime — but I didn't miss being freezing and knackered at three am before the sun started to come up. With aching feet and only a shawl for warmth, you start to think, "maybe I should just go to bed." But we resisted, gambled away our chips in the casino, had some caffeine (in my case, poured most of the weak, milky but still scalding coffee over my hand), and were rewarded with a bacon sarnie and a great cover of Hey Ya by the Ella Funks before it was time for the aforementioned five am a cappella fun.

And then, at sometime after six-thirty, we sauntered away to catch a few hours of sleep, via a certain bridge for one last leap before sleep. I'm exhausted now but it was great to go back.

Beyond the 800-Year-Old Rainbow

My alma mater is having something of a celebration having reached the ripe old age of 800. Actually, it turned 800 last year but apparently with all of last year's fun and games, they must have ran out of time for the grand finale — because sure, there's always so much going on in Cambridge. 

Anyway, the said grand finale turned out to be a little son et lumière show, which I thought sounded a bit lame and which meant I didn't bring my camera into work today. This was a shame because it was actually very pretty and apparently so newsworthy that it even made the London free paper this morning.

Undeterred, I made a little detour to Market Square on my way home this evening, just in time to see Senate House — the very building in which I obtained my BA and my (ah hem) MA only a short time ago — all lit up and with a seriously cool PowerPoint presentation projected onto its walls. Nowheresville as you have never seen it before... There were also some crazy ass bells ringing too, which I suppose counted towards the son part of the entertainment.

I had no time to stop and stare so I just snapped a few iPhone pics by precariously sticking my hand between the bars of the fence around Senate House. Not a bad sight for what may well be my penultimate Monday in Cambridge. Well, until St John's turns 500 next year and if they want me to ever donate money to the college, they had better have a really kick-ass party and they had better invite me.

Remembrance of Fireworks Past

My recent trip to NYC left me so temporally challenged that I barely even realised it was November and certainly only realised that Thursday this week was Bonfire Night when someone sent an email about the fireworks display in Cambridge on Tuesday. I wasn't in Cambridge today so that was out. I had thought about heading up to Primrose Hill as based on my positive experience on New Year's Eve, I thought there would be some local people letting off fireworks as well as the view over grander displays in the city. Unfortunately, it seems that there wouldn't be a display there and that the police would be there to ensure that no one was breaking the regulations against setting off fireworks in the royal parks.

In the end, I went running instead but while I heard a lot of bangs, I didn't get much of a view on my regular Regent's Park route. This is probably for the best because I would probably have been disappointed anyway. One of the pitfalls of attending a Cambridge college May Ball (especially if it's St John's) is that no other fireworks display can ever hope to measure up. In honour of Guy, though, here are my top five firework experiences:

1. The St John's May Ball (2003-2006). I attended my college's ball all four years I was there and the weather was pretty good for all but the last. Even then, sheltering from the rain in R's bathroom, which was at the top of one of the turrets and offered an excellent view of the display, made for a memorable experience. 

As for the other years, the displays were incredibly impressive — marred only by the use of music in some of the later ones. Clichéd music like the William Tell Overture too. The fireworks themselves, though, were brilliantly choreographed and went on and on, growing ever more dramatic until the big finale. In fact, the only real problem was that I wasn't very good at taking photos of fireworks back then — not that I'm much better now — so this image from the St John's Ball in 2005 doesn't really capture the experience very well.

2. Cannes (2009). The stretch of the Mediterranean coast from Palm Beach to Théoule-sur-Mer, which includes Cannes, manages to be dramatic and glamorous, often simultaneously. During the summer, there are huge fireworks displays once a week, each one hosted by a different European nation. The fireworks are let off from a boat and the fancy hotels even deign to turn off their lights for the duration of the show. 

