Sketches From Spain or The Iberian Incident - Fig, 2013

As I awoke one morning from uneasy dreams I found my passport photo transformed into a gigantic blur. Some damn fool had spilt a glass of water over it during the night: almost certainly me. I do not ordinarily resemble the protagonist from Mel Gibson’s The Man Without a Face, and with a flight back from Spain in the evening, this development was worrying. Once what was euphemistically termed the ‘Bolshoi solution’ was discarded - the only acid left in the villa by this point taking the form of a lemon wedge - I was left with little option but to try and bluff my way through.

I did briefly consider a trip to the British consulate, but given that we were in Alicanté - essentially Blackpool en mar - it wasn’t that tantalising a prospect. The overworked FCO young guns who’d dreamt of Baghdad and had been posted to Benidorm probably had enough to be getting on with ministering to Darren from Basildon, the cock and balls sunburnt into his forehead contravening Monarch Airlines’ passenger charter and so precluding him from flying. Anyway, there wasn’t time.

Reassurances, running the gamut from outright, bilious sarcasm to dreamy platitudes, were no good to me, as the one member of our party who’d been barred from a flight due to a mutilated passport wouldn’t say anything at all. There was nothing to do but numb the worries with under-spiced paella and over-iced beers until the airport beckoned. 

Without proper documentation an airport ceases to be a source of boredom or excitement and morphs into a highly productive, expertly managed paranoia factory. Everything was suddenly absolutely terrifying. Cheerful Valencian security personnel, who on a day when I possessed bona fide documentation would have reminded me of plump, cherubic Arsenal playmaker Santi Cazorla, took on the appearance of the Turkish prison staff in Midnight Express. They knew what I was about. I was a man pretending to have a face. Lacking the native command of Spanish to summarise the plot of Dorian Gray, I was lost.

In defence of formal hall - Cherwell, 12/10/12

Never knowingly underdressed is a common line that could be used to sum up Oxford's colleges' attitude to dining. Formal hall is a fixture at most colleges in this city, though there is a spectrum. Keblites drape themselves in their gowns six nights a week, while Balliol abolished formal hall in the sixties - Oxford's own version of 1968, with fewer barricades and more JCR motions. Most though, opt for some variation on the theme of a once-a-week sit-down three course dinner, with a gown and sometimes smart dress required. It's a Good Thing, and we should keep it.

Firstly, there's a good argument from tradition. I know, I know, it's a word that tends to make people our age recoil, and could be used to justify all manner of rotten things, but when the tradition's benign then I see no devilry in keeping in touch with the past. Oxford's bursting at the seams with history, obviously, and staying rooted is positive – as long as you don't get tied down by the roots. With so many bogus traditions being flogged – the florist who started claiming thirty-odd years ago that exam candidates had been wearing a different colour carnation every day for centuries must now be a mighty rich man – there's something simple about formal hall.

Hall Crawl (collected) - Cherwell, 5/10/12 to 30/11/12

Oxford manages to punch well above its weight for good eating. The Cowley Road’s stuffed to the gills with restaurants, there are more pubs serving slightly overpriced variations on the humble pie than anyone could possibly want, and if you fancy a sandwich there can’t be many better similar sized towns in Britain to live in – a friend once used to forcefully insist that Olives deserved a Michelin star (Christophe – you can send the cheque in the post).  Cooks don’t have to rely on supermarkets: between the Covered Market’s grocers, butchers and fishmongers and the fulsome delis dotted all over the place you can create handsome meals at a decent price.

Even the most ardent gastronauts, however, will eventually find a time when the only option is Hall. This can come as late as Finals-induced agoraphobia, or as early as freshers fearing to tread beyond the walls of their college lest they miss out on a friendship. When it does come you can be snookered. Halls vary enormously (for some reason Lincoln’s rumoured to be running an operation so delicious that they must’ve kidnapped the third Roux at birth and raised him as the chef; everyone else seems to run on a spectrum from amiably average to crap).  Food quality would’ve been a bloody silly thing to choose a college on (though the longer you’re here the more you realise there are worse reasons), but it’s nice to know what you’re missing out on.

Keep up - Cherwell, 9/11/12

You know things are bad when you’re being out-knowledged by your dad about sport. Years of carefully cultivating an image as the sports-obsessive, the one that really cares about knowing his onions rather than just being a partisan, wiped out in a second when he knew more about the new boys in the England cricket team (young Joe Root, it will take years of consistent century-scoring for me to forgive the humiliation you’ve indirectly caused me). “I thought you were supposed to be interested in sport?” Took that one squarely on the chin, and boy did it hurt. I did, and do, take a bit of pride in staying up on things in the wide world of sport.

But it’s tricky at uni. Some people manage it, obviously. You’ll have seen them, the zonalmarking.net obsessives who seem to actually increase their awareness of what’s going on out there in the football world while they’re in Oxford. I envy them their commitment. But I don’t know how they manage it.

