Simon Blackburn finds a little harmony on a fenland drain

The May Bumps, Cambridge

Take wing, my soul, the May Bumps are here. The sun is out, and Zuleika has arrived from Oxford. Perfect Cambridge, willows and limes reflected in the water, honey for tea, Victoria on the throne, frocks and frolics. Who would have guessed that the summit of human felicity comes from 18 different college boats propelled along a fenland drain, each attempting to hit the one in front before it is hit by the one behind? Achieving this feat strains young thews and sinews of every gender, platonically admired by blazered old oars on their annual pilgrimage to the river from colleges, surgeries, chambers and vicarages. Some of these will be clutching their well-thumbed copy of Oar, Scull and Rudder , a 1930 bibliography of rowing literature, glorious monument to the scholarly life of Mr Brittain of Jesus College, something to set alongside the split atom and unravelled helix in other parts of town.

Happy days, but is there room for them in the modern research university? Is this the right brand image? Every time a college chaplain is filmed bellowing sideways through a megaphone and casually pedalling straight into the river as a result, admission figures may falter. Many in other parts of the world think that the right way to go along a river would be to start a large engine and avoid anything ahead of you. What consultant could explain or tolerate the perversion of the Bumps, what Blairite not itch to reform them?

But bump or be bumped - what better metaphor for life in the modern marketplace? And Cambridge could appeal to Tony and Cherie's well-publicised spiritual interests. The Tao of Bumping could stand alongside the Tao of Pooh (the bear is another Cambridge product, and A. A. Milne's original manuscript may be seen in Trinity's magnificent Wren Library, mischievously displayed alongside something by Wittgenstein).

Amazon already carries Mind over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing , with a plug on the cover from wisdom salesman Deepak Chopra: "Each stroke into ever-changing waters is part of a voyage seeking unity, harmony and balance." How very true; yet purist Cambridge cannot hear a sentence such as that without adding the terse command: discuss. Preferably, discuss towards the end of the ensuing Bump Supper, when unity and harmony, if not balance, will be at their best.

Always ahead, the US has solved the problem that we face in wanting our young people to be bent over books and computers, limbering up to pay our pensions, rather than messing around in boats - expensive coaches and illiterate athletes take exercise on the students' behalf. Curiously, it matters to students and alumni that these hired aliens, as Tom Wolfe calls them, beat up those of neighbouring schools, just as it matters to football fans that the Russians and Italians playing under one English label beat the Spanish and Romanians playing under another. This perplexes any modest Myrmidon on the Cam, casually managing a philosophy first and oar while winning prizes for Greek poetry in any spare time. But perhaps it just witnesses a modern talent for voyeurism, with cheering as the summum bonum, an end in itself.

I am ashamed to say that I have no oar in my study. My high noon was not so bright. In fact, I never got further than punting. I lay abed while Agincourts were being fought on the river. I suspect that all these years later, my Pimms does not taste quite as fizzy.

Simon Blackburn is professor of philosophy, Cambridge University.