Uncivilised Behaviour

And talking of Deans (as I was, in my last post).....

Well, this is the opening piece from one of John Julius Norwich's 'Christmas Cracker' commonplace selections (which I eulogised over on Froogville at the start of the month) - the 2002 edition, to be precise, a kind present from my pal The Bookseller on the occasion of my first Christmas 'abroad' (he used to do things like that occasionally - back in the days when he had the time to give me a second thought; nowadays he has a wife and haemorrhoids to occupy his every waking moment).

A century or so ago, the beleaguered Dean of Trinity College, Oxford (my pal Tim's alma mater), came up with this novel approach to trying to restrain the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates.

NOTICE: BREAD THROWING IN HALL

Gentlemen coming from homes where bread throwing at the dinner table is habitual, and finding a difficulty in conforming suddenly to the unfamiliar ways of a higher civilisation, will be permitted to continue their domestic pastime, on a payment of 5/- a throw, during their first year. After that, the charge will be doubled.



I love that phrase "the unfamiliar ways of a higher civilisation". We see a lot of that where I live now.