All night sitting
Debating at the Oxford Union is an ex- tremely cold and hard business, the benches being very solid and the chamber having a sepulchral chill about it. Visiting speakers have to wait a considerable time before they say their piece; and I wonder whether good manners might not suggest to some reform- ing Union President or other a slight modifi- cation here and there. The Oxford Union finances being apparently perilous, it is too much to expect the place to be properly heated, or comfortably refurnished. But it is difficult to see why guests should sit through the tomfoolery of Union business, itself based on a kind of unwitting parody of the procedures of the House of Commons. Leo Abse, the peacocky Labour member for Pontypool, was speaking in favour of porno- graphy and against censorship there last week, having spent the previous night awake because of the tomfoolery of Parliamentary business at the Commons. He was tired. It seemed absurd to inflict upon him the pro- cedures copied from the House of Commons, although in a sense it was all the fault of the likes of him and his predecessors. It was worse for me, for I had to sit through Leo Abse as well as four previous undergradu- ates and all the earlier tomfoolery. Worst of all was it for Professor Eysenck, who had to sit through me besides. We all consoled our- selves afterwards.
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