The Malcontent on: Punting
By Anna Friedler
As May takes its stride and summer begins to force its joyful tidings upon us, this Malcontent turns regretfully to one of life’s banes: punting. In the month’s following Oxford’s very own exercise in Darwinian evolution, those that survived the mass exodus of stupidity on Magdelan Bridge will most likely be found beneath it, swanning around in blissful serenity and boring the arses off the rest of us via daddy’s smartphone.
Now I am a tolerant creature, I look at photographs of friends’ babies without yawning, refrain from commenting on my tutor’s frankly hideous moustache and regularly pass Big Issue sellers without so much as a kick, and this hatred vexes me. For whether it is the sloppy verbalization of a concrete noun or the fact that it is usually accompanied by a horsey voice and an even horsier face that does it, the fact remains that if I had my way –to paraphrase a certain Mr Scrooge- every idiot who goes about with ‘punting’ on his lips, should be drowned with his own straw hat and buried with a sprig of pondweed through his heart.
No doubt some of you will be reading this – the Cherwell can’t take all the wankers, although God knows they’ve tried- and to you I say ‘Congratulations’. No doubt it is a hard task to engage in the only thing more touristy than being Japanese, and I take my hat off to you. It’s not a boater and it is sadly lacking in gingham ribbon in John Lewis’ finest attempt at expressing my kooky nature, but I doff it nonetheless. To the rest of you I say this: the punt is a versatile creature, and to my knowledge is best used for one of three things: drunken picnics, al fresco shagging, or drowning the over-eager tute partner you’ve secretly hated since 2009. Anything outside of this strays dangerously close to wankery, especially if accompanied by a notebook (you know who you are).
So let this be a lesson to you: you may have read Brideshead 12 times and look dashing in your straw boater, but the rest of the world thinks you rhyme with what you’re sat in.
Rose Newman
PHOTO/fbpa.wayne
Rubble-face
12/05/2012 at 02:03
Wow that’s possible the most brutal “Malcontent” article I’ve read on here…I’m actually going to go cry now (and I don’t even punt)
The Cardinal
13/05/2012 at 01:54
I might have been amusing by the author’s dribbling disapprobation, had any possible force thereto been obliterated by her sheer ignorance. The photograph? It’s of Cambridge. As any ‘punter’ would be able to tell you, due to the fact that the two Varsities disagree as to the correct end from which to punt.
Oh – and the fact that the picture is clearly the Backs.
Bravo.
Lord Flyte
17/05/2012 at 00:12
Cardinal: utterly confused as to why a picture of punting is not relevant to an article on punting. Am I missing something? Do they not have punting in Cambridge? And do correct me if I’m wrong, but I find it difficult to imagine that there consists of enough information within the parameters of the word ‘punting’ to in fact allow ignorance to be a viable state. A bit like rowing. Yes indeed, ‘we’ do ‘disagree’ as to which end to punt from – if this isn’t an indication of the utter non-subject that is punting, then very little ever could be. Allow me also to question to the definition of the term ‘punter’: ‘a person who punts’ perhaps? By this margin, perhaps we all ought to call ourselves ‘breathers’ as well, just so that another highly skilled activity can be added to our CVs, if not our egos.