Happenings in Old College

As I was locking up my bike in OC quad this morning, there was a woman leading a tour group nearby. Or at least I assume that was what she was doing. She was wearing a lanyard. And talking absolute doggerel, which appeared to be about Harry Potter stuff. I took a picture of the group, mainly to remind myself about this so I could write about it in my blip. But, to be fair, I guess it's just a way of making a living.

But then she gave me another reason to remember her. The woman went absolutely ballistic about me taking a picture of her....Threatened to report me to the university. I said I would have no problems deleting the picture, if it meant so much to her. She was insistent - without any evidence as to why - that if you took a picture of her you needed her consent. I pointed out she was in a public place and this is not France. Or...(and these are the bits I wished I had been quick witted enough to say at the time)....if it's not a public place, then it's my place of work and she shouldn't presume to talk absolute doggerel in my place of work and not expect someone to react to that. She cannot have it all ways. For example, if she stands in OC spouting nonsense, then she could reasonably expect me or anyone else who heard her to tell the people who'd paid for the privilege of hearing the nonsense she was spouting to point out that it was absolute doggerel what they were listening to. That would only have been fair in the circumstances.

Funnily enough, when I went across the road to acquire some lunch from a local supermarket a bit later on, she was there again, but just outside the confines of OC on South Bridge. Perhaps she felt safer there. I should have had another go at taking a picture and see how she coped with arguing on the public road that you cannot take a picture of anyone without their consent....

Anyway...that was Wednesday morning and it gave me something to think about beyond the usual nonsense.

The rest of the working day was mainly meetings and some emails.

And then I came home and persuaded Mr A we could have a little "date morning" tomorrow, but he denied that going somewhere with me would be a "date morning". What can I do?