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Cambridge Blues ('Foundationed deep')

"I" Staircase, Trinity Hall, Cambridge  This weekend past, I returned to Cambridge with Ayumi, Julian and Justin for the first time in seven years. The occasion was a college reunion dinner, marking approximately 40 years of life since matriculation (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 entrance years): about half of us (~50) from each annual cohort turned up to compare notes, reminisce, squeeze our sagging frames into formal evening wear, and report biographical highlights. It is worth noting that this was a self-selecting group: those with sufficient time, opportunity, income (it wasn't a cheap weekend break), self-regard and retained affection for their alma mater to trundle up; as bushy tailed and 'Hail fellow, well met', as age and misanthropy might allow.  Sic transit gloria iuvenum. I didn't have a great time, nor yet was it a disastrous waste. This is hardly surprising, since the curse of middle age is profound ambivalence about almost every extra-familial event or ...