Vignettes

Oxford and Cambridge

Staying at the Beltsville Maryland Crowne Plaza for a weekend swim meet is a pain in the ass.  Staying at the Crowne Plaza in Cambridge for a 3 day swim gala is an adventure, at least for us. 

There were murmurings amongst the parents, even some of the expats, “I can’t believe I’m back in Cambridge…again.”  Some stayed home and took an early morning train, others skipped the Friday night or kept the kids home for that friends’ Bar Mitzvah.  It’s all perspective.

Both Oxford and Cambridge were a bit of a disappointment, I expected old bookstores, not Waterstones, coffee shops, not Pret a Manger, an Apothecary, not Boots.  And while some of the views are magnificent, it is still just a place of learning and a place of commerce.

Pub Trivia

The Lime Street Runners, the name of our Pub Trivia team, had a great showing at our latest event at the City Tavern.  Pub Trivia is another excuse to have drinks with office mates, but under the guise of, well having drinks with your mates.   Nineteen teams pack in a Pub, there are questions and videos on a monitor, you put your answers on a sheet of paper which is then corrected by another team.  Eight rounds later, after food and drink throughout, there is a winner.  The prizes are usually ghastly, but by then no one cares.

The American CEO came along for the ride but was little help for the team as the questions centered on far too many British celebrities, politicians and reality show winners.  Since I can barely tell a Pippa from a Kate.  I was lucky to have a question about the recent Republican to leave the race, John Huntsman (most guessed Ron Paul?)

As we moved our way up the charts, we were in 19^th place (last) after round one, we hit the final round called “twist or stand.”  In this round the questions got progressively harder and at any point you can bow out and bank the points you’d achieved.  But if you stay in and get the answer wrong you lose all points accumulated that round.

After noting that Zagreb was the only capital starting with Z (Zurich is not) the questions presented particular difficulty even for my British teammates:  In what city is England currently playing Pakistan in cricket? What four letters on a British license plate are never used?  Since the inception of the Premier League 20 years ago, name the two clubs that have appeared in 15 or more seasons without being ever presents.

A strong last question (name the two biggest bones in the fore-arm, name the three movies in which Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise co-star) and a wise dropping off point gave us a proud second place finish.