You can pay many, many euros to eat in one of the beach restaurants and watch the display right from your table (or your sun-bed if you'd rather just drink) or you can make like a local and head for the rocks at the Palm Beach end of the bay, take a picnic and enjoy the entertainment for free. This is what we did this summer. I only saw the Spanish posse's entry but it was pretty spectacular — it was also nice to be outside and watching fireworks at 10 pm without freezing to death. Watching the twinkling lights in the hills and in the armada of yachts in the harbour only added to the magic.

3. Lewes (2004). Among other things, the town of Lewes is famous for its very high pubs:residents ratio and its former residents Thomas Paine, Virginia Woolf and Arthur Conan Doyle. Anne of Cleves had a house there, although I don't think she ever visited. Lewes also has pretty special Bonfire Night celebrations, with a torch-lit parade through the centre of town, past many of the pubs. 

Members of the six bonfire societies then split off to different nearby locations for their own bonfire and fireworks display. Each year, a different effigy is burned — the year I went, everyone was burning parking meters (because of the new meters in place on Lewes High Street), but various local hate figures have also fallen victim to this. The fireworks themselves weren't overly impressive but the atmosphere was great and it was a really fun night.

4. Times Square, New York (2003). On New Year's Eve, 2003, I was in New York and was lucky enough to have really great tickets to see the Broadway production of The Producers, with Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane and with a one-night-only cameo from Mel Brooks. Getting to the theatre was a complete nightmare with a number of roads already being fenced off. When we got out, though, it was only just over an hour until midnight so we decided to stay and watch the fireworks. 

Again, the fireworks themselves were fine but nothing special but the atmosphere was fantastic: frenetic, chaotic, excited, exhilarated — all of the things you normally associate with New York. Another year (I forget which), we spent post-theatre New Year's Eve on Brooklyn Bridge watching fireworks go off on all sides — that was fun too.

5. Oxford (1989-1998). As Dad's birthday is just before Bonfire Night, we always used to have a big party at our house on the closest Saturday. Well, not really a big party but four or five lots of family friends would come and we enfants terribles would get to stay up really late playing computer games, eating hot dogs (veggie hot dogs from 1992 onwards) and playing with sparklers. 

Naturally, as the fireworks were let off by the dads, they weren't hugely impressive but that didn't matter. It was still exciting when a big rocket went off or a Catherine wheel fell off the tree and started spinning in a threatening manner on the ground. BBQ + fireworks + good friends = young Bex bliss. One year (possibly the year we moved from London) we went to the village fireworks display instead. This was a big error as I got a spark from the bonfire in my eye and spent much of the night in A&E. Since then, I've been somewhat wary of bonfires.

Honourable mention: Wales (1999). I wasn't exactly thrilled when my parents dragged my 16-year-old self to a cottage in the middle of nowhere in North Wales to spend New Millennium Eve, especially when there was a really huge house party going on back home that was attended by all of my friends. Still, to Penmaenpool we went and, deprived of friends, shops and the internet, I was forced to go walking and hang out with my family. I wasn't impressed and told them I'd rather revise for my GCSE mocks. What a rebel. 

Anyway, for their birthdays the month before, my parents had been given this super-powerful firework rocket, which, when launched, was sure to cause a great amount of light, sound and general destruction. Just before midnight, we found an empty field next to the estuary and prepared for the lighting. The lights in all of the visible houses were off so obviously the residents of this exciting corner of the world had already gone to bed. I was concerned that the acoustics would cause the predicted huge noise to echo and amplify.

I shouldn't have worried... At ten seconds to midnight, the touch paper was lit and we all ran back, cowering away from what was surely going to be the loudest, most impressive firework ever. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it either wouldn't light or didn't launch. Not at all. It didn't emit one bit of sound or light. I haven't forgiven Wales yet — for either disappointment.

Keeping Tabs on The Tab

The Tab, the new-ish Cambridge University tabloid-style news outlet, hadn't entered my radar until I heard its "Totty" section being mocked on The News Quiz and criticised in most of the rest of the country's papers. I don't particularly have a problem with hot, female Cambridge undergrads getting some of their kit off if they want to and the fuss over this seemed a little excessive. One piece posted on the website today did catch my attention, however: "Cambridge vs Bridgeford".

