rdn32

I’ve recently had a number of headhunter types waving opportunities under my nose and asking if I’d consider relocating. Whilst it’s nice to feel wanted, it’s even nicer to remind myself of some of the reasons why I’m very happy to stay where I am. So: what is there to see in Cambridge?

OK, cafés are hardly unique to Cambridge. I’m including this photo because it is, as I understand it, an Internet best practice to photograph one’s food. I’m not sure why. No doubt if I read the relevant RFC it would all become clear.

This photo was taken at a newly opened café on King Street. The piece of chocolate and Guinness cake shown was very nice, but not as nice as their brownies (which I believe are the best I’ve ever tasted).

Cafés may be common enough, but collections of plaster casts of ancient Greek sculptures are more unusual. Here are two copies of a statue of Athena, one of which has made up to give an impression of how it might originally have looked:

Here’s a bust of Leonidas, king of Sparta:

The Festival of Ideas is on at the moment. Yesterday I had a look around the Museum of Classical Archaeology, where I took these photos. For the festival they had an expert on hand to answer any questions people might have, but either people didn’t have many questions or they felt a bit intimidated by him. I asked him why there were ram’s horns on the helmet of Leonidas, as I’d thought this motif was more normally associated with Alexander the Great. He didn’t know specifically, although we did have a bit of a chat about decorations on armour in general.

Here’s a sight from closer to home. It’s a row of two houses and a launderette. I’ll have to do some explaining as to why I think it’s special.

I used to live in the house on the far left of the picture. At that time there was a guy called Frank living in the other house. Frank was a communist. He used to visit Cuba, taking medical textbooks with him. Generally I didn’t see much of Frank, although there was the time when a housemate drunkenly fell through the kitchen window (long story) and I had to calm down a blazing row between Frank and the glazier I’d called out… But I digress.

The launderette is an interesting place. Apparently it used to be a pub, once upon a time, but I’ve always known it as a launderette. Its heaviest users are people who, I’ve always assumed, live in the nearby trailer park.

I was in there last weekend, using one of the tumble dryers. I got chatting to a young Italian woman who turned out to be a visiting scholar at the Computer Lab doing research on numerical models in ecology. In a small way, that’s what I like about Cambridge. I’m sure these other places—Bristol and Brighton, London and San Francisco—all have their plus points. But where else in the world could you have a conversation with a random stranger, whilst waiting for clothes to dry, turn into a discussion about Lotka-Volterra equations?