Britain gallery: Cambridge punts 2

On the River Cam at Cambridge you can hire a punt for a while and pootle about the

river, risking a dunking because you can't master the pole action, or you can take a

punt-based tour of the City with a guide who will also do the poling for you, much as a

gondolier will do the sculling on his gondola in Venice whilst singing you a barcarole from

some Italian (or Viennese) operetta and whilst cracking walnuts between his knees, as he

has to eat. Among the greats who may have used your particular punt before you

include Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Robert Oppenheimer, Stephen Fry,

James Chadwick, Ernest Rutherford, Crick and Watson of DNA fame, Rupert Brooke,

Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, Fox-Talbot, David Attenborough, John Dee and

Oliver Cromwell. And many many others. And when you've finished with your punt and

done reflecting on who you might have been but for fate, pay a visit to The Eagle, the

pub where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of the double helix - the shortest

run to a pub from the Cavendish Laboratory where the work was done. Apart, that is,

from the thinking work that would have gone on, possibly on a river punt.

On the River Cam at Cambridge you can hire a punt for a while and pootle about the river, risking

a dunking because you can't master the pole action, or you can take a punt-based tour of the

City with a guide who will also do the poling for you, much as a gondolier will do the sculling on his

gondola in Venice whilst singing you a barcarole from some Italian (or Viennese) operetta and

whilst cracking walnuts between his knees, as he has to eat. Among the greats who may have

used your particular punt before you include Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Robert

Oppenheimer, Stephen Fry, James Chadwick, Ernest Rutherford, Crick and Watson of DNA fame,

Rupert Brooke, Wittgenstein, John Maynard Keynes, Fox-Talbot, David Attenborough, John Dee

and Oliver Cromwell. And many many others. And when you've finished with your punt and done

reflecting on who you might have been but for fate, pay a visit to The Eagle, the pub where Crick

and Watson announced their discovery of the double helix - the shortest run to a pub from the

Cavendish Laboratory where the work was done. Apart, that is, from the thinking work that would

have gone on, possibly on a river punt.