Cambridge

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We haven't had much of a summer this year. A grey cold damp winter flowed seamlessly into an equally grey summer, albeit warmer, with only a few sunny days. Our recent trip to Norwich had been damp and cold. Normally we would book somewhere with guaranteed sunshine but overseas travel has meant a confusing mass of rules and restrictions with countries randomly flopping from green to amber and back again.

"The weather looks better next week, we could go to Cambridge," I said.

"Okay," said Madam, "but I get to choose the hotel."

I've always liked Cambridge. We even thought about living there for a while. Secretly I was always hoping that being amongst all those smart people would boost my own IQ by a sort of geographical osmosis. And there’s a lot of awfully smart people who have worked in the city. There’s an unassuming building on a quiet backstreet, close to the centre of the city, called the Cavendish Laboratory. Well, technically it’s the original laboratory site as they moved to larger premises further out of town in 1974. This one department alone has been responsible for no less than thirty Nobel prizes including those for discovery of the electron, neutron and the structure of DNA. That’s more than most countries. Cambridge University as a whole has 121 Nobel Laureates, beaten only by Harvard University with 161. Cambridge has an income of a little over £2 billion a year compared to Harvard’s over $40 billion.

“What time is our train?” asked Madam.

“11:06.”

“What time is our taxi?”

“I figured I would book one for 10:40.”

“There might be roadworks.”

“10:35 then.”

“What about queues at the ticket office?”

“Okay 10:30 then.”

“There might be a long queue. Remember that trip three years ago when...

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