Punto Reverso

Punto Reverso

Cambridge in summer. It's a lovely city. The colleges bustle with students just about to finish their exams; the flowers bloom in the riverside gardens, the sun sparkles off the glass windows of the Bridge of Sighs and dances on the surface of the river Cam. There's a general air of scholarly well-being, as though, were you to listen carefully, you'd hear the bees merrily buzzing the periodic table, or the crickets chirping the kings of England - in order - from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth the second. Late summer, when the blackberries are ripe and the sun is golden on the sandy stones of King's College Chapel, is just the time to visit, to wander down the banks of the river with the university buildings looming large and ornate on each side, the walkways and bridges beneath your feet redolent with the histories of students hurrying to lectures or ambling back to halls, black gowns flapping gently in the breeze.

Actually, there are two ways to see the river Cam. You can walk by it, or you can punt down it.

The eminent universities of Oxford and Cambridge have long been embroiled in a deep and bitter feud about the true nature of the punt. Both agree that it is a narrow, flat-bottomed boat with room for somewhere between two and eight people seated; that it has a platform at one end upon which the punter stands; that the punter both propels and steers the boat by means of a long pole used as leverage against the shallow riverbed; and that it is the only way to truly experience the university from the river. But at this point the two viewpoints diverge sharply. In Oxford, the punter stands at the back of the boat, perhaps so as to have more time to duck oncoming bridges. In Cambridge, you punt from the front. Scholarly debate has been raging over which method is correct for centuries, ever since, in 1209, a group of Oxford scholars escaped to Cambridge from the ravages of marauding townsmen and decided to state their intellectual independence by becoming forevermore front-punters. As a humble high-school student, I wouldn't dare state an opinion on the subject; all I can say is that, since my first visit to Cambridge in 1999, I have had a particular place in my heart for those who punt from the front.

I was travelling with my grandfather at the time. A respected intellectual, he has close ties to many of the top universities in Britain and the USA, so when I suggested spending a weekend in Cambridge he was happy to take me. We spent several happy hours wandering the city in the sun, pretending my grandfather was a guest lecturer so as to get inside the colleges, buying books from the Cambridge University Press by the bucketful and eating fudge from the fudge shop near the market. We had already taken an open-top bus tour of the city, seeing the sights from the road; all that remained was to go wander by the river, which we proceeded to do shortly after lunch (that is, when we had finished our fudge). While I'm a competent rower now, at the time neither of us had any experience with boats, which was a source of some disappointment: we both wanted to spend some relaxing time on the river.

As fate would have it, our luck was in. Exam season was just drawing to a close, and a number of students were looking to earn pocket money by providing river-tours-by-punt between the end of exams and being kicked out of halls for the summer. We picked a punt with a student who looked like he knew what he was doing, and set off down the river.

There were a number of advantages to being punted by a student. One was the tour itself: our guide was very well-informed and had great comic timing; we rocked the boat with laughter at his punch lines until he had to tone it down or risk capsizing. Another was that we punted in a fairly straight line, something that's almost impossible to do for an amateur punter trying out the boat for the first time. And still another was that, relieved of the need to concentrate on our own boat, we could watch the rest of the river traffic. River traffic is infinitely more amusing than road traffic. In order to participate in road traffic, you need by law to be able to drive. On a river, on the other hand, it's take a boat and go. There's no line down the middle of the water, no bus lane, no pedestrian crossing (bridges don't count) and no order to the resultant chaos.

Imagine, if you will, the apportioning of ethnic characteristics at the beginning of time. "To the British," says God, "I give the stiff upper lip and an inexplicable love of tea. To the Indians I give dark skin and a talent for mathematics. To the Japanese I give slanted eyes and an inexhaustible supply of cameras. To the Americans..." and so on. It is this scenario which leads me to believe that the punt was, in fact, invented by God, as a means of celebrating ethnic diversity. I neither joke nor exaggerate when I say that every group of tourists could be clearly recognised by the style of its punting. The Japanese, for example, punted in zigzags of 45 degrees to the riverbank, from bank to bank, accurate as a Playstation snooker ball. The Americans found their three square feet of water and staked their claim by punting in neat circles, falling prey to the problem of punting on only one side of the boat. The British meandered gently into the nearest willow tree and got stuck. The French punted in convoys. The Germans punted into a gridlock. The list goes on and on.