Keble graft their way past Oriel - Cherwell, 2/11/12

One look at the scoreline and you’d have good reason to think Tuesday’s probable league decider was a bit of a thriller. Four tries apiece has the potential to have been a corker of a game, especially when you consider how much was at stake. It wasn’t the case though. The match was a stormer but was hardly a feast of exciting rugby.

The two colleges enjoyed very different lead-ins to the match. Oriel had managed to play all three of their scheduled games, losing narrowly to Teddy Hall with a reduced side and blowing Catz and Christ Church out of the water. On the other hand Keble, after a first week win over the Hall, had been forfeited against twice, so were likely to be match-rusty.

This fear of being out of the pace of contested rugby was immediately put to bed by a stonking start from the men in red. From the kick-off it was all Keble for the first fifteen minutes or so: hard, committed rucking providing good ball for an incisive backline, with any Oriel possession being fairly swiftly snuffed out by well-organised defence. It was made to count on the scoreboard too as Keble racked up three tries without much fuss, fly-half Charlie King providing the conversions.

"Sorry gents, the game's off..." - Cherwell, 26/10/12

We’ve all been there before, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying. Go to bed early the night before, wake up with the cockerel and have a nutritionally stellar breakfast before spending mid-morning getting pumped up (admittedly I don’t think I’ve ever managed any of these, but folk myths are what they are) only to receive the dreaded email from your captain at around 11, invariably beginning, “Sorry gents...”

Yes, the game’s off, and those bastards down the road have deprived you of your weekly game of whatever as well as, to pile woe on top of woe, providing you with an extra training session. Just what you wanted.

Cancellations are a blight upon the college game, and they seem to be getting more common. In rugby, at least, more games than I can remember are being called off at the moment, and what’s really surprising is that there’ve been at least three in three weeks of Division 1 competition. While the likes of the (now dearly departed) Graduate Barbarians and Wadham down at the opposite end of the college rugby ladder are opponents you prepare for half-expecting not to face them, doyens of the top league Christ Church, to name but one of the recent offenders, are not your common or garden forfeiter. 

Oxford half-marathon - Cherwell, 19/9/12

Sweating copiously and furiously, heart beating rat-at-at like a drum and surrounded by all manner of folk in scanty or silly get-up, I swigged from a bottle thrust into my hand from a friendly stranger and kept on moving . No, not another Thursday at Bridge Bar & Club, but my experience somewhere on the Oxford ring road at about mile 10 of the Oxford half marathon which this Sunday enjoyed its second staging, having had a test outing last year.

Around 4,200 plucky souls gathered at the Kassam Stadium for a nine-thirty start, doubtless a good many of them naïf-like students venturing outside the ring road for the first time. Running clubs were out in force, as ever, with the Headington Road Runners and the Didcot Runners showing particular strength in numbers.

Having been overlooked by LOCOG for the torch-lighting gig at the Olympic Stadium in favour of seven tyro British athletes, Sir Roger Bannister decided to show Seb Coe what a mistake he’d made by flawlessly starting things off at the Kassam. Not a word was misspoken, not a platitude was misplaced, and the old rogue was funny to boot. Off we all went then, embarking on a route that took in some of the most beautiful views in Oxford – though those from out of town who’d been drawn in by the website’s montage of the Bridge of Sighs were in for a shock.

United by a dream trip to the top of the world, seven adventurers die in Himalayan fireball - The Times, 29/9/12 (byline:John Simpson, Robin Pagnamenta, James Nottage and Thomas Bell)

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/asia/article3553484.ece

Mascarenhas Happy With Underdog Tag - AllOutCricket.com 25/8/12

So Dimi, what’s the mood in the camp like ahead of Finals Day?Pretty good to be honest, we finished off the group games well – we needed to, so that turned out good for us. We’ve had a good run in all the other competitions leading up to Finals Day and it’s always nice to be in winning form going into a semi-final.

All six of your wins in the competition have come chasing down totals. How do you feel about the prospect of setting a target?Good, we’ve set a target a few times in the CB40 so we’re pretty happy about that. I think on Finals Day there’ll be no difference. We’ll get to see the wicket play before our semi-final, which is always helpful. We don’t mind and personally I actually like batting first. But I think we’re very capable of doing both.

A sporting mid-life crisis - Cherwell.org 19/8/12

A few things combined this week in my lazy summer of watching sport to leave me feeling older than I am. Twenty-one’s quite young to be set upon by that kind of thing, and I’m hardly going through a two decades premature mid-life crisis, but I had a palpable sense of a shift in how I watch sport. 

