Today is Boat Race day in England.
The power of the Oxbridge elite in our society guarantees that this ridiculous sporting event between teams that do not necessarily much represent those universities or the best rowers gets massively undue attention.
Despite that, the River Thames, on which it will be rowed, has unsafe water right now. The crews should, apparently, avoid too much contact with it or consume any, which will be pretty hard to do given the nature of the event.
There is something deeply ironic in this. Few institutions have done more to promote neoliberalism and its toxic side effects than these universities, with Oxford being most especially to blame. The pollution of the Thames is an inevitable by-product of the shit corrosive thinking they have promoted.
I suspect the commentators today will not make these associations. I am doing so on their behalf.
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I have always found it odd that the BBC in particular make a great deal of events like this which I would think only appeal to a minority and which most of us find rather boring. Its a media problem assuming that everyone likes certain events which are deemed to be important but to whom?
I live 1.5 miles from the Cambridge boathouse (it is in Ely). I don’t give a damn who wins.
No, that’s not true. I always want Oxford beaten. I would not care who by.
:Its a media problem assuming that everyone likes certain events which are deemed to be important but to whom?”
Well at least the Kentucky Derby is only three minutes long at the most! LOL!
Well, lets hope that the shit doesn’t hit the fans today.
Or should we hope that it does?
Payback is a bitch (said Robin Williams RIP)
Obedience and compliance are in the DNA of British cultural norms, we are subjects not citizens, the boat race, the house of lords, the vast wealth inequality are somehow just accepted as ‘how it is’. Being an island means it’s harder to experience in depth another reality.
(Porter House Blue offers one of the best ethnographic studies of the English class inter-relationship, written by an outsider).
The other realities like Kett and the ongoing culture of resistance from these islands, are subordinated narratives. hardly known.
That was a very good book
Since January 1983, very few people have qualified as British subjects.
The people apparently referenced in the comment of #Demos Kratos are *British citizens*.
https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality
This is correct, however subjecthood as a construct has existed for centuries, Britain is firmly rooted in a feudal society, and the descendants of the Norman Conquest are doing just fine, ‘ 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land,’ Guardian.
My passport once referenced me as a British subject; until recently, in 1706 there was no British subject, in 1869 you couldn’t renounce your perpetual allegiance to the British Crown, but in 1700 there was no Britain, or British Crown, as we understand it.
Whilst laws change, invisible power relationships don’t always follow.
What a miserable old man! If people want to enjoy the boat race both spectators and competitors then let them!
Wow!
a) I am not old
b) I am not miserable – very far from it
c) I do social commentary – if you want to live delusioned that’s your choice, but why come here?
d) If posting comments such as this gives you a kick you need to get a life, as the saying goes.
Growing up – the boat race was just one of those things that come around each year. A bit like the Grand National and the cup final. It wasn’t questioned.
‘Oxbridge’ is indeed pernicious – the elite club – sucking in those with genuine intellectual prowess to blend with , and reinforce the eternal governing elite.
And now it seems to be being corrupted by dark international money – funding ‘research’ with some academics like sir John Bell of vaccine fame having100’s thousands shares in drug firms etc.
But there have also been independent thinkers – Keynes included, Danny Dorling at Oxford today etc
The commentators will probably have no choice but to refer the pollution – as I think there is now a ban on throwing the winning cox into the river. But of course, as you say Richard, they will do their best not to draw too obvious a line between the shit in the river and the ‘toxic ‘ intellectual foundations that produced it.
Thanks
Indeed there were exceptions…my father went to Fitzwilliam House, as it then was, (not a full college) in 1936, via a scholarship to Battersea Grammar School. For him it was a rather wonderful escape from a difficult, and sometimes violent family life, despite being so hard up that he sometimes had to cycle to Balham in London to see my mum because he couldn’t afford the train fare. For him it opened up new worlds and he was a very active member of the Socialist society – there was a lot of left wing activity in Cambridge Uni at that time. It also gave him a close up view of the class system which he hated.
He went into teaching after the war and was an enthusiastic advocate for comprehensive education and community schools and always regretted that the post war Labour government hadn’t abolished private education. He became the headteacher of a Somerset comprehensive and pioneered a system where adults could come in take their o-levels alongside the pupils. He had a lifelong committment to social justice.
I’m guessing his experience of Cambridge would be a rare thing now, as it probably was then ….. he would be horrified at the current state of the nation.
Thanks
Not Frome Community College by any chance
Ooops, confession time – I hope this doesn’t mean expulsion… 😉
My wife used to row while a student at teacher training in York about 50 yrs ago. So we watch every year.
Second confession, I failed to get into Cambridge (which I’m pleased about, because I went to Edinburgh instead) but I did get bitten by either fleas or bedbugs while staying overnight at Clare College for the interview/oral. They were very elite intelligent little beasties though.
Today they did talk a lot on the Beeb about the water quality but there was clearly a top level embargo on words like “sewage” and of course no one mentioned the appalling corporate greed of the shareholders of Thames Water. Someone did mention E. Coli (but where it might have come from).
I’d love to know what the afternoon’s coverage cost. Three hours of Clare Balding doesn’t come cheap.
🙂