BY ALEX STORY In a world governed by officials that demand constant change, it is reassuring to know that some things never do. The Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge is some such. On April 13th, for the 170th time, since Charles Wordsworth of Oxford and Charles Merivale of Cambridge started the challenge, two crews of eight men “good and true” (and a cox) from … Continue reading The Reassurance of the Never Changing
BY ALEX STORY After a week away from home, I walk in. Not a sound. I take a few tentative steps into the flat. I open the door to the living room. There in total silence, my four children, each with their own devices, slouch on the sofa. They barely notice me. For a second, a pair of eyes zeroes in on me, only to … Continue reading Live Life to the Full
BY ALEX STORY Rowing usually brings the nation good news. Over the last 40 years, even in dark times, such as the 1996 Atlanta Games, when Great Britain ranked 36th behind North Korea, Algeria and Ethiopia, the sport could be counted on to give us moments of intense pride. We have to go back to the 1980 Olympics to find a failure to win Gold … Continue reading Learning from Defeats
BY ALEX STORY It is often said that the genius of America’s founding fathers was to have crystallised the essence of life on earth by defining three unalienable rights: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Had they declared that every man, woman and child had the right “to happiness” rather than its pursuit, their declaration would have been dismissed as a Utopian document of … Continue reading The Pursuit of Happiness
