‘Cambridge has seen many strange sights. It has seen Wordsworth drunk, it has seen Porson sober. I am a greater scholar than Wordsworth and I am a greater poet than Porson. So I fall betwixt and between.’ – A. E. Housman

Strapping tour guides in straw hats glide their punts along the turbid waters of the river Cam into the shadows of turreted university buildings guarded by stony replicas of the scholars of old, emerald green grass reaches out resplendently beneath ornate window panes like nature’s royal carpet, willow trees dangle their leafy elbows across the water’s edge and intricately carved limestone bridges stretch from bank to bank like the river’s ancient sleeping servants. Flurries of cyclists with cupcakes in their baskets and book bags on their shoulders blaze past round churches, old museums and fire lit Tudor pubs whose homely seats once welcomed the bottoms of bright-eyed academics such…