Firstly, yes, there is Latin. But there is not much Latin. I counted two sentences. One was the Senior Dean saying (roughly) "These are the new students at the University." The Vice-Chancellor then replies by saying (very roughly) "OK, I accept them into the University. They must follow the University's rules and stuff."
Before and after this briefest of exchanges, there is lots of hat-waving and doffing. At the start of the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor arrives behind a man carrying a staff, accompanied by the organ. He waves his mortarboard in the general direction of other important-looking people, and makes his way to a lectern. We sit. The Latin bit goes here. Then, the briefest of addresses welcoming us to the university. We stand. More hat-waving, and the Vice-Chancellor departs (again with Staff Man leading the way). And that is it.
And of course, through all of this we are in sub fusc - that is, academic dress (as ably demonstrated by friends of mine, left). Note the mortarboards are held, not worn - such an act is a finable offence! (At least, so rumour has it.)And that was matriculation, Michaelmas 2005. And then, the photographs. Oh! the endless photographs.
Actually, the photographs themselves took no time at all. The waiting for the photographs is what got me (and all of us). Here's another photograph. I was getting a little fed up of both fighting my way past tourists, and having my photo taken by them... plus these people seemed really nice. So I turned the tables on them, and took their photo for a change!Whilst in the hour-long (or more!) queue for the individual photographs, we took some unofficial subject photographs. With great difficulty, we managed to collect all the Computer Scientists together in one place, and fit them all into a single photograph... I'm the one with the less exciting hair, and I don't normally look that evil (apart from when I do my Emperor Palpatine impersonations). Enjoy.
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