The Tattler

Papa’s very angry.

His divorce has been rather too sticky for his liking. She had never told him she had a law degree from Oxford. I’ve been sent back to Cambridge in shame. He says that recently I’ve been misbehaving something awful. And not only that but he claims that he saw me on the Sartorialist wearing a single breasted suit.

Papa says he hadn’t felt so disgusted since he himself was a young undergraduate and saw someone wearing a morning coat to a May Ball.

Two nights ago some little fiends took it upon themselves to charge into my bedroom while I was working on my cuticles. They hoisted me up onto this great throne, ran with me awhile like I was on my way to a grand papal conclave, and threw me into the river. I was able to let out a host of violent curses ex cathedra.

I suppose they had been reading about poor Anthony Blanche’s ordeal in Tom Quad and thought a little sport might take the gloom out of their exhausting rugger loss that afternoon. Idon’t blame them. Even I, intermittently, have gone to great lengths to batter down some poor first year’s door in the middle of the night. Needless to say on those occasions both parties were left not a little damp.

Last night I thought I might appease my father and attend a Moral Sciences talk. He has gone as far as to set a minder on me. The horrible little Turk follows me everywhere, even into the girls’ loos, and certainly to lectures.

I’ve been forced to go to great lengths to get rid of him. I’ve attended the most boring lectures I could possibly find in the hope that the smelly goat might drop off to sleep and I could escape. But alas, the man drinks coffee like it’s raki.

The talk, which I thought was on Wittgenstein or some other awful sod, was actually a gathering of hardcore gay erotica aficionados. The timetabling was all mixed up.

I don’t like to force my own sexuality in one particular direction, but I’ve always preferred another’s mouth to my own hand, and thus haven’t ever had much need for pornography.

That said, there have been times when I’ve had some peculiar sexual urges. I had a period last term in which I couldn’t help but flash the tourists as they meandered their way through my college and out onto the Backs.

The term before, when I would plan my mid-morning naked yoga around my bedder’s appearances, might have been, in hindsight, rather poor taste. But then again, a view of my muscular physique may just have made her morning.