I heard it at a formal banquet, so it must be true

Last night we had a formal banquet, which was a full multi-course dinner, complete with multiple forks, wine glasses and a team of liveried servants. Very posh, and you tell “posh ness,” by the number of forks and the understanding that no matter which fork you pick up, its the wrong one at the wrong time.

The dinner meal requires that the student body dress up, and by that they mean no shorts or denim allowed. Dress slacks for men and dresses, or at least nice slacks for the women. They cut you some slack for breakfast and lunch, but they are touchier about the evening meal. While the day meals are buffets the evening meal are served meals. Several times during the week suit coat and tie is required for the men and, as they say “Sunday best” for the women.

And aside: the evening meal is always started with a prayer. As you come into the hall you stand behind your chair until the prayer has been said, then you can sit and dinner is then served. In today’s multicultural world, with all the religions as well as all the militant non-religious people, they have found an ingenious way to solve that potential problem. They pray in Latin. No one has an idea of what is being said, and as you don’t understand it you can’t challenge it. You would look uneducated. Therefore, it is impossible for anyone to be offended. Clever, those Brits.

But, back to the dress code.

As you might guess many of the Americans find this dressing up to be just a bit precious. Some even will skip the evening meal and have something outside the Hall. I don’t understand that because part of the experience is the tradition. But, I do understand the suit coat part of the problem. I am a person who, for years has collected lapel pins, but the truth is I only have one set of lapels. So, a shirt, tie and suit coat is a stretch for me. But, my lapels always look sharp.

Last night at the banquet one of the speakers tried to address this problem for the troubled Americans. There is a fountain in the center of the mall of the school. It is behind closed gates and if you are not “of the school” you would never see it. One morning a head porter found two swans swimming in the fountain. This was troubling because they had obliviously come in from the river, and even more troubling was that all the river swans belong, by law, to the Queen.

Mid-morning two investigators showed up to reclaim the swans and to find out how they got into the fountain. This is a college, so it doesn’t take to much imagination to see that they would suspect a student prank. As they questioned the Head Porter they asked him about this issue. He replied that the swans have wings; they must have flown in sometime during the night.

The investigators then wanted to know that if that was the case how could the Porter explained that the swans were wearing bow ties?

The Head Porter quickly replied, “Anyone who is not properly attired simply doesn’t get into Christ Church.”