Cambridge Life

The view from my window. Being in a particular relationship with the College, they kindly put me up in the best "set" - with kitchen and bathroom included. The rest of the community is not so fortunate - but we are about to spend £7m so that, among many other improvements, students will enjoy en-suite facilities.

In the University there is a very mixed provision. For example, the wife of the Master of Corpus Christi was telling me yesterday that students who live in the Old Court (1380's) still have to walk across the court on a winter's night to go to the loo. (that probably does not trouble the Corpus Ghost who inhabits the Parker Room on M staircase.)

The average cost - fees and accommodation - at Cambridge is about £15,000 per year. Over 16,000 people apply to come here as undergraduates each year, and about 4,000 are offered places.

Clearly they think that getting cold feet going to the loo, and sharing a staircase with the ghost of an Old Master is worth it. There have been 89 Nobel Prize winners from Cambridge - the whole of France has only achieved 25.

So it probably IS worth it!