Cambridge is Number One

This September saw the announcement in the news that Cambridge University managed to overtake Harvard in the USA and take first place in the University world rankings table run by QS, a prestigious careers advice company. Now, table rankings are always controversial, especially in education, but this result is still a very important achievement for the University and for the UK. Now that the financial goose no longer lays golden eggs, we have to look to other areas for our future economic growth, so well done Cambridge University.

Boating History

Another good news story about the University in 2010 was that Cambridge University won the 156th Boat Race, in spite of Oxford being clear favourites. The race was closely fought over the entire length of the arduous course along the Thames, but Cambridge managed to dig in and overhaul Oxford towards the end to win with clear water between the boats.

The End of Time?

The end of 2008 witnessed the most peculiar if not downright wacky Cambridge news story about the installation of a new £1 million clock on Corpus Christi College’s walls. After the clock was set in motion by Professor Stephen Hawking, himself a qualified expert on the nature of time, the internet started buzzing with a story backed up by a short film that this clock would mark the very end of time itself. It is certainly true that the Corpus Christi clock does things a bit differently with hands replaced by blue LED lights and mini-shows every five minutes but fortunately the various net-induced predictions of imminent doom based on symbolic interpretations have been shown to be completely inaccurate (at least so far!).

Cambridge Folk Festival

Another good news event that makes its way into the press each year is the ever popular Cambridge Folk Festival at Cherry Hinton Hall. It started as long ago as 1964 with only 1,400 tickets sold but has now become a regular sell-out event. Lasting for almost four days during the golden days of East Anglia’s summer, it has developed a strong tradition of featuring an eclectic mix of artists, pushing the definition of folk music to the very limit. This plays well with the large audience though, who keep coming back each year for more musical surprises as well as hearing some of those good old favourites, occasionally sung or performed by members of the audience. The event always gets coverage by the local press as well as music critics on national newspapers and BBC TV and Radio.

These examples all go to show that no news is good news is not always the case…