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CENTRESPREAD
Monday, August 29, 2011
Everybody out! Perks of power cut I WAS working hard at my desk – well, those YouTube videos of the sneezing panda don’t watch themselves, you know – when the screen flickered and died. I looked disbelievingly at my hands in case I had had some sort of chocolate-induced spasm and hit a weird combination of keys, but then noticed that my gentlyhumming printer had gone quiet. Power cut! Now where did I put those candles – and why Susan’s would I need them at 10 in the Question morning? of the Week I looked out AS we spend into the street so garden, we ha much time in the and it was like a in the middle ve a doorbell. It is row of cuckoo eye-level, withof the front door at clocks: heads “P it. Why do so ress” written on were appearing m knock instead any people from every door. complain that and then A chorus of “Are we didn’t you off too?” hear them? quickly established that we were all electricity-free. Power cuts were quite common when I was little, hence my instinctive search for candles – although I’m not sure that the lightly scented bergamot and tangerine “bougie de relaxation” that I finally unearthed in the cupboard quite cuts the mustard in the illumination stakes. But these days outages are quite rare, and are usually heralded by a flurry of warnings from the electricity company, so this unexpected withdrawal of power was a bit worrying. And then I started thinking. My computer was off, so that pretty much knocked my work/pandas on the head. I couldn’t do the ironing or the Hoovering, or even put on a load of washing. Without the telly, I couldn’t catch up on all those improving documentaries I keep recording about science and maths and the environment (and then eschewing in favour of DVDs of Dallas and anything by Richard Curtis). And with the freezer now off, I really ought to eat that ice-cream. So it made sense, nay, it was my housewifely duty, to sit in the garden with a magazine and eat a big bowl of Ben and Jerry’s. And then the dratted power came back on again. Of course this meant going around the house and resetting all the clocks. It seems that every single electrical device, probably including the toaster, has a clock that gaily reverts to a flashing 00:00 whenever there is a sniff of a power cut. All the phones were blinking at me, which made me wonder: if you do lose power and all your communication devices are electrical (phone, email, fax), how do you let anyone know? I wonder whether bergamot and tangerine candles can send smoke signals – fragrant ones, of course.
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: A green at Clare College, which is usually kept private
www.cambridg
STRANGE NOTION: See the manuscrip
Get in on the sec city’s little-know
Some of the most secretive institutions in Cambridge are preparing to open their doors to the p activities. ELLA WALKER uncovers the highlights to hunt out.
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HERE are almost too many events to get your head around at this year’s Open Cambridge weekend. From September 9-11, running in tandem with the nationwide Heritage Open Days event, museums, libraries and university buildings will be sharing their mustiest secrets and letting the public in on what really goes on behind closed doors. “The idea behind it is that we give local residents, not just people from the city centre of Cambridge but from all over East Anglia, a chance to peek behind the doors, fences and walls of Cambridge’s colleges, museums, libraries and some city institutions,” says Sue Long, the enthusiastic organiser of Open Cambridge and the festivals and outreach officer at the University of Cambridge office of external affairs and communications. “It’s to give people the opportunity to see places that wouldn’t normally be open to the public. “Everything is completely free, which is part of the whole ethos around Open Cambridge and it gives all the institutions taking part the opportunity to show off what they’ve got.” Acres of enclosed gardens (you can even meet the reclusive Trinity College gardeners), the first recorded image of a pretzel and books kept on first floors to avoid flooding are among some of the sights being dusted down for public display. “We’re really trying to encourage everybody to come along, to visit and
WELCOMING COMMITTEE: Gaetan Lee, Will Betts, Shelley Bolderson, Sophie Smith, Sue Long and N
see places that they would feel were normally closed to them and, in fact, normally are,” enthuses Sue. “It’s a mutually nice thing really. Visitors benefit from being able to come to see all these amazing things, and for free, while the staff and volunteers holding the tours have a chance to share their interests, passions and knowledge.” Last year Open Cambridge saw more than 3,000 people exploring hidden treasures that are rarely the centre of attention, and it looks set to be as well supported this time around with many of the events already booked up.
The historical nooks and crannies proving popular so far include a guided stroll of Clare College gardens, taking in the Old Court and Cambridge’s most ancient bridge as well as a shadowy tour of the oft-forgotten Ascension Burial Ground in All Souls Lane, dubbed Britain’s brainiest graveyard. Two of Darwin’s sons lie interred alongside an impressive roll call of eminent academics, poets, philosophers, mathematicians and scientists, including Sir John Cockroft, who shared a Nobel prize in physics for splitting the atom. The macabre In Cromwell’s
Footsteps tour of S College (his severe the ante-chapel) an visits to John Lewis Cambridge were a But it’s not too la action. St John’s C open on a drop-in freely wander in to medieval texts dati wonder why 14th considered elepha mythological as un For families, the Stourbridge Fair a