Part 5 (1/2)

'Erthat's the term is it, abandonment? Well, yes, abandonment then '

'Hold please, caller '

I wait until a tired voice comes on the line

'Special services, how can I help?'

'I' a policy to insure an eventI think you call it abandonment?'

'Oh yes? What sort of event?

'Well it's a party'

'An outdoors event, is it?'

'Well, it's a ball Mostly on lawns in tents, but some parts are inside'

'I seeand you want rain cover Partial or con cover'

'Excuse ainst the Queen Mother dying'

The sound of a receiver being banged on the desk followed by a blowing down the earpiece 'So with the line Sounded likenever mind Could you repeat that please?'

Here in the twenty-first century there are probably only two insurance co equally foul, but in 1979 there were dozens I tried the Royal, Swan, Prudential, Pearl, Norwich Union all those I had heard of and a dozen that I hadn't In each case, once I had succeeded in getting the agent to understand as required, I was asked to call back I iher up the chain of coht be said that they had abandonment issues

This kind of insurance is, of course, nothingYou bet your stake (which insurance companies call a preet stolen, royal fas The relationshi+p between the pre the value of the insured thing (the indeainst the odds and statistical probability of its being threatened Bookies use the for to determine their prices; insurance companies use a similar mixture of market trends and their own history and precedent books, which they call actuarial tables I can understand that Had I wanted an abandonainst snow and ice, they would have looked at the value of the May Ball and seen that they would have to shell out 40,000 if it was cancelled They would also see that blizzards in early June are incredibly rare, even in Cae a fraction of a fraction of 1 per cent of the indeenerous, but then only an idiot would bother to insure against so reency in the first place With a rain policy the insurersforecasters and local records, that there was, say, a fifty-fifty chance of precipitation in which case the pre 20,000 But then, what kind of an idiot would arrange a suland which was so weather dependent that it would have to be abandoned if the heavens opened? Abandonment policies are not very common, that is the point, but there are nonetheless fairly obviousthe issue of price when it comes to natural disasters like weather, fire and earthquake The death of the monarch's mother, on the other handhow could an actuary be expected to calculate the odds of that? She was seventy-nine years old

I decided that I would give the co back for a quote

Did the insurance clerks go into her faevity of the entire Bowes-Lyon clan? Did they call up Clarence House and inquire into the Queen Mother's health, diet and exercise regiin and Dubonnet? I can only iine the discussions they must have had in their offices

In the case of each firlooh the next fewuntil the antic premiums they proposed The cheapest offer, 20 per cent of the indeet of 50

'I am afraid,' I tell the President of the Co fro to have to pray for Her Majesty's continued good health If she does die I will undertake to keep the news from the Fellows if I have to steal every newspaper and radio in the college and lock them all in a cellar to do so'

'I may hold you to that,' the President said, a worried look furrowing his youthful brow

I do not suppose that a queen's life has been prayed for more assiduously since the days of Boudicca Sadly, the Queen Mother did die, though happily for us, not for another twenty-three years When she finally left the world in 2002, she was thoughtful enough to do so in March,would be well over by May Week It was just such examples of kindness and consideration that endeared her to so orous life So next to her at a dinner, I considered thanking her on behalf of the college for so thoughtfully delaying her death, but shyness and good sense got the better of e Easter term (for so they call the third terhts May Week Revue The Footlights Club is one of the university's best-known institutions, having sent generations of comic writers and performers into the world over the course of its 130-year history Its May Week show at the Arts Theatre was an annual ritual If you were cool it was an event to disdain 'Apparently the Footlights are crap this year,' you would say to your companion as you wrinkled your nose at a poster for the event There has never been a year in which this has not been said The same phrase would have been heard when Jonathan Miller was running the Footlights, or Peter Cook and David Frost, through Cleese, Chaplas Adams, Clive Anderson and Griff Rhys Jones, Dave Baddiel and Rob Newman, David Mitchell and Robert Webb all the way up to the current year If you were normal, such cynicism did not occur to you, and the May Week Revue was another fun fixture on the Cae calendar I was neither cool nor normal, but simply too busy with is one of the university's best-known institutions, having sent generations of comic writers and performers into the world over the course of its 130-year history Its May Week show at the Arts Theatre was an annual ritual If you were cool it was an event to disdain 'Apparently the Footlights are crap this year,' you would say to your companion as you wrinkled your nose at a poster for the event There has never been a year in which this has not been said The same phrase would have been heard when Jonathan Miller was running the Footlights, or Peter Cook and David Frost, through Cleese, Chaplas Adams, Clive Anderson and Griff Rhys Jones, Dave Baddiel and Rob Newman, David Mitchell and Robert Webb all the way up to the current year If you were normal, such cynicism did not occur to you, and the May Week Revue was another fun fixture on the Cae calendar I was neither cool nor normal, but sis to be able to attend and other things to be able to attend

