Jenny's First Manuscript

It was a commonplace book containing lots of copies of speeches and letters to and from King Charles and his Parliament, and actually the whole thing was rather chillingly topical, what with the king completely ignoring the wishes of his legislative body and demanding more money for war and trying to slither out of making promises about anything that the said legislative body wanted and reminding the legislative body that he could dissolve them if they wanted to and they had better just behave (which Bush hasn't done of course, but I bet he would if he could). And there's some other stuff in there too that I haven't gotten to yet because I read slowly and the person whose commonplace this was writes small, albeit in a blessedly clear and tidy secretary hand that I have almost no problem deciphering.

I have heard so much about how beautiful Cambridge was that I guess I was expecting too much, or maybe I was just in the wrong section of Cambridge, but I was mainly unimpressed by it. I was also a little bit lost now and then, but nothing catastrophic and I had cleverly left myself plenty of wiggle room in which to get lost and then found again.

I tried to console myself for this disappointment of the aesthetics of the campus by assuring myself that those occasional beautiful buildings were the only relevant (to me) buildings at Cambridge and thus I need not worry about any of the other buildings. I was actually right about King's College, so well done me and I can go back there because now I know where it is and darling Robbie's letters are just waiting for me; but I was sadly wrong about the University Library and when I found the real University Library it crushed my soul a little bit. Cause it was all brick. (Not stone.) And inside it was institutiony, with those blue institutiony doors. (Not cool and elegant and stony.) Having been inside the Radcliffe Camera, which is everything a reading room should be, I felt totally let down; and the Manuscript Room at CUL is exactly like the rare books and manuscripts room at the Hill Memorial Library, which if I wanted to see them I could have stayed home.

However, rather against my gloomy expectations, I was issued a reader's card (hooray! even though I am sorry to say it only lasts until next Thursday) and actually given a manuscript, and that was like the most exciting thing ever. I mean, it would have been more exciting if the manuscript had been a hair more interesting, because although the bits with speeches were good, I then got on to all this fussing about the Duke of Buckingham (and yes, nobody's mentioning it, but, Charlie honey, WE ALL KNOW that he was doing your "father of blessed and most sacred memory"), and eventually a monumentally boring bit about the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham. Plus I felt sad because I wanted to believe I would be able to copy the whole thing before I left England, and it turns out that there is no way that will happen. Not even close. Maybe a third of it, if I get really good at reading the secretary hand and figure out how to type an ampersand without looking at the keyboard.

But hey, whatever. It was a manuscript in secretary hand and I got to read the whole thing. As I was sitting there reading it, I developed this vague notion that wherever I end up living I should be sure it's somewhere with some manuscripts in secretary hand for me to amuse myself with in my free hours. It's like Latin, except obviously less fun because it is easier to figure out than Latin.

Tragically, however, I had sour creamy stuffed potatoes last night, and to my shock and horror, they disagreed with me. (Or something did. But sour cream seems to be the most likely candidate.) And I'm not talking like the kind of disagreement where Janet thinks Leonardo DiCaprio is good-looking and I don't; I'm talking like the kind of disagreement that starts wars. I'm talking like the sour cream is Henry VIII and I'm Sir Thomas More, and we just can't both exist at once, and in the end one of us is going to have to be sacrificed, and it is going to be the one who lacks the power to stop it. So I felt as sick as I could be and kept being very much afraid that I was going to puke on the manuscript. And I had, you know, feminine problems. I had both of these things.

Well, I'm going back on Thursday. At which point the cramps will be gone, and I won't eat any sour cream on Wednesday night, so presumably I won't be being made sick by those either. And I won't be all worried about whether they're going to let me in, and I won't get lost on the way to the library because I know my way now. In general all circumstances will be drastically more favorable. And then I can decide, totally free of preconceived prejudice, that I love Oxford more.

(Even though Hugh Laurie went to Cambridge and he is an absolute legend. Cause he only went there for the rowing.)

(And even though Robbie Ross went there. Cause he left early cause everyone there was rubbish.)