Recent efforts at fund raising have generated considerable enthusiasm among pupils. Milne's organised a day of gourmandising and live music in Yard and Grant's staged a home-based version of The Weakest Link, in which Miss Choulerton achieved the impossible, being both more frightening and obnoxious than Anne Robinson. To the mortification of several contestants, Editor prominent among them, a posse of staff made the long, lonely Walk of Shame. It was one of the most technically impressive and genuinely entertaining events of its kind in years and, best of all, it was also entirely pupil-led. Profound congratulations to Louise Macmillan and Skanda Surendra.
Toffee pudding at Garrigill, windswept walks on Hadrian's Wall and Lindsay's driving of the minibus have all been etched into the private histories of nearly three generations of young Westminsters. The present Fifth Form have mostly missed out on each of these, collateral casualties of the cumulative disruption occasioned by floods, rail disasters and Foot and Mouth. Next year, all will be back to normal.
Is Alston the right place for a country base? As usual, opinion is divided. Most of the argument so far has centred on the preferred location (Wales, the West Country, northern France and the Cote d'Azur have all been mentioned), but there is also a dissenting minority who say that the rural experience has no serious educational value here.
Is it tempting fate to say how civilised football at Westminster has become? It has not passed unnoticed by Old Westminsters, either. The best teams achieve remarkable results against the top soccer schools in the country. The number of 'B' teams we field at all ages suggests that the nationwide love-affair with the game has been translated here into real schoolboy commitment. Best of all, the prevailing mood of our players is serious, competitive - but also self-controlled and civilised. Instead of surly, snarling (and highly stylised) denouements at the end of hard-fought matches, one sees handshakes and mutual appreciation. For spectators, time spent at Vincent Square and on away matches is almost invariably a pleasure. More of the same, please.
Pink is the best student publication at Westminster since time immemorial. The whole thing exudes creativity and zest - and the layout has struck green envy into this editor's heart. How restful, also, to have a school publication that scarcely bothered to mention Saturday school, drugs or Abbey. Still, the absence of parochialism didn't quite hold out for the usual north London self-congratulatory wunderkind. Pepper's Restaurant in Clapham was recommended as a stop-off point for people living in the area, 'before heading north'. Damned cheek!
It is not a sight to gladden the heart: Sixth Formers, so often the lynchpin of cultural, social and sporting life at the school, are presently sunk in a morass of AS Levels. It might be easier to suffer the change if one had confidence in the intellectual rigour of the new examinations. Initial impressions suggest that they are chiefly remarkable for managing to be both cumbersome and vacuous. Contrast that with the maturity and effervescence of many of the candidates.
We all have to tread a pretty fine line here - pupils have to be given every opportunity to perform to best capacity, but the thought of that buoyant first year of Sixth Form being turned into some ghastly revision sweat shop would be insupportable. In fact, there has been no slackening of interest in all the usual extracurricular melange that characterises the year, and Academic Options, that splendidly idiosyncratic Westminster institution, has never been more popular. AS's may be a feature of the landscape - they should hardly be the summit, however.