“They don’t make them like they used to!”

With much experience of all things farcical, it was my delight to have returned just in time for the 2024 edition of OPIG’s Tour de Farce, which took place on 11th July. This year’s route was 8 miles long and encompassed four of the finest establishments Oxford has to offer (nothing “unusually conservative” to see here Eoin).

Without wanting to announce my return to Oxford by sounding like I’ve graduated to “old man” status, I was very disappointed that last year’s tour (the 10th from what I could deduce) was not suitably version controlled (bad Matteo).

After the customary 15 minutes of faffing (“all accounted for” according to Eoin), a drift of far too many OPIGlets to count left the Department on bicycle (this year’s Tour featured a distinct lack of alternative forms of locomotion) where we headed for our first stop, The Up In Arms.

Ping pong was played, beverages of all shapes and sizes were consumed (thank you Charlotte!), before we set sail for our next stop, The Victoria Arms.

Those of you more familiar with OPunting might be more familiar with The Victoria Arms as the halfway point of OPunting (stay tuned). This visit was much calmer than that, and with fewer shenanigans, although a highlight was certainly the group was mistaken for a biker gang!

This year we decided to experiment with dinner in Port Meadow, kindly delivered by The White Rabbit. As I’m sure you can tell from the photos, it went down a treat!

With our hunger satiated, the Tour went off-road to The Perch, before heading to our final stop, The Fishes.

Not a pub on your normal Oxford tour (but curiously close to certain individuals’ houses…), we sat outside for our last stop of the night at The Fishes, which is always a delight. By this point, attrition had taken some toll yet at least 16 survived till the bitter end.

Refreshed for another year at least (and indeed at most), we concluded another successful Tour de Farce. Thank you to Eoin for organising and to everyone who sent me photos to document this year’s edition!