Tourists' Guide To Cambridge

Here's something I found on the net that I thought someone might enjoy. It's not exactly hilarious, but made me smile in a few places.

The History of Cambridge

Cambridge was founded in 43AD by the Roman emperor Cantabrigensis, but remained a dull insignificant market town until the foundation of the university in 1134, at which point it became a dull insignificant market town, with a university. It was founded by students advisedly fleeing Oxford, who promptly built an institution identical in every respect to the one they had just fled. The first college was Wendyhouse (founded 1078), which eventually decided it was really a men's college inside a women's body, and so became Peterhouse. Peterhouse has been exhibiting somewhat strange qualities ever since.
Eventually, the Peterhusians got bored with sleeping with each other, (well, some did), and so decided to found another college to provide much-needed variety. This was Maudlin, renamed Magdalene in 1345 in order to avoid confusion with Maudlin, Oxford. At this point, a central university body, known as the Old Schools because its members all went to Eton, was set up, but promptly disappeared without trace and hasn't been seen or heard of since. There soon followed a rash of college foundations, including Queens', (not to be refused with Queen's, queens, or indeed The Queen), Kings, Parker-Bowles' (renowned for its equestrian endeavours), Gonville and Keys (renamed Caius, (pronounced Girton), for a laugh in 1675), and Jesus Christ's, so named when Lady Margaret Hall, a virginal lady who liked nothing better than knocking down nunneries to set up establishments of lusty young men, spilt hot sealing-wax at a crucial moment when the charter was drawn up.

Lady Margaret then founded St. Johns (pronounced Sinjun's) as a tribute to the queen, and sadly died before being able to enjoy the services of her latest foundation. Not to be outdone, Henry VIII founded Trinity with the proceeds of his Dissipation of the Monasteries, (well, some of them). This college became renowned for its vast land-holdings. It owns Basildon you know, it really does. And parts of Levenshulme. It is said that a Trinity undergraduate can walk from Cambridge to Cirencester without realising he's left Great Court. This is the origin of the famous Great Court run, where undergraduates run round the court for days on end, looking for Cirencester.

Jesus Christ's then split in two, with a splinter group claiming they'd go to Christ's only over their dead bodies. This was the origin of Corpus Christi. There was then a lull until Emmanuelle was founded to produce soft-core pornography, and Sidney Sussex to [find out something interesting about Sidney to put here - ed.]. At this point, it was decided that there had been far to much change in general, so no further change occurred until the nineteenth century. At this point, two radical changes were proposed. One was that the University should become an educational institution, teaching undergradutes useful knowledge instead of the arcane and obsolete ritual into which it had sunk. Fortunately, this proposal was soon seen off, for fear it may prejudice the results of the Varsity match (a competition against Oxford involving student journalists trying to drink each other under the table), and the boat race.

The second proposal, even more daring, was that women be allowed to enter the hallowed portals of the University. This suggestion aroused much protest, but it also aroused many non-Kings fellows who rather felt like entering some hallowed portals themselves, and so it was agreed that women may be admitted to Cambridge, providing they stayed in Girton (a suburb of Oxford), and didn't try getting any of those nasty ideas into their pretty little heads. Or getting degrees.

The twentieth century has been another time of great flux for the University, and several slight changes have been made over the course of the past ninety-seven years. The women started creeping closer and closer to Cambridge, culminating in New Hall, visible on a clear day from the tower of Great St. Mary's, ("Great St. Mary's!" is a popular Cambridge cry of distress, as is "Christ's Pieces!"). In 1965, Churchill, (soon to be renamed Thatcher), College was set up to act as a home for Churchill's blotting paper and to keep several hundred Natscis out of central Cambridge. In 1968, the university was forced by student pressure to end the ceremonial public castration of students found within 30 chains of Great St. Mary's and not wearing a gown and bow-tie when there was an "R" in the month, leading to many fellows, such as F.R. "Literature? *******s more like! (unless its by D.H. Lawrence)" Leavis, leaving Cambridge in disgust. Finally, in the late 1970s and 1980s, most all-male colleges decided to admit women, providing they didn't have the temerity to actually apply. Or try for a first.

Oh, and in 1971 Richard Whiteley, the University's most distinguished alumnus, graduated with a starred double third in Land Economy.

Things for tourists to do in Cambridge

-Stand in the way
-Visit McDonalds. It's just like back home, only the staff are paid less.
-Buy genuine "Cambridge University" sweatshirts
-Buy genuine "Cambridge University" computing faculties
-Say, "Where's the University?"
-Go punting
-Stand in the way a bit more
-Use your Camcorder to capture some typical Cambridge sights and sounds: pedestrians being mown down, boaties throwing up over tramps, Mr.Bontempi's animal show...
-Go back to London and do Buckingham Palace again.
-Useful advice
-The best view of King's College chapel is obtained by standing in the middle of King's Parade. Why not take a photograph?
-If you decide to hire a cycle, remember: cyclists in Britain don't use roads. They use pavements. It is considered very rude to swerve to avoid pedestrians
-Should you try to gain entrance to King's College by the wrong entrance, the porters will put you right in a friendly but rigorous fashion. A unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital (bus no. 8) treats broken limbs.
-A range of recreational narcotics are available from the University Press bookshop.
-Everyone in Cambridge is very clever. If you should see a group of bow-tied dinner-jacketed arse-holes behaving in a manner reminiscent of five-year-olds with personality disorders, remember: they're being ironic.
-If you are accompanied by someone who insists on seeing all the colleges, just bear in mind that they are all the same, so save on walking by visiting the same one 29 times. Or why not 50 times, and then you'll have done Oxford as well?
-If you should get lost, remember: it could be worse, you could be spending three years here.

Eating out

Here are a selection of Cambridge establishments to give you an idea of the considerable scope of English cuisine:

-McDonalds It's just like back home, only with lower hygiene standards
-Brown's So called because all the food is brown. The Brown Windsor soup is particularly brown.
-The Death Van Proud possessors of four Michelin's. (Tyres, that is)
Upper Hall Their "Fish of the Day" represents the cutting edge of bio-technology, as delivered from the Genetic Mutation laboratory daily.