I heard that soether a production of Oedipus Rex Oedipus Rex for Edinburgh and decided that I estured and declai that perhaps I had rather overdone it The next day I found ine, and my excitement was almost impossible to contain For the rest of the tere like a bee in a bottle for Edinburgh and decided that I estured and declai that perhaps I had rather overdone it The next day I found ine, and my excitement was almost impossible to contain For the rest of the tere like a bee in a bottle

At some point I believe I must have sat some exams Preli about them Not where they took place, nor what kinds of questions ere given to answer I suppose I must have passed theht My Cah without the intrusion of academic study: a university is not, thank heavens, a place for vocational instruction, it has nothing to do with training for a working life and career, it is a place for education, so quite different A real education takes place, not in the lecture hall or library, but in the rooms of friends, with earnest frolic and happy disputation Wine can be a wiser teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books That wasby it Such serene and lofty views of education as against vocational training were beginning to madden the new political leadershi+p Thatcher was an industrial cherindery and training and require no education whatsoever as she deard it, this cleaving to the elitist tradition of the Liberal Arts, this arrogant Athenian self-indulgence was an enemy, a noxious weed that required summary eradication Its days were numbered

The 1979 Queens' May Ball took place I donned the tailcoat that I had rented for the week, all ready towell, to have myself a ball We happy, flushed, proud and excited ne half an hour before the kick-off Ten minutes later I was in an aenfor every breath bloody asthma It would be another two years before I fully understood what had brought it on I often succus, fetes, Hunt balls or events of that kind On such occasions there were usually flowers and summer pollen about, so it had never occurred tofor business was actually chay, but one doesn't choose them

At Addenbrooke's an injection of adrenaline had such an immediately restorative effect that I was out of the hospital, in a cab and on the way back to Queens' by ten, two fresh inhalers for e the sweep and cut of my dress trousers I was determined not to miss another minute

May balls traditionally end with a breakfast, and oers like to welcoe I was a sentidalene) to a dreadful fault I athe river on a suly roly adorable

Caledonia 1 After the term ended, I took myself off as usual to North Yorkshi+re to teach a little Latin, uames fields for Sports Day and, in such spare time as I had, learn the role of Oedipus as well as lines for my various parts in a production of Charles Marowitz's Artaud at Rodez Artaud at Rodez which the Ca and in which I had also, perhaps foolishly, agreed to appear Foolishly because, each day for a fortnight, the e Mu and in which I had also, perhaps foolishly, agreed to appear Foolishly because, each day for a fortnight, theto have to hare off to the venue where I was going to have to hare off to the venue where Oedipus Oedipus would be due to start half an hour later Old Edinburgh hands said I would be cutting it fine, especially if I had complicated costume to doff and don or heavyit fine was one of the things I liked to do would be due to start half an hour later Old Edinburgh hands said I would be cutting it fine, especially if I had complicated costume to doff and don or heavyit fine was one of the things I liked to do

