Cambridge

OK.
There have been numerous irritated emails asking me why I'm not posting anything. I used to live in Cambridge and there's only so many smug observations about earnest, privileged boys and girls huddled in medieval college doorways that I have in me.
So instead, here's a little bit about one of my favorite pubs.The Eagle is owned by Corpus Christi College.
Pretty much everything in Cambridge is owned by the University.
Why is this pub my Fave and famous?
The number one thing is the ceiling in the RAF bar ( the one at the back that's easily missed). The Eagle was the favored watering hole of RAF and American bomber crews during WWII. During blackouts, they would write messages/names/ in the ceiling with their Zippo lighters.
I like this little piece of history.
Way back when, the pub had covered up this graffiti and re-discovered it during renovations. The result is a tourist bonanza.
Ever see the movie Memphis Belle?
The crew used to drink here.

Impressed yet?
No?
Well the discovery of DNA was announced in this pub in 1953.
The boffins at the uni delivered a gin-soaked story that changed everything (sort of).Its kind of funny but the only tourists who make the pilgrimage and know about the DNA stuff are Japanese.
Yanks and Brits are blissfully unaware. They come because they saw the movie.
What does that tell us all I wonder?
This is the point in the post where I do pics of me and my friend Simon who made the pilgrimage to meet me for drinks and dinner.

The Eagle has recently figured in Seth Faulk's book "Engleby" except he calls it "the Kestrel"( interesting avian parallel).
He describes it this way:
"There are too many alcoholics at the Kesterel for my taste....
A pair of goofy scientists came swaggering into the Kestrel at lunchtime one day many years ago to say that- just an hour earlier-they'd figured out the shape of human chemistry, of the molecule itself. I don't think the boozers in the Kestrel were impressed. I don't think think this discouvery was an answer to to the top 100 questions the Kestrel regulars would have liked the answer to-even if you allow for the fact that the numbers 1-15 were probably "whose round is it?"
I think its just a tourist bar.
The only regular I've seen is a leturous prof with a scarf and leather bag over his shoulder who never fails to try and bum a ciggie from me.That's it from Cambridge.
London tomorrow.
Stay well