who only by moving can balance

If (1) you work at Imperial College London, and (2) you are working medium-late nights, and (3) it is between July and September: do not try to set off home any time between about 10pm and 10.45pm, because the Proms will be kicking out.

This announcement brought to you by having, today, managed to leave at 9.15pm, thereby managing to get on the first relevant bus to go by -- and even it had empty seats instead of being standing room only.

(My arrival home was Somewhat Delayed by Stopping Off At King's Cross To Pick Up A Burrito, and indeed I'm writing this from the Piccadilly line, but I am willing to say - very cautiously, in case I jinx it - that I have had a tentatively good day, and might even get to sleep before midnight.)

First and always: Cambridge. Cambridge, which I've seen through enough different eyes -- town and gown, resident and caretaker, political and utterly independent of any given inhabitants -- Cambridge, which had me for two decades and change, and has me still. My parental home is a 1960s newbuild semi in Arbury; my college contains an archway that predates its foundation in 1350, that's had chunks carved out of the limestone by bicycle pedals over the last hundred-odd years. I've laughed, fondly and otherwise, at the new undergraduates with their shiny new college scarves and no idea how to cycle; I've dodged punt touts and helped my baby brother pass his hiring test to be a punt chauffeur; I've rummaged through the stacks in the University Library and put up and repainted street-signs. I know where the permanent graffiti is and I remember some that's been and gone; I've delivered leaflets at 6am on election morning and I've observed the counting of votes and I've walked across town at four in the morning from the Guildhall (where the outcome was known) to a common room (where people were glued to the news); I've walked across town at two in the morning (Homerton to Trinity Hall) very solemn and slightly wobbly with a viola; I've leaned my forehead against stone and felt where it's come from and been reassured by its solid indifferent presence; I've punted to Grantchester and back and eaten strawberries in the meadows in the sunshine. I've lost and found and found and lost religion and confidence and friends and trust and love. Cambridge is mine, or I am Cambridge's, and so it shall be forever, amen.

Zürich was next. I spent a summer soaking up sunshine, glancing up from my commuter paper to see the Alps crowned with glaciers as we crossed the river, looking out the window on my way to tearing down the stairs from the eighth floor to see the turtles and the fish in the pond way below. There are fields opposite the Spital Limattal -- apple orchards up the hill, but immediately opposite - by the bus stop - pick-your-own flowers and an honesty box. I found cafes and restaurants and friends and I learned a whole new language and I lived by myself absent a support network for the first time, and I explored and I fell in love with museums and was baffled by art and I swam in the lake and learned to like blue cheese on a Roman customs point in the rain overlooking a river with P. I miss pear bread most of all.

I didn't learn how to love LA. Mostly I got as far as baffled affection: for the sky that only ever got as dark as a glowing orange-purple, that turned opaque blanket of smog when you drove high enough into the mountains to see the stars, that left my lungs a wreck for six months; the fantastic street art and terrible public transport; the storm drains and dry river; the jacarandas and the humming birds. My experience of LA is less that, more a haze of heat & food & Caltech campus, with a dream-sequence weekend-long road trip up to the Bay Area somewhere in the middle.

And, of course, London. London, and its river-that-is-a-dragon. I would (as I thought) have hated moving here when I was 18; now I find myself delighting in how joyfully small it makes me, in exactly the same way I am small when I look at the stars or (closer to home) the Moon. I don't belong here but the river-dragon will let me stay a while, and so for now I will fling myself into proms and parks and concerts and gigs and museums and the poetry library; I will stand breathless with delight on the bridge at Embankment or at St Paul's; I will be a mirror for this city and the city shall be a mirror for me, and I will learn more about how people work and more about how I work and I will adore its trees and mysterious statuary and, most of all, I will learn.

(Honourable mentions go to Oxford and to Edinburgh, neither of which I understand, in part because of how intensely my experiences of them are bound up with how I relate to the people I love who relate to these cities; to my patchwork understanding of Heidelberg, all castle and computational linguistics and music and cheap beer by the river; to Rome; and to Paris, and in particular the sunrise walk between Gare de l'Est and Gare du Nord, and a toast to fifth-floor balconies and wine, and croissants by the Seine at dawn.)

Thank you so much for letting me play with your ideas. Mass spec time largely done now - data! - but if you still wanna leave something please by all means do and I'll try to get to it. <3

Poetry

• prompt: "you're the heroine of someone else's romance"
  
• prompt: "this is who I was, half a lifetime ago", Perspectives
  
• Volcanoes
  
• prompt: "Here we go again...", Here we go
  

Ficlets

• prompt: My Travels Through A Mass Spectrometer, [Dicebox] At Least According To Molly
  
• prompt: "How the Laundry recruited me", [Laundryverse] Doggerell
  
• prompt: For SCIENCE!, [snippet about the Thames, which is really more about science-propitiating-dragons]
  
• prompt: character of your choice finds an adorable kitten, [Elementary, accidentally not a drabble] Moments of glad gracelessness
  

Other

• Leek-and-potato soup

... I'm sorry this is a thing I'm genuinely bad at, so what I am ACTUALLY going to propose we do is play the "which animal would you cross with a dragon and why?" game.

HERE ARE MY CURRENT FAVOURITE ANSWERS:

• Dragon crossed with a weevil. Because it's a tiny, adorable, pocket-sized lighter.
  
• Dragon crossed with a giraffe. Because neck. And patterns.
  
• Dragon crossed with a squid. Because squid are adorable, okay, and also TENTADRAGON and also how would the motion and fire-breathing even work, I don't know but I want to find out.
  
• Dragon crossed with star-nosed mole. It was the tentacles that made me think of it; sorry. Prehensile flames? :D
  
• Dragon crossed with striped pyjama squid.

YOUR TURN.

ETA: here are a bunch of drawings of animals crossed with a hyena.

This is a screenshot of the "Fee to Pay" page on the Royal Mail website. Titles are obligatory. They offer six options, which are given (in order) as: Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Sir.

This is a screenshot of the Contact Us form to which you are directed if you tell them that you have a problem with a Redelivery or paying a fee. Again, title is an obligatory field. It offers ten options, which are given (in order) as: Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, Mx, Dr, Lady, Rev, Lord, Sir.

I. CANNOT. EVEN.

So I'm finishing up my third-year project¹. Right now I am putting together my map. I have reached the point at which there is a spare corner; traditionally people seem to fill it with a college crest.

I think I tend to feel this is possibly a little tacky, but I wasn't really sure what to do instead until I had THE BEST IDEA EVER, viz, DRAGONS. Labelled "Here be dragons", obv. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.<sup>3



1</sup> NEARLY THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE DEADLINE WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE^2
2 Yes, I am ill, but I don't think that's actually relevant.
³ Yes, I am slightly feverish. Last night I decided the Internet was made of slug-filled tubas. You've got off lightly.