I initially noticed the piece because it was clear from the title that it was going to be about Trinity, ITV's Oxbridge-inspired, OTT cliché fest — a programme which can surely only appeal to Oxbridge students past and present. However, when I read the rest of Charlotte Wu's post, I realised that it bore more than a passing resemblance to a blog post I wrote about the show about a month ago. There are some similarities in the content of my post and the Tab piece, including:

• comments about students discussing break-downs of A-level results and Christian tea parties.
• the fact that lowly fresher Charlotte (AKA token Christian)'s lowly room is right next door to the luxurious digs of the Dandelion Club president.
• the fact that the token Christian is a bit of a keeno.
• shenanigans with hot, Swedish bedders.
• references to "the peasants".
• a criticism of the fact that the Dandelion Club wouldn't wear such ugly formal attire all the time.

Of course, although a lot of people have visited my blog having searched for "Trinity ITV" (or similar), I've no idea whether the author actually read my post or not. It's not implausible that these content overlaps are coincidental — after all, I am a former Cambridge student and am thus fairly likely to notice similar things about the show as a current Cambridge student would.

However, what isn't on is the fact that the format of the post is clearly borrowed. I based my post on the Daily Intel blog's brilliant Gossip Girl Reality Index posts, which hilariously recap each episode of Gossip Girl while scoring the believability of its contents. 

Each GG Reality Index post is divided into two sections — the realistic and the surrealistic and/or unbelievable. The realistic section is given a header that summarises a representative realistic part of the episode (e.g. "Realer Than Lord Snooty's Obvious Crush on Sebastian Valmont in Cruel Intentions" in my post) and the unrealistic section highlights a key fake bit (e.g. "Faker than the Warden Allowing DebaucheryFest (AKA the Feast of Fools) Provided that the Jesters "Volunteered" to Be Hazed All Year"). As I was clearly ripping off this format in my post, I made it clear where the idea came from and was careful to include links to the Daily Intel posts.

In a Guardian article criticising The Tab, Rowenna Davis writes, "I'm sure they know that if they spend their final year getting this tabloid off the ground, they'll walk into Rupert Murdoch's office and he'll be salivating to take them on, regardless of whether they've managed to achieve a degree while running the thing." Well, based on Ms Wu's piece, I'm sure this will be the case. After all, the tabloids are the worst culprits when it comes to failing to provide appropriate credits, attributions and sources for their content and, in online versions of stories, providing a link to these sources. 

By now, I'm certainly used to material I've written in a press release being "borrowed" or lazily rewritten (with the aid of a thesaurus to change some of the words) and given a new title, and used by an assortment of online news outlets. And if professional journalists are doing it, how can a bunch of students looking to boost their CVs be expected to do otherwise?

Cruel Intentions: The Oxbridge Years

I've always enjoyed quirky juxtapositions and this was cemented in place by the Italian literature course, Visions of Hell, which I took in my second year of university, Dante's Divine Comedy being a classic melting pot of high and low style, with popes and priests being punished alongside pimps and prostitutes. 

This means that I've never really been too ashamed of watching trashy shows such as Gossip Girl, as long as they are interspersed with the occasional deeper, more meaningful diversion. Besides, Gossip Girl is actually quite well written with a very sharp and funny script and the odd bit of decent acting; it can't be so bad if the Daily Intel blog tags it the Greatest Show of Our Time.

Compared to the programme I just watched, Gossip Girl looks like the televisual equivalent of In Search of Lost Time or War and Peace or similar. Trinity has been pretty heavily advertised, of late; at least, at the cinema, which is the source of nearly all the adverts I've seen. 

