The last student has gone, clutching his thesis close to his chest. He might learn something of geology one day but the odds are high.
So, High Table beckons and a chance to commiserate with my fellow professors over today’s Beef Wellington with an acceptable Bordeaux. I might just pop in to the Senior Common Room afterwards.
I was lucky enough to arrive sufficiently early to bag one of the armchairs by the fire. I cannot recall for the moment just who it was installed the ingenious railway system which permits, even encourages, the passing of the Port across the fire to the colleague in the opposite chair so simply. No fuss, no obligation to arise from the armchair (often a feat in itself) and the precious ruby liquid is at one’s elbow in seconds for as little effort as a gentle push.
The conversation this evening ranged widely – the usual University politics, the regrettable standards of most students, funding moans, marking and the ubiquitous wondering why any of us actually chose the groves of academe.
We had all had similar conversations a thousand times or more without ever reaching any useful conclusions.
Would tonight be any different?
Then and quite out of the blue an unusual topic raised its unlikely head. Professor Johnson enquired whether any credence could be placed in the theory of nominative determinism. We all looked at each other. Where had this come from?
Johnson opined that there might be something in it as he had a couple of students respectively named Eric Bull and Terence Carter. The one was the son of a farmer and the other the scion of a transport company founded by his grandfather.
We all started to consider our own students. Professor Wilson offered up a singularly gifted undergraduate well on the way to a first in philosophy and going by the name of Marie Sartre. A possible perhaps.
Other offerings included Andrew Court, a budding lawyer, Geoffrey Sale, son of an auctioneer, Lionel Parson studying theology, Marion Ivory, a pianist of talent, Oliver Gardner whose parents managed a garden centre and Juliet Barber, daughter of a hairdresser, just for starters.
Round and round the possibilities went but no final conclusions were forthcoming. Was nominative determinism real or or imagined in the modern world? Its history was easily traceable back to the early Middle Ages when the descriptions of the respective toils of the peasantry were readily attached to the peasants themselves but now?
Jack Programmer and Jill Receptionist do not roll off the tongue so neatly.
What we needed was some positive evidence of whether the concept of a real, living nominative determinism still existed barring the ancient ones earlier posited. Heads were scratched and eyes gazed into the middle distance as we collectively pondered.
Then came the shock. Sitting quietly in the corner and contributing nothing to our considerations was the university curmudgeon. He looked around us and cackled. “You’re all talking rubbish and that’s all one can expect from the likes of you. Nominative determinism? Pah! Arrant nonsense and always was.”
And then, like a bombshell, all was made clear. We looked at each other and smiled.
There, right in front of us, was the evidence we sought.
Professor Pratt.
Foootsoldier Says… 