For three weeks in late suh is the world centre of student drae every year for the next five years at least Most who go cannot fail to fall instantly in love with the city as much as with the event Within a couple of days the muscles on your shi+ns ache from the unaccustomed steep ascents and descents of the town, the numberless stone steps and narroynds surprise your muscles if you were used to the easy, level streets of East Anglian towns and a sedentary life it did ed theh's old tene made me feel that at any moment Burke and Hare, Deacon Brodie or Mr Hyde were about to rise snarling from the steps of the Grasspolystyrene trays of Spudulike with cheese In those days baked potato take-aways provided the cheapest for nutrition a student could require Scotland really was another country The diet was different: aside from Spudulike the chicken carry-out shops offered the delicate specialite du pays specialite du pays deep-fried Mars Bars, Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlys Scottish banknotes were different, the language, the weather, the light, even the Kensitas cigarettes were unfa bitter or at least a gassy soestured towards the idea of it deep-fried Mars Bars, Wagon Wheels and Curly Wurlys Scottish banknotes were different, the language, the weather, the light, even the Kensitas cigarettes were unfa bitter or at least a gassy soestured towards the idea of it

Everywhere about the city, on every wall, , lamp-post or doorere posters for plays, comedies and idiosyncratic entertain from circus, music hall, surrealist balloon manipulation and ballet to street percussion, Maoist li Members of the casts of these shoould dress up and run down the streets showering the good-naturedly reluctant passers-by with leaflets and co day a parade of floatsPrinces Street There was somewhere in the city, or so ere told, a proper and official Festival being held: professional theatre companies and international orchestras perforrown-ups in s of these, ere the Fringe, a vast fungus-like organish, into the dossiest accommodations, weirdest sheds, huts, warehouses and wharves, and into every church hall and functional space large enough to house a punkthe Royal Mile, which runs down froe Office, where festival-goers queued up for tickets There were two shows I knew that I sihts Revue which due to The Tee, and the other was a one- put on at the Wireworks, a converted factory just behind the Fringe Office I had been told so raduate called Rowan Atkinson, was not to beup to plank down soe, and the other was a one- put on at the Wireworks, a converted factory just behind the Fringe Office I had been told so raduate called Rowan Atkinson, was not to beup to plank down some cash on tickets for me and the Oedipus Oedipus cast cast

There was bad nehen I got to the front of the queue

'Ooh, that one's sold out, '

'Oh, really?'

''Fraid sowhat else do you hang on'

She picked up the phone and as she listened to the other end a smile lit up her face and she flashedScot and wonderfully cheerful given her hard, non-computerized workload I can still picture her face exactly

'Well, well That was the Rowan Atkinson people just now to say that due to popular deht perforht five tickets and one for the Cahts and stumbled happily away

We presented our Oedipus Oedipus every evening for teeks at the Adan was 'inspired' by science fiction file costuel which were a devil to get on in tiap between performances Peter Rumney had chosen W B Yeats's translation of the Sophocles original, and I spoke the language well, in a mellifluously rhetorical kind of way, but was unable to ascend the heights of tragedy and despair that the play demanded In fact I didn't even reach the foothills Oedipus Rex's journey froh terant squares of the Nen into the sinister slue street with so but about as much pity and terror as a banana milkshake Nor did our production do well in the turbulent co for teeks at the Adan was 'inspired' by science fiction file costuel which were a devil to get on in tiap between performances Peter Rumney had chosen W B Yeats's translation of the Sophocles original, and I spoke the language well, in a mellifluously rhetorical kind of way, but was unable to ascend the heights of tragedy and despair that the play demanded In fact I didn't even reach the foothills Oedipus Rex's journey froh terant squares of the Nen into the sinister slue street with so but about as much pity and terror as a banana milkshake Nor did our production do well in the turbulent coe audiences The Scotsurehead of the shi+p, which sounded good until she went on to explain that sheand wooden Oh well None of this worriedthe time of my life In the Muurehead of the shi+p, which sounded good until she went on to explain that sheand wooden Oh well None of this worriedthe time of my life In the Must other characters I played the great French actor Jean-Louis Barrault It was directed by the dynahton, who had cast Jonathan Tafler (son of the film actor Sidney) in the lead role of Artaud He was superb and do to spend , as soon as Oedipus Oedipus came down I decellophaned myself and hurried away to join an i its way into the theatre where the Ca their revue, came down I decellophaned myself and hurried away to join an i its way into the theatre where the Cahtcap

'Apparently it's crap this year,' I heard frohtcrap Nightcrap,' tittered his coood, and the sceptical pair behindapproval when the curtain call came