A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second

Wisden had been among the first to question the true merit of university cricket, removing its traditional list of Oxbridge blues in 1993. Matthew Engel, the editor, was widely condemned; one critic observed he was a "political scientist from Manchester University". But Engel, with some justification, felt the roll call had become the "biggest anachronism in the book". He added: "even the Oxford Mail and Cambridge Evening News stopped sending reporters."

A Blue had once denoted more than a first-class career: it opened doors. A job at the Sudan Civil Service, for instance, required either a first-class degree, or a Blue plus a second - which is how Guy Pawson, Oxford's captain in 1910, got in.

D. Pringle,' 'The end of first-class university cricket', L.Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2021), 116

My parents were forced to abandon their home. They didn't make a fuss about it, but that is what happened.

I am wary of the word exile, which is overused and romanticised. My parents were forced to abandon their home. They didn't make a fuss about it, but that is what happened. My father was exiled in the sense that it was too dangerous for him ever to go home again, and he never did. It crushed his spirit, to find himself adrift at such a late stage in life. People do not leave home unless they have no choice. They made a life of sorts for themselves in Cairo, but it was never home, not really, just a temporary haven. Home was here, in this town, in that old house that has now been leveled to the ground.

J. Mahjoub, A line in the river (2018), 306