Grantchester Grind by Tom Sharpe

Whole

    place looks like it’s been here hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Mr Hartang is going to

    love this.’
    ‘I daresay he will,’ said the Bursar, finally beginning to feel he had the situation

    slightly in hand. ‘But not if you bring that truck thing in with those cables and ruin

    it.’
    ‘Yeah, you could be right at that,’ Kudzuvine admitted. ‘Okay, you guys, leave it in the

    street.’
    ‘And I don’t think that’s a very good idea either,’ the Bursar continued. ‘The police

    will–’
    ‘So we move it some place else. Where’s the campus parking lot?’
    The Bursar tried to think. It had never crossed his mind that Porterhouse might have a

    campus or even be one. Walter came to his rescue. ‘You can always try the Lion Yard,’ he

    muttered. ‘Though if you ask me I don’t think you’ll get it in.’
    Kudzuvine turned his attention away from the lawn. ‘Did you say…You did say the Lion’s

    Yard?’ he asked. Awe wasn’t an adequate word now. Horror was more like it.
    ‘He means the car park…the parking lot,’ the Bursar explained. ‘It has nothing to do

    with the College. And I assure you there are no lions in it.’
    ‘There are,’ said Walter. ‘There’s a great big red one.’
    The Bursar looked at him and shook his head. He had never liked Skullion as Head Porter

    but there were times when he wished he was back. Skullion would never have allowed this

    situation to develop. ‘Yes, Walter, but it’s a stone one. A statue,’ he explained with

    difficult patience. ‘It’s called the Lion Yard after the lovely old pub that used to

    stand there.’
    ‘Oh, I remember the Lion so well,’ said the Chaplain, who had joined the gathering

    outside the Porter’s Lodge. ‘Such a shame they knocked it down. It had a delightful

    walkway, almost an arcade with leather sofas on either side and little insurance

    offices and shipping agents behind them. I used to sit there and have coffee in the

    morning. And of course there was a bar. And I seem to remember some enterprising young

    man from Magdalene ran a sort of casino there with a roulette wheel. Such fun.’
    Kudzuvine and the other polo-necks stood in silent admiration and stared through

    their blue sunglasses. It was obvious they had never seen or heard anything like this

    before.
    ‘Ah well, I must leave you good people,’ the Chaplain said. ‘Breakfast calls. Spiritual

    sustenance is one thing but, to change the emphasis of Our Lord’s words slightly towards

    the practical, “Man cannot live by wine and biscuit alone” We are corporeal beings

    after all. So nice meeting you.’ He tottered off in the direction of the Dining Hall

    following the scent of porridge and bacon and eggs and good coffee.
    For the next twenty minutes, in the almost serene atmosphere that had been induced by

    the Chaplain’s nostalgia, the Bursar got Kudzuvine to have the video van parked away from

    the College.
    ‘We’ll clear a space by the bicycle sheds, when you need to use it,’ he explained,

    ‘though I must say I never visualized such…well, it’s like a pantechnicon.’
    It was a most unfortunate word to use. Kudzuvine seized on it. ‘Professor Bursar,

    have you said it?’ he bawled.
    ‘Well, I think so…’ tire Bursar began, but Kudzuvine had grabbed him by the arm.
    ‘Pantechnicon it could be but that’s small stuff. We go straight into thirty-five or

    maybe even seventy mill. We’ve got this Ball, see, and everyone dancing out in the open

    air…’ He paused and looked puzzled. ‘Where do they dance?’
    The Bursar smiled. It was to be his last smile for some time. ‘Well, mostly in the Hall of

    course,’ he said. ‘They clear the tables out, you know.’
    ‘The Hall? Show me,’ said Kudzuvine.
    The Bursar led the way to the Screens and the Transworld Television team came bunched

    behind, gaping. ‘These are the Screens,’ he explained. ‘On our left are the