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Dr Simon Allison's avatar

Flat bottom boats on the River Ouse and River Thames - which end to punt from :).

Would perhaps be more fun if forfeiture existed… every June there is an email to students along the lines of if you fall in the cam it will likely kill you… (or you should go to A&E).

It is hard to imagine a form of water propulsion than punting… or perhaps I’m just envious because I could never do it

Fabulous article btw!

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Francis Turner's avatar

As an undergraduate rower I had a number of unscheduled swims in the Cam, including one that involved being thrown in for reasons of an excess of port. I didn't go to A&E though perhaps I should have. I never had a punting accident though

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Katy Barnett's avatar

I have to say that I struggled with punting too, and I’m lucky that I didn’t end up in various English rivers.I did better than the Spanish tourists who taunted my ineptitude - they did ended up in the Cam - and I have to say I thought it was karma!

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Francis Turner's avatar

I wonder of deodand inspired the (bad) American idea of Civil Asset Forfeiture?

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Katy Barnett's avatar

It certainly did. They have cases where a statue is a party. I wish I”d thought of it before I wrote this post…

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Eric Rasmusen's avatar

Sounds like a counterexample to the efficiency of the common law.

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Katy Barnett's avatar

YES! I explain it to my students that it is an evolutionary body. That means it has random useless bits - vestigial bits, bits that are strange, but there because of history.

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