Driving in to work along open, tree-lined country roads this week I’ve felt like one of those square-jawed “executives” in a car advertisement. Around here the countryside rolls like a piece of slate, but the flatness doesn’t make the local villages any less attractive than the traditional English postcard model. Every tree seems to be lit from inside with that glittering Cambridge light that the weather people keep telling me is the area’s compensation for being so bone-achingly cold through the winter—no cloud cover, you see.

Cambridge remains boring as Hell, however.

Yesterday’s sole front-page story/headline from the Cambridge Weekly News:

Teenagers Blow Up Pet With Firework

Terrified Cambridge residents can only ask themselves: “When will the hamster carnage end?”

(I think it’s time for a special Cambridge Weekly News story category, because the “Media” heading seems inappropriate for the esteemed organ.)