Day 2 - Richard

Yesterday everyone carefully planned an April Fools Day prank involving every boy separately telling Ralph that he had lost his voice. Today everyone carefully forgot it. The boys of Roxbury Latin School were far more successful, as each boy who was supposed to hand in an article for their school magazine by today individually approached the teacher in charge with an excuse, causing him to boil up in fury and storm off to the head master.

We had a most wonderful two-hour rehearsal in the school, featuring pieces being rehearsed and conducted by boys. Ludo Graham was particularly energetic; those who could actually see him would agree.

During the day we divided into two groups. Those who had ordered tickets listened to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a concert including Evgeny Kissin playing two piano concertos, Grieg and Chopin 1. The others were taken on an inspiring tour of Harvard which was organised by Mr Jordan. This was preceded by lunch at the best burger joint in Boston, where each burger had its own name, e.g. "The Michelle Obama", (because it's hot and spicy) and "The Facebook" (...?!).

Edward Picton-Turbervill pointed out a section of the wall in the main part of the school, upon which there were attached samples of English landmarks, notably a small slice of Ely Cathedral which an Anglophile teacher had apparently chipped off during the night. The obvious thing to do would be to chip it off their wall and bring it back home to Cambridgeshire but that would just turn the attention on Eton, and we simply can't afford to lose bits of our beloved home, except perhaps Bekynton; that's a historic building they can have as much of as they want.

Dinner at the school gave us a chance to meet some American versions of ourselves. Topics of conversation included the drinking age in Britain and comparing mad teachers. Max James wins the prize for best introduction, with "Hi! I'm Max. What sort of Asian are you?" It was nice to have Ben Nuzzo OE drop in on us while we were changing.

The Glee Club, Roxbury's main choir, opened the concert with a fantastic mix of traditional American songs, close harmony and classics of the choral tradition. Their smaller group, The Latonics, sang very skilfully in an equally varied range of styles.

Our part of the concert was also a great success, owing mainly to the extent of F block's excitement. While Ed Picton-Turbervill after relishing the opportunity to introduce the audience to some of the more idiomatic areas of the English language in his pre-performance talk played Bach's Passacaglia and "stonking great" Fugue in C minor, the rest of the choir was evidently incapable of taking a break from performing. Various pieces of backstage entertainment over the course of the evening included a certain member of the lower blocks destroying a fax machine and Andrew Maynard trying to insert his head into an electric pencil sharpener in order to "sharpen his intellect". In a fit of pique at his omission from the group, Alex Robarts attempted to sabotage the climax of the Incognitos' performance by "accidentally" brushing the touch screen lighting controls for the hall and plunging them into total darkness. At the end the audience rose to their feet: some in glorious ovation and others to make a speedy exit. Those who remained were rewarded with a rendition of Tom Recknell's arrangement of "Under the Sea", accompanied by David Goode on piano and the whole of D block (also known as Richard Gowers) on egg shaker.

Enough blather has been churned. Tomorrow we will start on the swill.

Richard Gowers