Member-only story
“We’re All Mad Here”
The above image is taken from the front of my car. My cute little Hyundai. It’s also, of course, a quote from the Lewis Carroll work “Alice in Wonderland.”
Back in 2018, I had the great good fortune to attend a one week seminar at Oxford University, Christ Church, UK (where the Harry Potter films were created) and it was absolutely wonderful and beyond compare. I wish now, in retrospect, I had appreciated it more because now, the very idea of sitting in the Grand Dining Hall sharing a table with others, mask free, is akin to living in an alternate reality of sorts, which most of us, in our own ways, are doing.
- As a side note, should one ever have the incredible privilege of being at Christ Church for a seminar, may I just say: one can get incredibly sublimely boozy in a way that would make Sir Winston Churchill proud :)
Dinner begins with unlimited amounts of sherry — the food — then both red and white wines — followed by port — then champagne. It is any wonder, then, that I absconded with an empty Oxford wine bottle as a memento?
At the end of the week, there was a graduation ceremony of sorts and what made it so magical and mystical was that we were all permitted entrance, at an exact time, no less, to meet in front of a large stone wall with a very tiny door which was ALWAYS kept locked, expect for special circumstances. At the…
