The House of Lords

It turns out that one of the alumni from my college (somewhere in the 50s) is a lord, and also a member of the house of lords, which is sort of like the US house of representatives in that it's the half of parliament (congress) that doesn't matter too much, but the lords is more prestigious with less power.  This particular lord decided to host a dinner at the houses of parliament for the Merton alumni association, and so on Friday night, Reba and I went and had dinner with a lot of mertonians and a few lords, ladies, sirs and at least one dame.

We showed up late and missed the tour, but made it in time to hang out on the lords' deck overlooking the river Thames.  Predictably, right next door is the house of commons' (like our senate) deck, and they were having some kind of an event as well.  Security was pretty tight, so we got scanned a lot, and had to wear badges, etc.  The dinner was a pretty typical Oxford event: lots of wine while you mingle with OSPs (over smart people) that you don't know, followed by a 3 course meal with lots more wine and more conversation with OSPs you don't know (they sat Reba and I apart from one another), followed by a couple of speeches.  And then more drinks.  Rinse, repeat, and you have British society.

Are you wondering what lords, ladies, sirs and dames are like?  I only know a few, but in general they seem to be nice old people who are super super old school British: dry humor, cufflinks, odd accents, and the whole deal.  They never seem mention their titles, but are usually announced before speeches or during thank you's, etc. with the title.  They also seem to have no problem wearing nametags that include the titles.  So, perhaps for this reason, they also seem to me to have a certain smugness to their demeanor... they know they are lords and higher class than you, you know they are lords and higher class than you, everybody else in the room knows that they are lords and higher class than you, and all parties know that you are NOT a lord, but the lords aren't going to say anything because that wouldn't be classy, would it?  They are pointedly nonchalant about the whole thing, which in a way makes it all that much more obvious.  As far as English oddities go, the whole title thing has got to be one of the strangest. 

The main speaker was pretty interesting, he'd spent time all over the world, wrote a bunch of famous stuff, had received all sorts of accolades for doing brave stuff, and was pushing his cause a bit, which is basically reviewing old prison sentences and trying to get innocent people free.  Also speaking was Jessica Rawson, the warden of Merton, and also a dame.  I think that's funny, because where I'm from, "dame" is what tough guys in campy old gangster movies called women back before they started calling them "chicks", but here it's some sort of honorific title.  What she did to deserve it, I don't know, but I'm sure it was academic.  Basically the warden is the head of the college, sort of the ruler of it, and I don't think she really reports to anyone.  This warden is pretty popular with the alums, but to be honest, a lot of the students didn't like her when I was there.  She and I always got along fine even though she never tried to learn my name and just called me "one of her MBAs", but the feedback I heard from the people who lived in college (I lived in my own apartment) generally ranged from fearful to just negative.  In any case, she announced that she's leaving after 15 years, and the fellows of the college are looking for a replacement.  I'm sure that's caused a bunch of chatter in the MCR.

Reba was tired after the speeches, so we split early, though we did chat with a few folks on the way out.  Kaysa wanted to meet up for drinks in Shoreditch, but I wanted to play Spore because my empire, the Wangcopter Empire, is doing pretty well and I wanted to invade some alien solar systems with the new mega-laser I bought.