The Cloud Club

Next to the Pentagonal Pool is a flight of steps, leading up to a little-used back entrance to the Students Union. No doubt following some Health and Safety edict, these (along with most other steps on campus) were recently painted a peculiar shade of orange.

I have always been intrigued by the grandness of this entrance, and it has something of the feel of a discreet but magnificent club. There is a high mezzanine floor, just below a vast extractor fan in the roof, which I think of as the Cloud Club, as the glass is smoked and highly reflective, and the view inside is frequently obscured by clouds.




This week, armed with the 70-300 telephoto, I finally captured an image of the Cloud Club which does it justice. I think it will make a suitable closing image for the "Mirrors, Windows, Walls" sequence:


I opened the sequence with a quotation from journalist Sidney J. Harris ("The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows"). I'm thinking of closing it with these words from Ciceros' De Natura Deorum:

"The authority of those who claim to be teachers is often found to be an obstacle by those who are keen to learn."

Or perhaps these from Daniel J. Boorstin's The Discoverers:

"The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge".