Tab Cribs – Cambridge’s nicest room

The Golden Gates

Congratulations you are living in the world’s nicest room how do you feel?

Relieved. It’s all down to Peterhouse’s bizarre points-based system of room allocation, which rewards things like captaining the college’s mixed lacrosse team and doing well in your exams.

You wouldn’t believe the number of committee meetings I had to sit through to get this set of rooms. It’s been suggested I stood shouting outside our rivals’ exam halls in Easter term to put them off their work. Those are lies, of course.

Your accommodation is the meeting point of the monastic and the palatial. How does this tension resolve itself?

It’s great—if I ever feel like I need to check my privilege I can go sit in the bedroom and truly understand what it’s like to go to a mediocre college like Fitz or Trinity.

The Palatial…

The Monastic.

You live very intimately with your friend – how did you know you would be the perfect roommates?

What are the secrets of perfect cohabitation?

One word: negronis.

What do you still need to work on in terms of your cohabitation relationship?

The answer to that is probably also ‘negronis’.

A walk-in wardrobe for that post-negroni pressed trouser

How do you preserve your intimacy in those bedrooms?

I keep my bed one inch away from the shared wall. Otherwise the panelling seems to be a good form of sound-proofing. The bigger problem for me is perhaps the fact that I can hear everything that happens in Old Court—and vice-versa.

A room with a view with a noise

Your bedroom is behind a secret wall panel – does this make you the happiest man in the world?

Not really—that’ll happen when I find the panel hiding the secret safe.

List three of the best things you can do in your living room area?

Dinner parties, wine evenings and play rehearsals. You could also probably host a small concert or soiree in there.

Do you flirt through your room?

I don’t kiss and tell, but after setting the 18^th century graffiti carved in some of the room’s stone as my profile picture on Tinder I’ve had unparalleled success rates.

Tindr bait

Slutty

Does your mom like your room?

She thinks it’s ‘like a hobbit house’.

Would you trust an animal in here and which would it be?

Yes—I would be happy to take in a small colony of bats to add to the moody ambience.

Entry to the Hobbit Hole