Splashes and bumps

Today my commute home was slowed by muscly young people carrying long narrow boats across the towpath then lowering them into the river (and vice versa), people hurtling along the path on bikes while yelling loudly out into the water and not watching where they were going, red notices asking telling the rest of us to keep out of the way, wires trailing down the fences, starting guns, and loud hailers spouting dialect: ‘sandwich boat’, ‘overbumping’, ‘blades’…
 
I’d heard of ‘Eights Week’ (getting on for a third of the population of Oxford are staff or students of the ancient University of Oxford so it’s not surprising that some of its weirdness leaks out to the rest of us) but in my 25 years here I hadn’t bothered until today to find out what it was.
 
It turns out that for over 200 years, in the Fifth Week of Trinity (more insider language), the various colleges have been chasing each other’s boats up the river to work out who’s fastest. Because the river is too narrow for them to race alongside each other, they all start at the same time but from measured places down the bank and the idea is to catch up with and bump the boat in front. Literally (but not too hard because boats are expensive). At the end of each day a new starting order is established for the next day. And on they go.




Thank you for the response to my last blip. I didn't expect that.