Status Anxiety
Desperate to survive my speech at the Brasenose Gaudy, I resorted to Cameron jokes
It was the call I’d been dreading. Roger Cashmore, the Principal of Brasenose College, phoned to ask whether I would be willing to give a speech on behalf of the alumni at the College Gaudy. It was the 25th anniversary of the class that had matriculated in 1983 and I had already RSVPd. How was I going to wriggle out of it?
The reason for my reluctance, obviously, is that it would provoke a tidal wave of resentment on the part of my contemporaries. Thinking about the moment when I got up to make the speech, I could already feel the gamma rays of hatred shooting out of their eyes. Who does that c*** think he is? What the f*** has he achieved? He’s just a bloody self-publicist.
‘You’d be doing me a huge favour,’ said Professor Cashmore.
‘Er, well, all right then,’ I said.
I did have one card up my sleeve. I originally applied to Brasenose because the admissions tutor at the time, Harry Judge, had introduced a special scheme to encourage people who weren’t ‘conventional Oxbridge material’ to apply to read PPE. I certainly fell into that category. I failed all my O-levels first time round and, after retaking, ended up with four Cs and a grade one in CSE Drama. After a gruelling interview, the College made me an offer of three Bs at A-level — possibly the lowest conditional offer it had ever issued.
Having been thrown this lifeline, I made a gargantuan effort and managed to get two Bs and a C. I thought that was that, but I received a photocopied letter from the College secretary that began: ‘I am pleased to know that you will be coming up to Brasenose this October...’ Admittedly, it was not addressed to me personally, but the clear implication was that I had got in.
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David Short
September 20th, 2008 11:03amLovely. I await all the horror stories there will be if this softie faced public schoolboy, pr man, idiot becomes Prime Minister.
God knows what will happen when we have another softie, no proper job, public schoolboy as PM, but it will be entertaining!
United States, do please take us on! Our democracy has failed us.