Many years ago, a professor of mine, a Hungarian, on hearing of the death of then Soviet leader Andropov, remarked that had there been fewer of us in the class, he would have brought Champagne. Andropov, of course, had been responsible for the repression of Hungary many decades earlier, and the fact that he was no longer in power made future changes in Hungary seem possible: in many ways it led to the changes that happened culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tonight, Champagne was not possible. For a start, teaching undergraduates in this country, alcohol is an unmentionable: right up there with sex, underwear and politics. Secondly, teaching a non-politics course, politics is an unmentionable, right up there with underwear, sex and alcohol. And since I was teaching this evening, rather than at home, I'm having to postpone my transition celebration, but own personal inaugural ball, until tomorrow. And then LOML and I will don our finery, spin the disks, and trip the light fantastic.
Or at least sway to the music:-)
Yours, in postponed celebration,
N.
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