Somerville's Womble warfare
SOMERVILLE'S JCR IS preparing for war - over a kidnapped Womble. In a motion due to be tabled at Wednesday's JCR meeting, the College proposed to wage war against Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
The bizarre chain of events was initiated when a team from Somerville recently beat Sidney Sussex in a contest to set the world record for eating baked beans with cocktail sticks on ITV's Guinness World Of Records programme. The Tabs kidnapped the Womble - Somerville's mascot for the competition - in retaliation for this defeat.
But events took a sinister twist last week when Somerville's JCR President, Adam Tucker, was sent photographs of the College's beloved soft toy being 'tortured' in various ways. In one picture, the Womble was pictured dangling by a shoelace over a collection of sharp implements and in another it was seen hanging out of an upstairs window. The photographs were not accompanied by any kind of note, but the culprits did enclose a Matriculation photograph, which was later identified as belonging to Sidney Sussex.
Angry reaction from Somerville students has led to the proposal to declare war against the Tabs. The East Anglian thieves have been dubbed 'larcenous' - guilty of the medieval common-law offence of unlawfully taking and carrying away personal property with intent to deprive the owner of it permanently. Students were urged to attend the JCR meeting so that the motion could be pushed through. Despite the inevitably comic aspect of the situation, students genuinely appear to be rallying behind the cause in a startling demonstration of solidarity. Caroline Smith, a first-year Somervillian, remarked: "How sad can Cambridge get? It was a very infantile thing to do." John Whitehouse, a second-year, added: "It proves what I've always thought about the Tabbers."
Somerville's JCR President-Elect, Ian Mulheirn, has vowed to continue the war throughout his presidency next year. He said: "We plan to begin a stealth campaign against Sidney Sussex. This will probably involve sending a crack team of Womble-Recoverers to Cambridge in order to rescue the mascot." A formal plan of action will be drawn up in the near future. He added: "The Womble has definitely been mentally harmed by this ordeal."
No one from the JCR at Sidney Sussex was available to comment on the allegations of abduction being levelled at the college, or its possible repercussions.
This episode is only the latest in the ongoing saga of Oxford-Cambridge rivalry. During a joint ski trip this Easter, the two universities engaged in a bout of stealing each other's flags from balconies at the hotel. No doubt still bitter from this year's crushing defeat in the Boat Race, Cambridge now seem to have descended to new lows in their attempts to win the age-old battle of the blues. The war continues.
8th Jun 2000