It's a ridiculously camp new "drama" set in a "fictional" college at the prestigious BridgeFord University (wot, not CamOx University?) with a whole load of cardboard cut-out, clichéd characters. Oh, and there is also something sinister going on, with frequent references to the fact that the college is thoroughly rotten — right to the top. Especially at the top. Dun dun duh!

Not being an expert in the New York prep school scene, I've never really felt in a position to do my own reality index of Gossip Girl (and why would I want to when the Daily Intel's is so good?) but I did attend a large, rich Oxbridge college, not dissimilar in some ways to this Trinity, so I thought I would tally up just how unrealistic the show is.

I should also add that I thought the show was pretty dire: the acting was shoddy and the script was laughable--and not in a good way. I'm sure some parts are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek and that the target audience is probably not people who have been to colleges like Trinity, but even so, I wasn't hugely impressed with episode one, realistic or not. 

Realer Than Lord Snooty's Obvious Crush on Sebastian Valmont in Cruel Intentions

* Earnest Christian has a tea and biscuits party in her room, shortly after hanging her crucifix on the wall. University was the first time I really met evangelical Christians en masse and there were such tea parties (though plenty of other people arranged them too, of course). [Plus 10]

* Earnest Christian and Lewisham Lad talk about which questions they answered in their A-level exams. [Plus 2]

* In her first anatomy tutorial, Earnest Christian reveals that she has been reading up on her tutor's research — there is always (at least) one... [Plus 5]

* Lord Snooty (AKA Dorian) expects his bedder (person who does light cleaning of students' rooms in Cambridge; known as a "scout" at Oxford) to service more than his room; he also impregnated his former Swedish bedder who left to get an abortion. Tales of male students getting involved with their bedder reached my ears more than once while I was at university, so this may actually be fairly realistic. [Plus 1]

* The Dandelions Club is an all-male society for the richest, most important men in the college. Their antics, including wild parties with champagne and nudity and the recruitment of two would-be-cool-dudes to be their "jesters" (i.e. minions) for the year, may seem OTT but perhaps no more so than many other elite college drinking societies. One such society admits only the richest ten men in the college; others are less about elitism and more about debauchery. [Plus 2]

* The hazing, which involved the jesters being pissed on in turn by various Dandelions and which will, doubtless, escalate throughout the series, doesn't sound dissimilar to the events organised by various university sports clubs. [Plus 2]

* Also, when Lord Snooty tells Lewisham Lad how awesome the Dandelions Club is and LL asks how he can join, Lord Snooty replies, "You can't because your...parents are poor" (except, the pause is long enough to convince the audience that he is going to say, "because you're Black"). His snobbery is caricatured and although I never met people who said things like that, I did, unfortunately, know some who probably thought it. [Plus 1]

* Plus points too for Rosalind, Lord Snooty's kissing cousin, who slinks around college in a leather miniskirt and is furious when Lewisham Lad fails to be impressed be the fact that she is 45th in line to the throne. She does get her wicked way in the end, though, by asking whether he's ever come on anyone in the royal family before — perhaps one of the most ridiculous lines in the whole episode. However, she also tells Lewisham Lad that her father owns Lewisham — not as impressive as the guy I knew whose parents own Wiltshire but [plus 5] nonetheless.

* Valley Girl, the socially inept if well-meaning Welsh lass who never knows what to say, do or wear in any given Trinity situation, reminds me of a number of people I knew. [Plus 2]

* Before the matriculation lunch starts in hall, the porter beats a ginormous gong. Although the gong was a little smaller at my college, it still made a very loud bang and caused me to spill my wine over the don sitting me at my first dinner in hall. [Plus 1]

* Lewisham Lad embarrasses himself at the matriculation lunch because he didn't learn the college's grace and it is, apparently, a college tradition for random people throughout the room to recite one line at a time, and he didn't learn it, leading to everyone laughing at him (what larks!). My college doesn't have such a tradition but the grace is in two parts and n00bs often make the mistake of sitting down and/or talking loudly at the end of the first part, leading to much laughter among the students and glaring among the fellows. I got around the problem of not knowing which knives and forks to use by avoiding my food in favour of the free-flowing wine. [Plus 1]

