I was listening to the radio news about the Oxford and Cambridge annual boat race today. This is an event which has completely slipped beneath my radar, but it was brought into the news today by the presence of two burly identical twins in the Oxford team. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are Americans who as well as rowing at this high level, won a legal case over their role in the origins of Facebook.
It started me thinking about my childhood, when everyone in the country took sides in the boat race and everyone watched it on TV live. For no apparent reason, we all adopted sides and fervently supported one team or the other. The only reason for my choice of Cambridge all those years ago was a liking for light blue over dark blue, as we had no connections to either town and certainly not to either university. I liked light blue shirts and didn’t like dark blue pullovers.
Many years later, as an OUP author, I remember expressing a mild preference for an Oxford victory to one of my OUP editors, but as he’d attended Cambridge himself, he was rooting for the other side, as it turned out were most of his colleagues.
The boat race on TV has proven a minefield for sports reporters. The person who steers the boat is usually chosen because they’re small and light, and is called the cox. Private Eye regularly lists unfortunate sports commentaries, and with the boat race they’re along predictable lines (The race is over! They’ve won! Everyone in the crew is hugging their little cox …)
I haven’t watched it in years, except for re-runs on the main evening news, though after thirty years connection with Oxford, I’d extremely vaguely hope they’d win. That’s more to do with having filmed various videos in so many obscure parts of the university, especially English Channel III: Double Identity.
