Happier times?
Thursday, May 14, 2015 at 14:16 An old friend has just posted a photo of us on Facebook.
He also wrote, "Simon Clark, Director of Forest, in happier times."
It was taken over 35 years ago when we were at Aberdeen University.
To avoid doubt, I'm the one with the full head of hair and pronounced curvature of the spine.
Oddly enough I have no recollection of the production.
The look the girl is giving me is familiar, though. That happened quite a lot, on and off stage.
Update: I have just been reminded that other performers in the above production included former Sky News reporter Glen Oglaza; Frances Guy, UN women's representative to Iraq, and former British Ambassador to Lebanon and to Yemen; and Tommy Sheppard, the SNP's new MP for Edinburgh East.
H/T Harry Aves who also featured (he's in the dress on the right of the picture).
Further update: Apparently it was the Aberdeen University Student Union Christmas panto (1979).
PS. I'm back at university tonight, Oxford not Aberdeen.
Mark Littlewood and I are at the Oxford Union where we are teaming up to oppose the motion ‘This House believes that the tobacco industry is morally reprehensible’.
I'll let you know how we get on.
Update: We lost 77-60. Gutted.
Reader Comments (3)
Wow 'em at Oxford. As any Cantabrigian knows, they don't like it up 'em ...
I think 77 - 60 against you is a pretty good result, given that you were flying in the face of the universally accepted PC orthodoxy. And it has to be said that uni students these days do seem to be locked in to the consensus. Critical thinking is no longer encouraged, and has been exchanged for adherence to PC dogma.
I agree with Nisa. 77-60 is a pretty good showing in these anti-tobacco times. Certainly not a walkover for the other side, as might have been expected. Bearing in mind that probably around 90% of your audience had likely been drip-fed anti-smoking propaganda since they started nursery school (or earlier) and almost certainly walked into the auditorium convinced that every bad thing they'd ever heard about tobacco (and the tobacco industry) was 100% proven hard facts, it sounds like you won a whole lot of them round, no doubt with your superb debating skills (am I a creep or what?). Or, less charitably, perhaps your opponents, like most antis these days, complacently rested on their laurels and lost a few "converts" by simply trotting out the same tired, old hackneyed soundbites with zero actual arguments for their "corner." Probably a combination of both.