The first thing that threw me was the Olympics. Now, this is by no means my abiding memory of the games – they were, as everyone has agreed, sublime, and that’s what will stay with me in years to come – but I couldn’t quite escape how bloody young everyone was. Praise be to the venerable Nick Skelton, who nabbed an equestrian gold medal at 54, but everywhere else I looked there was blinding youth. Laura Trott and Philip Hindes, two of Team GB’s golden cyclists, are 20 and 19 respectively. Taekwondo gold medallist Jade Jones only turned 19 in March. Lawrence Okoye the discus finalist -who for the sake of Division 2’s rugby players I hope defers his place at St. Peter’s another year to concentrate on athletics - is himself 20. Watching Trott and Hindes bopping away to Taio Cruz’s Dynamite during the closing ceremony, looking for all the world like they were freshers in Bridge Bar & Club was all a bit much for me.

The next sporting reckoning was writing a piece about England’s chances in the forthcoming under-19 cricket World Cup. Not quite the ticket to make you feel sprightly. Researching tyros from Kent, Somerset prodigies and, most depressingly, an extremely talented lad from my home county of Essex, I began to feel like twenty-one may as well have been twice that.   

Croft Eyes World Twenty20 Spot - AllOutCricket.com 13/8/12

You must have been delighted to be named in the 30-man provisional squad for the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka?
It feels brilliant obviously, it’s the first squad I’ve been involved in with any England set-up, including the Lions, so it’s a nice compliment. Over the last two or three seasons I’ve got a lot more consistent; it’s helped batting up the order, I’ve taken my time a little bit more in terms of building an innings rather than just going out there and seeing what happens and trying to hit the ball as hard as possible.

How do you rate your chances of making the final cut?
I don’t know to be honest; it depends on the make-up of the side they want. I can bring bowling and fielding to the side, as well as my batting. But, like you say, it’s nice to get noticed initially, and hopefully I’ll get some Twenty20s in the winter and next year.

Showcasing the Next Generation - AllOutCricket.com 10/8/12

The Under 19 World Cup is a proven crucible for the world’s tyro cricketers. The alumni of the tournament are a storied bunch. The first tournament, a one-off in 1988, boasted the likes of Hussain, Atherton, Jayasuriya, Lara and Cairns among its participants. Since the competition was made biannual in 1998 each edition has featured boys who’ve become cricketing men of the highest calibre: Chris Gayle in ’98, Graeme Smith in ’00, Alastair Cook in ’04, and Virat Kohli in ’08 are just a few graduates.

A sneak peek at the greats of the future is one reason to watch this year’s tournament in Australia with interest, but more immediately there’s the enticing prospect of a high-quality contest between world cricket’s brightest starlets. England Development Programme head coach Tim Boon is well aware of the duel role the tournament plays. “Our primary goal is to produce England cricketers at the top end in 2019,” he told AOC. “Along the way we’d dearly love to win a couple of World Cups. It’s important that youngsters get into winning ways.”

The County Championship Race: The Contenders - AllOutCricket.com 6/8/12

Warwickshire

Chances: Still topping the table, but have faltered of late after an impressive start. Haven’t won in five games (admittedly the rain can take some share of the blame) and looked uninspiring in the recent draw against Middlesex. Playing it safe from here might just do the job but they’ll need to rediscover some of their early season form to cross the line in first place.

Key man: Chris Woakes has been in fine fettle with both bat and ball since returning from injury, and along with fellow allrounder Rikki Clarke he’ll be pivotal if Warwickshire are to hold onto first place. Promising signs for the youngster after a century against Surrey last month and a four-wicket first innings haul against Middlesex in their last match.

Olympic exploration - beyond Jess and Usain - Cherwell.org 6/8/12

You don’t want to read another article about Ainslie and Ennis, Murray and Mo, the rowers and the riders; which is convenient, as there’s nothing much more to say. Every paper this week has given the front-page treatment to the British medal winners - as well they should - to the point where any member of Team GB expecting a gold in the second week of London 2012 might be worrying about medal fatigue. Though if Phillips Idowu manages to both claim the triple jump competition and challenge Charles van Commenee to pistols at dawn there might just be a story in that.

Still, I imagine we’ve reached saturation point with the headline sports. So from the start I’ve been taking Jacques Cousteau as my inspiration and, remote control my bathysphere, exploring the murky depths the red button has to offer. It emerges that, beyond the big-budget, HD, multi-presenter zones of the velodrome and Eton Dorney, there are other worlds. Worlds where Hazel Irvine fears to tread.

The Tour's no bore - Cherwell.org 20/7/12

Amid the thorny peaks of the Alps, a British sportsman is on the cusp of making history. Serious history too - if Bradley Wiggins continues as he's been going over the past  two and a half weeks, he will be the first British rider to ever win the Tour de France.

This majestic race has never quite made it into the British sporting consciousness however, and this achievement is likely to go, if not ignored, then certainly devoid of the full panoply of celebration it surely deserves. Part of this lack of interest bears a direct relationship with the lack of British success.

Track racing, come Olympic time, is seen as one of the marquee events - due no doubt to the dominance of Chris Hoy and Wiggins himself over the last two Games. Indeed, Mark Cavendish's exploits last year (winning the sprint competition in the Tour, as well as capturing the World Championship) landed him the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year award.