Hannah Woods

There was a young lady last week in the bank who seemed strangely familiar. So much so that, as much as I tried not to, I couldn't help looking up at her to try and remember where I had seen her before.

And of course, after a minute or so, she happened to look my way as I was looking at her and like an idiot I immediately looked away as if I had something to hide. Then I couldn't look again. And I felt embarrassed. And I thought she was probably feeling uncomfortable because she'd seen an older guy looking at her. And I felt more embarrassed.

All made worse by a story I heard on the radio about unwanted sexual attention. Which was actually about men groping women (and girls) in public places. But it had made me slightly annoyed because it also implied that men shouldn't even look at women if it made them uncomfortable...

...that's the women being uncomfortable. But have you considered how men might feel walking down a street with teenage girls wearing next to nothing? Do you not think that makes me feel uncomfortable? Because it does.

Of course everyone has the right to wear what they like. But the best articulation of how I feel was expressed by someone else like this: "You have the right to leave a diamond necklace on the back seat of your car, and not expect anyone to steal it. But you don't do that."

You can't have it both ways. You either dress eye-catchingly and expect people to look at you. Or you dress more modestly.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to listen to me. But back to the origin of this post... I was fairly sure that I hadn't seen the girl in the bank, and that she simply reminded me of someone else.

I couldn't think who though. It had to have been someone in film or TV. I couldn't place her. Then I got a memory of a distinctive voice. So it had to be an actress didn't it?

Blind alley. I spent ages wondering which film or TV show she was from. Yes, you are right, I didn't have much else to do over the long weekend.

Have you ever tried to remember something, decided it wasn't worth the bother and then tried not to bother remembering it? The more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more it came coming back. Who was she? I don't care! Yes, but who is she?

And so it went on, all weekend.

Then, suddenly, I thought "If I can't remember her from film and TV series, and I don't know her, then maybe she was just a distinctive character on a game show or something?"

Bingo. I don't watch much TV that isn't drama, but I always watch University Challenge (go figure) ... and that was it. Suddenly I could picture her as clear as day. She was one of the captains on the current series. She'd been on several shows. I'd recorded most of them on my DVR. So I just had to flick through the last few.

Hannah Woods, captain of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

She stood out because she was a very good captain, as well as being quite pretty, having a funny eyebrow that seemed permanently raised, and speaking with a quite distinctive voice.

I looked her up on the internet. But was quite shocked to see articles about how women who appear on programmes like UC often get stalked on social media.

So I stopped looking. It feels like you can't take any interest in women now without being a nuisance.

This is a sad product of the 21 century, isn't it? In the old days you could only attract the attention of the people you actually met, or who were obsessed enough to write you a letter. Now you can be inundated with electronic messages that take no thought and no effort to send.

Anyway, good luck to Hannah and all the other contestants in the semi-finals of University Challenge. I'll be watching... if that's all right with you?