Total: 30

Faker than the Warden Allowing DebaucheryFest (AKA the Feast of Fools) Provided that the Jesters "Volunteered" to Be Hazed All Year

* I'm sorry but even the Dandelions wouldn't have served Champagne to the "peasants" at their party. Given that the average student ent exclusively serves a weak vodka and fruit juice "cocktail," the Dandelions could have settled for a few bottles of Sainsbury's second cheapest wine to keep the masses happy. [Minus 5]

* Also, what's with the tickets for the Dandelions' Feast of Fools? Haven't they heard about Facebook invites? [Minus 10]

* Drinking societies often do adorn themselves with various stash to show their in-group membership but the Dandelions wouldn't wear their blazers and ties all the time (apart from Lord Snooty, who spent half of the episode flashing his arse to the cameras as he strolled naked around his rooms, getting it on first with his cousin and then with Earnest Christian). [Minus 2]

* Yes, all of the rooms I had in college were pretty large by student standards and the second and third year rooms were also pretty nicely done up but the corridors were always as stark as a hospital — no fancy artwork or Louis XVI furniture. [Minus 2]

* It's unlikely that the lowly freshers would be housed on the same staircase as Lord Snooty (who seems to be able to make up his own rules) — second and third years always get nicer rooms than freshers, who usually get stuck with whatever's left over (or shoved into the award-winning concrete wasteland that was the first-year accommodation in my college). Unless, of course, Earnest Christian was intentionally placed next to Lord Snooty by the Powers That Be... [Minus 5]

* The hoods worn by the Trinity fellows weren't accurate if they were supposed to be Cambridge hoods. The new (lady) warden did her PhD at Trinity and so should be wearing a red hood rather than the royal blue MPhil hood she was seen in. (OK, they could have taken the hood colours from Oxford instead, or made them up.) [Minus 1]

Total: 25

So, shockingly, Trinity ended up with five points on the real side, although to be fair, I spent the first 20 minutes staring at the screen, paralysed by the comically jaw-dropping awfulness I was watching and so I don't remember much from that half of the episode. 

The scene between Lord Snooty and his cousin Rosalind was the worst ever copy of the scene between Kathryn Merteuil and Sebastian Valmont in Cruel Intentions — the one where Kathryn is happy to rub up against her step-brother for a while but then leaves him in the lurch (though Sebastian expresses his annoyance at this a little less crudely than Lord Snooty). 

Similarly, Lord Snooty's "seduction" of Earnest Christian was pathetically reminiscent of Sebastian and Annette in Cruel Intentions (itself, of course, hugely derivative of the film Dangerous Liaisons (not to mention de Laclos' epistolary novel...)), although Sebastian would never have accepted the challenge of seducing a girl who was willing to dump Jesus for him and jump into bed after a 30-second embrace in which he consoled her over the death of her father. The title of this post is also unfair because trashy as Cruel Intentions is, it's a lot classier than Trinity.

I think I'm going to go and read some Pynchon now to clear my head...

L'Art du Café

OK, I'm happy now; I have found a place in Nowheresville that produces a reliably good cappuccino (well, three times out of three, anyway): The Black Cat Café on Mill Road. I was meeting my friend for brunch and actually managed to get out of my house and over to Mill Road for a time that was still a.m. and the meal was thus worthy of the title "brunch."


Being all Californian and healthy, my friend just had a herbal tea and an egg-white omelette, but I went pigged out on (delicious) pancakes with maple syrup (American style pancakes, not crêpes) and a cappuccino. 

I didn't even mind that they had put chocolate on top (I don't like to mix the two pleasures of chocolate and coffee) as a) they used chocolate syrup and not cheap-ass Nesquik powder and b) it was so beautifully applied in the design of the Tudor Rose — artistic enough to give even Joe a run for its money.

