With one week of full term passed, and our training plans still frustrated by a red flag on the Isis, the lower squad of the men’s boat club are growing impatient to return to the water. So far they have had to make do with tank sessions and technical ergo work on sliders – all well and good, but a distant se’cond to the real thing, especially if every other lower boat in Oxford is doing the same. ‘Mileage makes champions,’ as Fairbairn said, and if we hope to raise a glass to our blade-winning crews come Torpids Dinner, as is our aim, waiting around for conditions on the Isis to change will not do.

While my vice-captains are running the inaugural ‘other’ BIRC (the Balliol Indoor Rowing Championship, a series of demanding erg tests) to keep the troops in competition during the week, as of next weekend Balliol will start ferrying the most promising M2 triallists out to Wallingford so that they can take advantage of the long stretch of clear water there (and perhaps be spotted by the OUBC coaches!), while other boat clubs sit around in Oxford waiting for the flag to change.

Eddie