Lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays…
The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography (ed. The Overlook Press, 2012) - ISBN: 9781468300192