It may not be Marylebone High Street but the Black Cat was bustling this morning, so much so that CD and I had to allow people to perch at the edge of our table, which was already overflowing with crockery and the Grauniad (in which I learned that two favourite bands of mine are on tour in the UK and the restau the Graun believes the best NYC burgers are found). Definitely not a bad Saturday morning, by any means.

Got Fall?

While uploading some of my holiday photos to the (no longer quite so irritating but still damn slow) Flickr this morning, I was reminded of the striking contrast between autumn in Cambridge and autumn in Mont Tremblant, just north of Montreal. Here are two photos of the same ilk, for comparison; I don't need to say which is which.

This Sceptred Isle

Penguin have just reissued a number of popular paperbacks with gorgeous vintage covers (I haven't yet been tempted by any of the mugs, pencils and other paraphernalia they have been adorning with Penguin covers for the past few years). Unfortunately, a quick trek around Borders made me realise that I already owned all of the reissues I would want to read. 

In the end, a BOGOHP offer persuaded me to buy The English by Jeremy Paxman, which has been on my medium priority list of books to acquire for a while now. I'm finding it compelling enough at the moment, although I much prefer Kate Fox's anthropology-based Watching the English.

Paxman, for the most part, speaks very fondly of England and of the English and although I do have warm, fuzzy feelings with regards to my country, when it comes to elucidating specific examples of what I like about it, I realised that I'm not really very loyal after all. Removing friends/family/acquaintances from the equation, this list is about all I was able to come up with; in no particular order:

1. Oxford. Especially in autumn when the golden leaves fall around the yellow, stone buildings on Magdalen Bridge and the High. The autumn evening light definitely becomes Oxford.

2. The Backs in Cambridge in the summer. Much as I malign Cambridge, you can't beat lazing on a sunny afternoon in the summertime, sprawled out on the grass next to the river drinking Pimm's and laughing at the tourists' attempts to punt.

3. Woodlands and other non-dramatic, non-OTT scenic areas, such as Shotover, in the village of my youth. Not that I ever go for long walks that much these days. It is, however, nice to have the option.

4. Bangers 'n' mash. The French have a mashed potato equivalent but it's far too liquid and has a funny taste about it. Also, their bangers are too seasoned for my sensitive palate.

5. Not being hassled by the staff on entering a shop/restaurant/any other public venue. Nothing wrong with friendliness when motivated by the right reasons; working on commission doesn't count.

6. Clive Owen. Of course. Enough to make one refuse to skip the country.

7. The OED. A linguist's dream come true and now online too! Oh, how I miss my Athens account!

8. Waitrose. Inspires me to cook properly. Almost.

9. The Beeb. Not that I watch TV, apart from Have I Got News For You (which would make the list in its own right were I capable of remembering to watch it more than twice a year).

I feel rather embarrassed that this is the best lot I can conceive; perhaps I should add this to my long-term project list. Paxman also talks extensively about the lack of understanding about what makes something English, taking the rather holistic view of concepts. 

A concept should be seen of as more than the sum of a list of necessary and sufficient conditions; someone or something is, thus, English because she or it has an intrinsic Englishness about her/it. I'm sure I should be more loyal. I take little interest in the government of my own country but stay up all night to watch the results of the American elections come in.

The grass is, of course, always plus verte and I'm sure there are plenty of things I take for granted in England that wouldn't be the same in, say, the US or in France. I suppose that at the moment, I have the best of both worlds: living in good old England and frequently visiting America and France. Maybe patriotism is simply a quality one grows into over time.

STOP PRESS: Bex Finds Fun Activity In Cambridge

Almost by chance, I ended up going to see a French film at the Arts Picturehouse yesterday. I was beginning to lose faith in recent movies altogether and so perhaps it was partly because of this that I enjoyed Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) so much. Or maybe it was because the advance preview screening of the film involved a Q&A session with the director afterwards. 

