h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We had our Year 10 Open Day today - about 80 14-15 year-olds and 20 teachers spent the day at Newnham being entertained in various ways: ice-breaker activity, talk about 'how university differs from school' and 'what makes Cambridge special?', two mini-lectures from Cambridge academics, tour of the College, discussion groups with some of our current undergraduates ...

The meeting room was right at the other end of college from my office and the porters' lodge, so I spent a considerable portion of the day walking up and down between the various places. My feet really ache this evening.

We ran out of the sandwich buffet lunch (mainly because some of the visitors helped themselves rather generously at the beginning), so had to take 20 people through the student cafeteria. This means we will be charged for 20 extra lunches by the catering dept, who didn't warn us that they had only calculated one half baguette per person.

The lectures were good though! The new Admissions Tutor is an archaeologist, so she talked about 'what bones can tell us' - illustrated by a skeleton and skull we had found in one of the cupboards. Then one of the Law lecturers came and talked about 'the legality (or not) of the Iraq war'. I was a bit worried that this would be too difficult for Year 10s, but they were completely engaged, and asked so many questions that we overran by about 20 minutes.

Got home about 4.45, went to the pub for a quiet drink and read the newspaper. Then one of my neighbours was having a barbecue in the communal gardens, so went and showed my face there for a bit. Now I'm really tired, so I think I'll be having an early night.