DEGREES OF MONEY

I was musing this morning about the demands of the Norrington Table - the measure of the relative success of Oxford colleges calculated by the (First class) degrees achieved by their undergraduates and balanced by the number of students reading for degrees.

Just as in the football premiership, there seem to be three broad bands of colleges (excluding the small institutions usually focused on religious orders): the top ones always challenging for the top spot, the middle order which always do fairly well and seem not to need the tension of pushing higher and the bottom segment who have at least the consolation, unlike in football, that they cannot be relegated.

[My former college, Pembroke, is at the bottom and there is a move there to create a motto (in Latin) along the lines of: "At least we can row."]  

My musings arose from a conversation last night with a young woman currently reading Biology at Christchurch, one of the grand colleges but one whose sense of its own importance has not, in recent years, been reflected by its position in the Norrington Table (currently seventh).  The authorities at Christchurch have decided, in my view surprisingly, that financial inducement is the way forward and first year undergraduates (for example)  are being offered discounts on next year's fees, better rooms and all sorts of other goodies if they achieve Firsts in their first set of (qualifying) exams.

This, so the young woman said, is leading to interesting conversations regarding plans for the Long Vacation along the lines of, "Well if I get a first then I'm planning to go to Thailand but if not, I suppose I'll spend the summer at home."   

The implication of these monetary carrots is interesting.  It suggests that the admissions tutors at Christchurch (and, by the way, I am not saying this college is unique in going down the financial route) are sure that the quality of students admitted to study there is as good as it can be and it is only the Oxford life, with its manifold diversions, that has shifted them from the strait and narrow path to academic glory - a shift that can be corrected by the application of a few pounds sterling.

Is this true?  Is a grade B undergraduate likely to be turned into a grade A by the prospects of lucre or is it the case that those with the exceptional minds required to achieve an Oxford First class degree are already so driven and that no further investment, perhaps we might call it 'pressure', is either helpful or desirable?

For me, there's another consideration in play here which is the strenuous efforts being made by many colleges to encourage the application and admission of students from what we might euphemistically call 'poorer backgrounds'.  I gather that some of these non-traditional undergraduates blossom in Oxford's highly demanding atmosphere but many do not.  In either case, the goal of the admitting college here is to be a broader, all-embracing centre of learning and not, therefore, a hothouse forcing Firsts.

It is arguable, although in these liberal days the argument runs the risk of being labelled as socially divisive, that if financial inducements are brought into play, they should be aimed at this non-traditional group encouraging them to try for good Seconds.  Ah but sadly, Second class degrees don't help when it comes to a college's ranking in the table which, despite its name, was not invented by Sir Arthur Norrington.     

  

MAD, BAD BUT NEW?

I've just read a book review in the Sunday Times, specifically of a book called 'Dear Lupin: Letters to a Wayward Son."  At one point the reviewer says the author (Roger Mortimer), "had excellent material to work with.  The delightful Mortimer family all seem to have been as mad as balloons."

"As mad as balloons."  Has anyone else ever heard or used this expression before?  Of course we all know, "As mad as a March hare" and equally, but less usually, "As mad as a cut snake" (for some reason often used to describe, not necessarily unkindly, an Irishman or woman).  But, "As mad as balloons?"

What sort of balloons, I wonder?  Are we talking of those massed bunches of fairground balloons, made of foil, filled with helium and shaped as fish, dogs or characters from Disney or manga?  Or are we talking about the common or garden balloon-shaped balloons, the staple of birthday parties long gone - filled with gasping breaths (resorted to inevitably when the balloon pump, always bought new for the special occasion, turned out in current political phraseology to be 'unfit for purpose')?

Certainly these old-fashioned inflatables could engender a sort of madness (and I am not talking about the budgerigar voice resulting from inhaling helium).  I remember long ago a birthday party (mine) in my rooms at Oxford when I and other strong-lunged rowers, blew up a gross or two balloons in the hope that, under cover of the shifting, squeaking latex we could get our hands, albeit briefly, on the shifting, squeaking girls invited to enliven the occasion.

Actually, the plan worked well but not for long.  As often happens at such student events, the booze ran freely and ran out quickly, requiring me - both as host and pretty much the only man in funds at the time - to pop out for more supplies.

The word 'pop' was apposite.  As I returned, the noise through the windows of balloon after balloon being intentionally burst brought to mind descriptions of the guns of the First World War when heard from Kent if the wind was in the east.  Suffice it to say that the guests were having a 'blast', one long-remembered but I have to say that, for a moment at least, I failed to see the funny side.

I was, in James Hawes's newly-minted phrase in 'A White Merc with Fins', MAF (As 'Mad as Fuck').