Viktoria Mullova was here, Alfred Brendel, too.
I thrilled to these recitals but long before
its rejigged concert role, undergraduates knew
a hall of terrors, through whose forbidding doors
final degree exams could seal a student’s fate.
I got a lowly Third, damning me to Grub Street
where, as it happened, real life lay in wait
for someone who’d never really wished to meet
with tenure-seekers. So rather than scale the towers
of academe, my sanctum instead soon became
the pub of cajoling chat, as I whiled away the hours
with notions that might one day make my name.