It was only as the opening credits rolled that I realised that as Guillaume Canet was the director and as the director was going to be in the cinema after the film, therefore Guillaume Canet was going to be in the cinema after the film (go, go, propositional logic!).

In 2000, everyone read Alex Garland's book The Beach, myself not excepted, though opinions were much more mixed about the film adaptation, starring Leo DiCaprio. I loved it and even went to see it twice, partly because of the soundtrack and partly because Canet was playing the role of Étienne, the guy whose girlfriend Leo's character stole. 

More recently, I loved Jeux d'Enfants (Love Me If You Dare) about childhood friends who, since the age of about 8, have been involved in an increasingly high-stakes game of dare and mess with each other's heads and hearts a lot in the process.

I wasn't aware that Monsieur Canet had branched out into the world of directing but Tell No One was pretty awesome (gripping, convoluted, moving thriller with a strong emphasis on the love and passion the main character feels for his wife and with a fantastic score apparently composed in only two hours) and the Q&A was great too, Guillaume being very funny and witty and, well, sexy! 

For example, one of the scenes involved the main character having to run across the périphérique in Paris as part of a big chase scene, which involved this massively busy road being shut off for a whole day, close to Charles de Gaulle airport. As this was France, no one announced this until the day itself at which point all of the local radio stations named, shamed and blamed Canet for the delays.

Incidentally, the film is based on the "best-selling US thriller of the same name by Harlan Coben" and some American director originally had the rights to make a film version starring George Clooney or Keanu Reeves (Monsieur Canet was not consistent in this anecdote but with those two, I'm easy either way!) but that was very different from the book (and from Canet's film). For example, the main character remarried after his wife's death in this US version because "it just isn't believable that George Clooney could stay single."


I was cursing afterwards though when I morphed into a fangirl and ran off to get his autograph as I had forgotten to bring my camera with me (or not thought that I might need it) and my mobile phone is pretty '90s and so I had to make do with an autograph in my Moleskine.

Mourning May Morning

If I were in Oxford right now, I would probably still be in the pub, staying in for a lock-in before heading off to Magdalen Bridge at 6 am to hear the choir of Magdalen College sing from the top of their chapel tower. Late-night drinking laws have meant that lock-ins have become a less enticing option if not a complete anachronism.

Having grown up in Oxford, I assumed that May Morning was a national event but my enjoyment thereof was always thwarted by the fact that a) I lived in a tiny village outside of Oxford and was — until the age of 18 — without a car and b) I almost always had school the following day. 

I was so excited when I went up to Cambridge and found that I was living in the centre of town — party on! Or not... I was sad to discover that the celebrations this side of the world are, like most things, less exciting than outside of Nowhereshire.

The first May Morning I went to, I was about ten. I camped in the garden with my dad and brother the night before and then we all went into Oxford at about four-thirty. The town was heaving and we watched some morris dancing in Radcliffe Square before going to watch the singing.

The last May Morning I attended (on account of studying in the Other Place, which is now my "here") was during my last year of school. I stayed up drinking in the pub until midnight, got a lift home, slept until 3 am and then drove back into town to work a 5-hour shift in the Sandwich Shop of Dreams, which was right next to Magdalen Bridge. 

That shift was pretty entertaining given that all of the customers were absolutely wasted and in serious need of coffee and bacon sarnies, hence orders like, "Give me two quadruple espressos and a large breakfast bap!" were the norm. At 8 am I drove to school and had a full day of lessons and then, as if all that wasn't enough, drove to my rowing club after school for a two-hour outing on the river! Not everyone's idea of fun but it was certainly an experience.

I imagine that 1 May, 2007 will pass — as most days tend to in Cambridge — without event. At least us Cambridge students are far too sensible to throw ourselves off bridges into water that is way too shallow (ah hem — except during May Week, but that's not until June!), despite the police's best attempts to prevent them from doing so and thus spending May Day in hospital. In comparison, work seems almost fun.