John Gardner at Home

Memories from Antony Duff

Two episodes that come quickly to my mind both involve DPhil exams.

One was yours, notionally conducted by Bernard Williams and me: I say "notionally" because, as I recall it, it wasn't quite clear who was examining whom. Of course, Bernard wasn't being examined by anyone: but it wasn't always clear to me whether he and I were examining you; or he was examining both of us; or you and he were examining me. One of my more interesting and (in a good way) challenging DPhil/PhD encounters.

The other DPhil exam was Michelle Dempsey's - or, more precisely and more frivolously, its aftermath, when we had dinner with you and the internal examiner in a Thai/Indian (??) restaurant in (?) Park End Street. As you can tell from the question marks, neither the restaurant itself nor its precise location stayed firmly in my mind. Nor indeed did the food, or the precise nature of the dancing entertainment that was provided by the restaurant - my memory tells me it was a belly dancer, but that could just be embroidery. What does remain firmly in my mind is the sight of you and the internal examiner joining in the dancing with some panache (if not abandon; but that might be a slight exaggeration) - if only I'd had the wit and sobriety to take photos with which we could now embarrass you.