High Table

I had my first High Table experience last night. For those who don't know, the class system is alive and well in the UK. I suspect that one of the favourite pastimes of Oxford fellows is to sit around dreaming up new ways to symbolically demonstrate their superiority. Luckily, Mason Porter (Lloyd House '98) has risen the ranks and was able to invite me to join the fellows for dinner at Somerville College. For full disclosure, I must admit that we were actually seated at "Lower High," which is physically on the same level as the commoners. Of course the true High Table is physically elevated, but it was a crowded guest night and even Mason has a few more social rungs to climb.

Catching up with Mason was good fun. Mason was back at Tech as a postdoc during my tenure there. He is an aficionado of Caltech pranks and also was research mentor to several of my best friends, so we had plenty of nerdy topics to discuss while eating chocolate in the Senior Common Room (SCR) after dinner.