The Boat Race

Today was the fateful day of the annual clash of titans, the day that determines glory and victory for the rest of the year: The Boat Race. Officially I suppose one should call it the "Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race", but generally no other qualifier is needed, as there is only one Boat Race.

The Young Dutchman woke me up in the morning with a phone call to discuss plans. He wasn't sure if he wanted to join me or go to a friend's house in Barnes. Apparently this friend was somebody he hadn't seen in a while, so I told him to go join the friend, as I would surely see him later on in the day. And so at around 1 PM, I headed down to the river.

I kept calling and texting back and forth with the Young Dutchman during the Isis vs. Goldie race (the reserve boats), and was happy to be able to report that when they passed Hammersmith, Isis was leading. I most always cheer for Oxford when it comes to rowing, given that I only rowed when I was at Oxford, never at Cambridge.

I then got a call from the American friend I'd been set up with by another mutual friend, who had come down to the river to join me. During the start of the race, we managed to find each other, and so were able to cheer together as the boats came flying past Hammersmith, absolutely racing neck-and-neck. Continued to text back and forth with the Young Dutchman about how tense the race was, and how nerve-wracking it was to watch.

Then, tragedy struck. On the jumbo screens, we could see that there was someone in the water! Had one of the guys fallen out of the boat? The blades narrowly missed his head as the boat raced by, and both boats stopped rowing. Later it would turn out that a total JACK@SS protester had decided to "protest elitism" by swimming in front of the boats and stopping the race.

Why on earth someone would be such a ASSH*LE as to ruin 6 months of these guys absolutely torturing themselves, to destroy that one moment, on that one day. It was the Oxford crew that nearly took his head off, and in retrospect they should have just gone ahead and done it.

But now that the race had been stopped, it had to be restarted. So it took about a half-hour for the crews to row back to the 2 mile mark and fight to line up evenly in the choppy waters. The crowds standing around at Hammersmith were tense and restless, as we waited.

Then the restart happened, but the two crews had barely begun rowing when they clashed into each other! Blades went flying everywhere, and when everything was sorted out, the Oxford crew had one blade that had snapped. The crews set out rowing again, but now Oxford effectively had only 7 rowers competing against the eight from Cambridge.

Oxford struggled mightily, but from that point on, they really had no chance. Seven against eight, in addition to unbalancing the boat, at that level there was just no way the seven Oxford men could make up the power of the eight from Cambridge.

Not like Oxford didn't try, and they held on impressively. Yet disaster struck again at the end of the race, when the Oxford bowman had obviously collapsed, and people started racing to get him to the hospital. Everyone was screaming. It was all a disaster. As I later read:

"Oxford’s bow man Alex Woods ended the race flat on his back, unconscious. His life was put in jeopardy. He is a lightweight rower, just muscle and bone, with a BMI of only 19. With less resilience than his bigger crewmates and opponents, Woods had used up most of his muscle glycogen store in the first 10 minutes of the race. Forced to stop suddenly by the protester, he was flip-flopping between aerobic and anaerobic respiration in the half-hour before the race resumed, getting cold, his adrenalin levels pumping. During the restart, his body was running on empty, trying to burn fat that he did not have, his system in metabolic chaos. He remembers nothing after the collision, since his fuel-starved brain had stopped working."

My anger at this protester is just overwhelming. I can't remember the last time I felt such incredible rage. Afterwards, i found myself trying not to read too much about him, because I don't want to give any credit to whatever the hell he thought he was protesting. ("Elitism", apparently).

In the end, they scrapped the awards ceremony, because of the Oxford bowman being in hospital and everyone just being so upset. I feel bad for Oxford, but I also kind of feel bad for Cambridge. That wasn't how their Boat Race should have been. That guy destroyed everything.

Reading some articles later, most of the comments from people writing in were hugely supportive and realising how this jerk had ruined everything. Yet some of the comments were from truly idiotic people saying, "Oh those silly toffs got their little boat race ruined."

In all of these debates about the "class divide" in British society, I honestly think it's not those who might be considered "upper class" who are perpetuating it. It's these bigots who can't see the hard work and dedication, but instead focus on perpetuating this "us vs. them" mentality. The Young Dutchman later showed me a comment on his phone (can't find which article it went with now) where someone commented something to the effect of, "It's comments like these that discourage working-class students from ever applying to Oxbridge, and hence perpetuate the sense of a class divide."

My American friend decided to go home at this point, and I got on the train to Richmond, stopping at a few points to get on the phone with the Young Dutchman to just rant for a little bit. He assured me that he would join me shortly, and so I went on to the pub, where friends were gathering for the twins' birthday drinks.

I got a drink at the bar and joined the rest of the crowd, and wasn't there too long before the Young Dutchman arrived as well. As soon as he walked in, I went up to him and just demanded, "I need a hug", and was gratefully wrapped up in his arms for a little while until I felt better.

We spent much of the rest of the afternoon discussing the Boat Race and other things, and even when I wasn't talking to the Young Dutchman directly, I always found myself leading back up against him, with our legs pressed together or just somehow keeping in contact with each other. It was a tight space, and everybody was squeezed in, and so I suppose it just made more sense for us to be pressed up against each other than anybody else. But also, just after how low I've been feeling lately, it just made me feel better to be close to him, to feel the reassuring warmth of him as I leaned up against him.

I bought us two rounds, probably not the best idea in retrospect, given that we were drinking all of these craft brews that had quite a high alcohol content. So needless to say, we got a bit tipsy as we ate Easter candy and talked to people.

Then, after we were in quite a state, the Young Dutchman announced that he wanted to leave and go to the Hurlingham, and meet Kellogg Boy on the way. I protested that I was in jeans (I'd really thought I was going to go home before going out for the evening), but he seemed to think it would work. So we got on the train, got to Putney, met Kellogg Boy, and walked to the Hurlingham.

It turned out that everything was closed due to it being a slow evening, so then we went to the Eight Bells, a pub that I know about. Ran into some Dutch guy who was annoyed at us "toffs" but then the Young Dutchman calmed him down by speaking Dutch to him. We had more drinks (oh, what a not great idea), and then decided to go grab some dinner in Chinatown.

At dinner, I still can't even explain why, the Young Dutchman and I got into an argument. Basically he accused me of embarrassing him by making some comment about how many girls he's slept with, which 1) I swear I never made, and 2) he HAS slept with half the world, so how can he be embarrassed about it? You want people to stop casting aspersions on your reputation? Stop sleeping with so many people!

Nonetheless, I HATE fighting with the Young Dutchman. It never lasts for more than 30 seconds (I think because we both can't stand it so much), but I still hate even those 30 seconds of disagreement. And I didn't want to apologise for something I hadn't done, but I also hated having him angry with me.

Luckily, we dropped it pretty quickly, and then Kellogg Boy for some reason wanted to go to a casino. Neither the Young Dutchman nor I were fans of the idea, but we got turned down pretty quickly when the Young Dutchman didn't have ID on him, and the casino bouncers thought he looked under 18.

So at that point we decided to head home, Kellogg Boy gave me a kiss and wandered off, and then the Young Dutchman walked me to the bus stop before heading home. Made me promise to text him when I got home, but didn't wait for my bus with me...maybe he was still mad.

Finally I got home and texted the Young Dutchman that I was home safely, trying to be extra sweet and gracious as my subtle way of begging us not to fight. I hate it when we fight. He texted me back straight away thanking me for a lovely day, so hopefully all is forgiven...