Blog 43 – Mistresses of our Art – Spot the intentional fib and three free Creative Ink handout sheets are yours.
Four years after graduation, Oxbridge graduates are invited to receive an honorary Master of Arts from their university as long as they keep their noses clean, don’t go to prison or get divorced. I know. It’s bizarre but Mr Justin Case and I felt compelled to stand in a lengthy, cold May queue and witness Miss Trial having some Latin words spoken over her at a ceremony which resembles the State Opening of Parliament. Her law qualifications (along with the forthcoming nuptials) has cost us more than limbs can say, but for this Masters degree she just had to be good and we got a free lunch.
Outside the senate house Miss Trial’s chums dumped their degrees in a pile and I was nominated to child mind the pile whilst everyone went to take photos. I didn’t mind. I was faint from checking out the chapel the evening before for the forthcoming nuptials whilst Miss Trial and chums were having their customary *knees up. They all looked dishevelled and hung over in their photos and some random Master approached me and asked if I had his post grad degree in the pile as he had only received it ten minutes previous and had now lost it. Such is the nouse of Cambridge grads – but he was assured that for twenty quid he could get a new one.
The marquis was pretty soak sodden in that May rain and I almost expected some random swimmer with an Arts Council grant to greet us on Queen’s Parade to cast a bad spell on the elitist proceedings but the free lunch was well lubricated. A random professor sat at our table to join us silently for his free lunch. He looked like a slim Clement Freud, rolling his eyes and lentils around the place and plate. I managed to extract that he lectured in English but Miss Trial and Maid of Honour immediately ‘shushed’ me saying random fellows joined lunch tables for their free lunches every day of the week but like the Queen, were never spoken to first. I was about to say this seemed as odd as the fellow himself and how I didn’t feel he would go down that well teaching Creative Writing at the Fitzwilliams Centre in Beaconsfield but Miss Trial interrupted me saying, “Dad’s been left unsupervised and is telling the whole table his life story. Do something.”
On our return to the hotel which will be the reception venue I mused that I had always wanted an MA and no-one had given me one. In fact, didn’t I deserve the MA as I had tested Miss Trial on her Latin conjunctions and ferried her to Lacrosse matches where she could stand in goal and eat doughnuts at half time. Mr Justin Case said it was never worthwhile me getting one as I would never have earned the course fee.
But the catch of the day has to go to the girl tripping after a gown in the John’s courtyard, saying, “Oh, they’re not going to invite you back in four years and give you a doctorate, are they?”
Ms Paige Turner (Mistress of her Art)
• *very polite phrase
• Tuesday and Thursday Creative Ink for Writers’ classes for the autumn are now full but places on Saturday 23rd June – Scriptwriting at Beaconsfield.
• 250 Flash Fiction assessment for Catherine Pianta-McGill who spotted that I once had a Westie called Jack and not a spaniel on last bi-month’s fib.
Dear Jan
Love this one.
Do you mean that the marquee was pretty soak sodden rather than the maquis – however, you may have been referring to a member of the nobility and are just trying to confuse me!
Best wishes
Di
Hi Jan – I too was wondering about the ‘marquis’ and ‘marquee’. (Di’s comment came up on my screen, but I was thinking along the same lines. Honest.)
Caroline
A daughter of yours, a Cambridge grad and silk, hung over? Surely a fib, non? Enjoyed reading about the day’s adventures. Ah, what it is to be young!
Hello Jan – I thought the post grad degree certificate costs a £10 admin fee not £20?
Also did you mean “previously” not “previous” at the end of second paragraph
I thought at first that the mistake was that you missed off the other conditions for getting an MA after four years–not go to prison, not be divorced, not murder more than three people or rape more than one.
But then I thought it might be that there wasn’t a marquis there to be soaked. Rather, there was a marquee tent that was sodden in the rain. I prefer to think that there was a sodden marquis there who drank himself legless.