Com memor at ion
Which bring me to a politician, Sheila Stuart, the Mayor of Cambridge. She is wearing the Mayor’s chains of office, and is accompanied by Bruce, her husband, who is wearing the Mayoress’s chain. Sheila is an American, and according to her home page on Cambridge Liberal Democrats ‘was tempted to Cambridge in 1991 by her first husband, whom she met by fax’. On the same LibDem home page you can even add her to your address book by scanning a barcode with your mobile phone. Presumably if you can’t work out how to do that, she doesn’t want to be in your address book. She is obviously fully alive to the possibilities for information technology, and so seems well suited to the Cambridge scene. She is also alive to some of the planning issues we have faced in Trinity. Indeed, Cambridge City Council was most helpful in approving our proposed refurbishments of New Court. This was in the face of hostility from the officers of English Heritage, who objected to the aesthetics of our proposal for conservation grade double glazing, despite the fact that they had themselves approved such double glazing for use in the Tower of London. On behalf of the College, I would like to thank Cambridge City Council through you as Mayor for a very constructive relationship throughout a difficult planning process. Sheila, welcome here tonight, as indeed welcome to all our guests. Turning now to the College, I would like to welcome Lord Carnwath, whom we elected an Honorary Fellow in January, and who is present at this Feast for the first time in his own right. We are especially honored as he has chosen to celebrate his birthday with us this evening. I forgot to mention to him a little known good custom of this College, in which Fellows dining on their birthday pay for the drink of all those present. I would also like to welcome the President of the Trinity College Students’ Union, Sarah Drew, and the President of the BA Society, Gonzalo Garcia. Generally we think that the relations between the Fellows and our student bodies are good, and we rely the Presidents and their Committees to help maintain that relationship. So I would like to thank the previous Presidents, Karim Ahmed and Amanda Talhat, and the outgoing members of their Committees, while also wishing their successors good luck. In the last year the Fellows have continued to have distinctions heaped upon them. In particular I would like to mention Shankar Balasubramanian and Daniel Wolpert, who were elected to the Royal Society, and Huw Price, who became a Fellow of the British Academy. Venki Ramakrishnan was knighted for
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