Parrhesia

I'm always overawed by Oxford, W. knows that. Overawed, and therefore more contemptuous. I hate it, W. says, because I love it. It disappoints me, W. says, because I have disappointed it: didn't I apply here to study as a student? Didn't I visit the city as an interviewee?

W.'s dad, who was very wise, banned him from applying altogether. – You don't belong there!', he told him, and he was right. W. has always been free of any Oxford influence, he says. He's free of the attraction to Oxford, but also the repulsion from Oxford: he doesn't hate it as I do.

W. likes being with me in Oxford, he says. It seems to drive me to extremes of hatred and venom. I become Cynic-like, W. says. I all but assault passersby. Parrhesia, that's what I call it. Drunken abuse, that's what he'd call it, W. says. Shouldn't I just set up my tub in the middle of the traffic?

W. loves nothing better than taking the path through Christchurch meadows, following the Cherwell to the Isis (that's what they call the Thames here, he says, pretentious fuckers). He loves watching the froth form on my lips as we turn back to look at the spires of Oxford in the distance. Is it a sign of prophetic frenzy or rabies?