No. 141 The Trusty Servant
Wiccamica
OWs sometimes fret that the school no longer caters to the truly exceptional, but I think they can rest happy, at least until Oliver Jing( Coll, 22-) leaves the school. Wiccamica has a new hero to take the place of Edward Thomson( Coll, 20-25).
You know his name already from the Wiccamica section in TS 140, because he won the King’ s Silver Medal for English Recitation. Since then, he has piled up Gold awards in the National Olympiads for Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Linguistics and been selected for the UK Team in the international Biology Olympiad this summer.
Also a team player, he and Barack Jin( 22-), Harry Morgan( K, 22-) Alex de Vrieze( B, 21-), won the Senior Team Maths Challenge finals, and with Shaolin Liang( Coll, 21-), Kyven Tan( Coll, 21-), Alex de Vrieze and Oscar Zhong( C, 21-), Winchester came second nationally in the Chemistry Race.
Meanwhile, he has gained a distinction in Grade 8 jazz saxophone( I once found him diligently practising in his Upstairs Chamber at bedtime, which he justified on the grounds that he was reading – music) and won a second King’ s Silver Medal, this time for Latin Recitation.
Those now quietly reaching for their sick bag should be reassured: Oli also holds the record for the highest number of Sargent’ s so far this year, chiefly for lateness. He probably has a lot on his mind.
Barack Jin( see above) won a gold medal in the British Algorithmic Olympiad, and thirty-six Wykehamists won Gold in the UK BEBRAS Computational Thinking Challenge, putting them in the top 10 % of the 500,000 competitors. They may perhaps have taken advantage of Winchester’ s secret weapon, Andy French( CoRo, 11-), whose latest book, Science by Simulation, is intended to be the textbook companion to the course. No other competitors, however, will have enjoyed the energising bonus of Dr French’ s performance of We Wish You a Merry Christmas on a theremin, which was visualized via a spectrograph, and then, to the horror of anyone with refined musical sensibilities in the audience, played in reverse at 80 % of the speed.
Other notable successes have been August Deeming( Coll, 20-25), who has won the Royal Geographical Society’ s Ron Cooke Award for the best A Level investigation( NEA) titled:“ To what extent can a clast fabric analysis of exposed till in Herefordshire describe the flow of ice and water during the Anglian glaciation?”, and Tony Jiang( K, 21-), who won the Institution of Electronics’ National Competition with a remarkable clock, designed and built from scratch, which not only tells you the time with illuminated words, but enables your time-wasting as well: you can play Snake and Tetris via hidden touch controls.
French flourishes. Alberto Garcia( B, 22-) and Matthew Sneller( Coll, 22-) came second, our best ever result, in the Joutes oratoires lyceennes. Their challenges included the highly topical‘ il faut s’ ennuyer’ and a final title leaning heavily into the stereotype: that it is more useful to be a baker than a politician.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the standard of presentations for the Kenneth Clark Prize was once again very high. Jo Baring, Director of the Ingram Collection awarded the medals as follows:
Bronze: Anna Nott( D, 25-) The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago, mixed media installation,( 1979)
Silver: Thomas Dunn( H, 22-) The Battle of Alexander at Issus, Albrecht Altdorfer, oil on panel,( 1529)
Gold: Thomas Grange( K, 22-) War Elephant, Hieronymus Bosch?, oil on panel, circa 1500?
See The Wykehamist for Edwin Humphreys’( Coll, 24-) masterly review of the Final.
This QR Code will take you to The Wykehamist 1482
Footnote: Weary of lunchtime conversations which revolve exclusively around Olympian success in maths and the sciences, two MP Collegemen have proposed the founding of a Literature Olympiad – or maybe one for each of the Muses. Watch this space …
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