Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Gilding the Lily

A penny has just dropped. Looking for something in some old emails, I noticed a message from a Cambridge undergraduate called Lily Cole, asking for details of an old cinema she was researching historically. I replied with details of a book that would supply some of the basic information she needed, and got a very prompt thank you email in return. You're way ahead of me, I can tell. Must be, mustn't it? Probably best I didn't make the connection at the time, as she's rather lovely, and I might have entered 'Can I just say what a smashing blouse you have on?' mode.

I've just had a vada at the Daily Mail story on Ms Cole's first-year progress. Girl done good, apparently. What do the commenters say beneath the story?

"No big deal. History of Art is a soft option. The courses are normally full of little rich/ sloanes- girls who really have little interest in the subject but did not get the grades to study anything else. It actually denigrates this whole beautiful subject and the tutors get very despondent with the apathetic stupid students they have 99% of the time." Sam, Australia.

"History of Art? Ha ha! Hardly difficult to get a first when you're studying the Degree of Choice for toffs, celebs and anybody else who can't get a proper degree. Oh, let's look at paintings and sculpture for 3 years, how mentally challenging." James, London.

"Wow, history of art - that's a real degree isn't it!" PureScienceFTW

5 comments:

JM said...

You lucky bastard. I'd drink Lily Cole's bathwater.

Louis Barfe said...

She's evidently missing a trick not bottling it and selling it to help pay her tuition fees.

Clair said...

All I get in the way of reader's letters are from men who write in purple ink asking to see me in my underwear.

Louis Barfe said...

Glad to hear they're getting through, Woo.

Adam Macqueen said...

Coo, stap me vitals. In my day you couldn't even DO history of art in the first year - they made you do part 1 of a different course first.

Anyway, isn't the pretendy Cambridge degree Land Economy, supposed to have been brought in to give the boat race team an excuse to actually be there?