Honorary Proletarian

Welcome to a British summer!  I just have to mention the dedication of a group of local schoolkids who not only put on a good brass band performance on the Lord Mayor’s Parade this lunchtime, but kept it up for an hour while walking through the streets of Oxford under a real barrage of water.  I think they deserve the rest of the week off school for that!

Nothing like awful weather to produce a feeling of solidarity with all the gowned, feathered and belly-dancing-costumed participants in the fun run to the beer tent at the end; the man with the Heath Robinson music machine built on a pram, that reminded me of a similar device the British branch of the PKK take on demos; and the two functionaries who took turns carrying the Mace (which is bigger than either of them) a mile and a half, before collecting the Councillors’ sopping wet gowns to take back to the Town Hall.  And well done to the rickshaw drivers – not a job I’d want myself (I remember a late-night ride in a rickshaw with Volty, with a growing conviction that the poor guy was about to drop dead of heart failure).

Here’s hoping for better weather…