Druids and Geeks

Boston. Better here than Stonehenge on Midsummer Day. My 'henge indifference is not shared by 30,000 aspirant Druids it seems. 'The best thing about Summer Solstice at the 'henge." says John Tarbuck, 'is you get to meet loads of new people.' Is that it? No human sacrifice? You can meet loads of new people at Sainsbury's. And, let's face it, Druids are a rum bunch. Paul Bowles once told me, 'If you see a Druid with a gun, get behind something solid.' (Actually he said 'Mexican', but he would have said Druid if he'd been in Wiltshire rather than Tangier.) That Druid/Mexican line was one of the only two ideas I had with a friend for a book called 'Things You Have to Find out for Yourself'. The other was 'Cellophane doesn't flush.' I'm actually in Cambridge, the other side of the river from Boston. It's a city inhabited by thousands of Lisa Simpsons, fantastically intelligent people who wander the streets with a distracted air of wounded idealism. Around MIT when the cab drivers say 'Howya doin'?' it turns out to be something to do with your quantum wave function. They're not big on human sacrifice or meeting loads of new people here. It's really just the city where the geeks come to be with their own kind. Malnourished, they stagger along the streets, barely able to sustain the weight of a Grande Latte. The non-geeks are all rowing on the Charles, building up their muscles for the nightly geek-beating ceremonies. It's Oxbridge really, Oxbridge with vast amounts of money and power. Like I said, better here than Stonehenge.