Just when I thought this pageant of punting prowess could be no more colourful, the Italians arrived on the scene. Up until that point, I'd been mentally handing out bumper stickers to the various punters on the river. My tour-guide and the punter of my boat deserved "I Punt with Perfection". To the Japanese I had mentally awarded "I Punt with Precision". Well, when that boatload of Italians emerged from the shadows of the Bridge of Sighs like Machiavellian spirits of vengeance, they instantly became the clear winners of the bumper stickers, t-shirts and baseball caps bearing the legend "I Punt with Passion".

They were all archetypes of the true Renaissance Italian. Dark and fine-featured, with long, wavy hair and smouldering eyes, there must have been about six of them in the boat, all shouting Italian exhortations at the most archetypal of them all. As he stood tall on the platform, his mane of hair curled extravagantly to his shoulders, his tanned skin rippled over his muscled torso, his black eyes blazed and his white teeth glinted in the sunlight. He held the punting pole in a death-like grip, as though he were wrestling with a deadly snake that threatened to bite him and poison his blood with operatic metaphor. Oh, he plunged that pole into the riverbed like a knight slaying a dragon, heaving the boat forward hand over hand with such passion we almost applauded. Then he would drag the pole from the dragon's heart with an audible "schloop!" and, as he wrested it into a position from which, harpoon-like, he could dash it into the riverbed again, he glared around with a fierce look in his leonine eyes, and he growled.

"He's going to fall in," my grandfather said matter-of-factly, as the Italian plunged his pole into the heart of the river once more, growling like a hungry panther. I could see what he meant. The Italian's theatrical technique worked well enough while the riverbed was gravel and thus didn't try to fight back. But if it became more muddy the pole would almost certainly stick, considering the weapon-like way in which he was wielding it, and then it was anyone's guess as to whether his balance was as impressive as his growling.

As if on cue, the smouldering black eyes ignited with righteous Italian fury as the Machiavellian spirit of vengeance tugged at a pole that would not budge. His muscles strained; beads of sweat appeared on his finely-chiselled brow and his gleaming pearls of teeth showed in a feral snarl. And as he tugged, the boat moved steadily on, away from the immovable pole.

"Come on, you idiot, let go!" I muttered, watching the spectacle. Even had he heard me, I doubt the Italian would have paid any heed. His pride forced him to keep tugging at that pole, but the pole kept resisting, and the boat kept moving. There were barely instants to go before he had to let go or fall into the river, instants which were fast ticking away...

He teetered, he tottered, and it was clear he knew he'd missed the moment. He let go of the pole, but it was too late: he'd shifted his balance to the edge of the boat, and if he tried to reclaim it the vessel would rock and throw him off the other side. The river Cam was a silent pantomime as even the neatly zigzagging Japanese paused expectantly for the inevitable splash. But the Italian would not be beaten - oh no. He would end this on his terms. He stood upright, drawing himself up to his full, muscular height; then, in the very instant before the boat would have toppled him backwards into a patch of water lilies, he cried out "Col Cavolo!"* and flung himself head-first into the river.

For a moment silence reigned. A stream of bubbles drifed lazily to the surface of the water, and every punter on the river held his/her breath, sure that the Italian had hit his head on the riverbed and drowned, defeated by the sheer violence of his enthusiasm. Then, suddenly and without warning, a dark head of curly hair exploded from the water, showering everyone within a half-mile radius with spray, adding to the rainfall as it shook the water from its thick locks, glared around with a fierce look in its leonine eyes, and growled.

With a look in his eyes that would have petrified Medusa and brought the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel tumbling to the floor, the Italian struck out towards the pole, swimming an Olympic front-crawl, his pale blue shirt billowing in the water. He wrenched that pole from the grip of the riverbed mud, looking fully as though he would battle it to the death if he had to; then, raising it above his head with one dripping arm, he swam sidestroke back to the boat, now a good fifteen metres further down the river. Flinging the pole on board, where it was caught by one of his guffawing companions, he hauled himself, his dripping shirt clinging to his chest, back onto the platform. He stood there, proud and firm, glaring at the other punters as though daring us to laugh. He shook the rest of the water from his thick, wavy hair, a L'Oreal advertisement in glorious motion, then, when he was sure he had our full attention, he ripped off his shirt. His bronzed torso heaved, his dark eyes flashed, and the water that still dripped from his long hair seemed almost to steam as it hit his body. Yes, his stance declared as he snatched the pole from his companion and drove it once more into the riverbed, I Punt with Passion.

I suppose I scarcely need mention that, less than ten minutes later, he was in the water again. A proud, passionate stance is all very well, but there's no shame in ducking for low bridges!

*Literally: "With Cabbage!" Don't ask, because I don't know.

Disclaimer: I make no apologies for any inaccuracies I may have committed as regards the punting traditions of Oxford and Cambridge. I merely relate as I remember.