Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Do your neighbours and your family-members enjoy your playing the viola?

On the basis that it is mellow, well, compared to its screechy, showy little sister, they almost do.

There were bassoons in the band in my time, late 70s to mid-80s. I played the clarinet (badly) for a while, not making past a brief stint in the Second Band. The bassoon was certainly a feature of the Band, albeit exotic. The starter instrument was the clarinet or oboe in woodwind, and you could pro...

Well, the dead can't be libelled or prosecuted, so some word about this man from the School is perhaps due. And I don't expect an oration.

But in 1968 Paris was ablaze and Grosvenor Square was rioting. I'd love to know what was happening at CH from anyone who was there at the time. Well in the Summer of 1968, they were probably wondering if the Soviets would invade Czechoslovakia, and so they did, along with the East Germans, Poles, H...

Whether it is over-rated, it was clearly wasted on you.

Any consensual (at least I assume/hope) relationships between staff and students were more or less open secrets, and there were, apparently, more of them going on at the time than I knew about. Remarkable really, that the School's management were, at best, so utterly inept in this matter. I left th...

This is just Thatcherite dogma. The famines you mention are a result of civil war or deliberate genocide policies in countries with market economies. Mises' economic calculation argument falls apart at the slightest inspection. Funny you should say that von Mises' argument falls down. Khrushchev hi...

The free market is not a rational mechanism for allocating resources for the benefit of humanity or the planet. Ah. the appeal to 'reason', who was it who dedicated the former Temple of Reason that recently burnt down in Paris? If you try to hand out food by reason, you end up with mass starvation,...

Character Witness? Here's an employment reference:

"I have known Ronnie Biggs for years, he is very experienced, punctual, in good health and is well-liked. I know of many great jobs he's done, and he is used to the responsibility of handling large quantities of cash."

Now come on Ed. Trying to equate Italian fascism with post war European social democracy is a ridiculous idea. State regimentation was necessary during the war as indeed was the rationing that followed it for five years. Otherwise the nobs would have snaffled all the scarce resources. And by the wa...

The consumption of sheep testicles, hallucinogens, 'magic potions' containing a form of strychnine, and opium bread were some of the earliest attempts at doping. In my junior days, Barnes B won across the board at the inter-house athletics contests, I called them the East Germans for their obsessio...

There is tendency to phrase it that way precisely because it is impossible to know if a person has committed an offence in the meantime. I think its just the cautious way lawyers have to speak. Pretty much, but the fact of a lack of convictions is 'safe ground' for a lawyer defending, and it is rel...

Surely the contest is between the athletes, not the chemists and surgeons?

Or in motor racing:

Surely the contest is between the athletes, not the engineers and aerodynamicists?

Does CH actively prevent pupils taking part in sporting activities (in accordance with the relative sport's regulations) if they need to use medicines which could/ do breach those regulations? At my kindest, I would award this comment the DFM. "Doesn't F***** Matter". The real scandal at CH was the...

I wouldn't presume that anyone was interested in the school that I went to, nor would I be interested in anyone else's schooling, or even University. But if people I know (e.g. work colleagues) ask, (I think some perceive my manner of speaking as a bit 'posh' but not aristocratic, e.g. I don't prono...