Overheard in Oxford

To make up for my last post which was admittedly a bit opaque, here are some sights and sounds from the last few days which everyone can appreciate:

1. I saw an undergraduate-age person walking down the High Street in Oxford smoking a wooden pipe. I didn't even know we (society) still made pipes. It could only have been better if bubbles were coming out instead of smoke.

2. Upon passing the Centre for Development Studies today, I heard a loud group of grad students discussing economics. The best exclamation: "That's why serfdom works so well!" (Obviously funnier because of the British accent, as most things are.)

3. Scottish guy with giant muttonchops. I wish I had a picture.

That's all for now. I need to finish my paper on British education. It took me most of the week to figure out that "public school" is the term for privately-owned prep schools like Eton, "grammar schools" are selective high schools akin to magnet schools, and "comprehensive schools" are more or less what we would call public high schools.