I WAS going to tell you about life on the Suffolk beach this month. Picnics at Felixstowe, art in Aldeburgh, fish and chips at Dunwich, crabbing in Walberswick and donkey rides on the Lowestoft strand.
I spend so much of the year leaving the place that it’s very nice to stop at home once in a while. The COUNTRY LIFE people are usually an amenable lot, but they do have a magazine to publish. Get off your deckchair, they said, and head north. We have the union to celebrate and a Scottish issue to fill.
I was up for the assignment, but not before first going south to see our younger daughter graduate in Brighton. Everything was cool there other than the weather, which was so hot it melted the railway lines. We started with a sea swim and ended with ice creams on the beach; the new graduate eating hers in full cap and gown. In between we were entertained by Sussex University’s charismatic chancellor.
Always at the cutting edge, the institution has recruited its very own comedian to preside. For a decade now, Sanjeev Bhaskar, star of The Kumars, has been hugging and high-fiving new graduates after pointing out to them and their families the true benefits of their degree.
He talked about internationalism, inclusion and honing critical faculties in a world full of fake news. He avoided worthiness by weaving in so many cracking one-liners that even a seasoned old reactionary would risk a visit to Britain’s most progressive city to listen to him.
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