AoC - Day the Sixth: in which I decipher illegible handwriting and poke around in England's attic

I spent Friday morning at the British Library, which is near St Pancras station.

Here's the church tower at St Pancras.



Here's a sculpture of Isaac Newton using a compass to measure the Universe - this is right in front of the British Library:


You know what I'm about to say about taking pictures inside, right? Good. I won't repeat myself then.

The library, just like the Bodleian in Oxford, is a copyright library, not a lending one. It holds a copy of everything printed or recorded in English in Britain. There are miles and miles of underground vaults that hold all this stuff, and they keep adding miles every year. Essentially, they're the UK's version of the Library of Congress.

You can apply for a reading card, provided you have some legit research purpose and can supply documentation and credentials.

So why bother going to visit it, you might ask?

Well...

They love to tease the public by displaying some of their holdings in a few dimly lit rooms, collectively referred to as the Ritblat Gallery. In these rooms, you can see (and hear) some amazing treasures.

There's Jane Austen's writing desk, for example, a small dark wood thing with slots at the top for pens and and ink bottle. On top of this is her handwritten manuscript for Persuasion, open to Chapter 24, as well a volume of her notebooks. Next to that is Charlotte Bronte's handwritten manuscript of Jane Eyre, opened to Chapter 38 ("Reader, I married him.").

There's a whole section devoted to Shakespeare, of course. Some of the earliest folios are here, as well as pieces by Marlowe, Donne, and Johnson.

I listened to recordings of William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Seamus Heaney reading from their work. Yeats read his "Lake Isle of Innisfree" as though he were almost chanting it, and his accent is wonderful.

I saw Oscar Wilde's handwritten edits to "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," a note written in Sylvia Plath's own, rather grade-school-looking, hand (fat letters with circles over i and j), and Virginia Woolf's handwritten notes for Mrs Dalloway.

You can also see handwritten Beatles lyrics - Help, Ticket to Ride, and Yesterday, specifically.

The Gutenberg Bible was impressive - not just because it was the first example of mass producing books, but also because of the illuminations decorating the pages.

Just beyond this was a case displaying pages from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. You can read his notebooks online, but it's not the same as seeing them with his drawings and doodles in them, and the writing in his own hand.

There's another little room dedicated to the Magna Carta. There are five or six copies in existence. This document is as important to the British as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are to Americans.

Down the hall from this gallery is an exhibit that focuses on T.S. Eliot, since he was recently voted Britain's favorite poet. Not bad for a Missouri-born man who didn't become a British subject until he was 39. I loved seeing his typewriter - one of three he owned in his lifetime. There's a piece of paper still in it. I remember reading Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats when I was a kid (love the drawings by Edward Gorey!). And then I read "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" in high school, and "The Wasteland" in college. Sometimes, it's hard to believe they were all written by the same person.

He worked for many years as editor for Faber and Faber. He was also a friend and mentor to Ted Hughes, whose writing I admire the more I read it. One famous photo shows Eliot and a young Hughes at a party with Louis MacNeice, WH Auden, and Stephen Spender. I wish the gift shop had had a postcard of that photo.

One of Ted Hughes' journals is displayed near this picture, and it's open to the page on which he recorded his reaction to the news of Eliot's death. He would have written this on 5 January 1965. Here's my transcription of it, as best I could get from his handwriting:

A told me casually "T.S. Eliot died yesterday" - like a crack over the head, exactly, followed by headache. Heavy aftereffects. I've so tangled him into my thoughts as the guru-in-chief, and dreamed of him so clearly and unambiguously that this will have consequences for me.

Another feature on display is the book collection of George III. The books are housed in glassed-in bookcases in the very center of the library, and the cases go up several floors (I think there are six floors in the library). George III willed his collection (65,000 printed volumes, pamphlets, manuscripts, and maps) to George IV, who bequeathed it to the nation, and it remains the library's "core," hence its placement in the center of the building.

I'm generally not one for gift shops, although I know the Doctor loves them and thinks every place should have one. However, I made an exception for the British Library's "little shop," because it was packed with books you won't often find at a regular bookstore. I managed to contain my purchases to Oscar's Books and The Hawk in the Rain and a bookmark, but there were so many others I would have gotten, had it not been for the thought of having to haul them back to the States in my luggage. I wonder if the Library of Congress has a gift shop...

I really thought I had a good handle on museums, having grown up visiting at least one Smithsonian museum every year on school field trips. And then I encountered the British Museum. I couldn't even get the building to fit in the viewfinder of my camera. It's like all the Smithsonians packed into one huge building. I only had an afternoon to see it, and almost immediately, I gave up on trying to see more than what was on the ground floor and first floor.

But guess what? You can take pictures inside! Yay!

One of the first things you see is the Rosetta Stone:



And then to the left and right are large rooms with Egyptian sculptures:





These heads are taller than a tall person, so imagine how big the entire statues would have been:



There were quite a few walls of Humerian relief sculptures:



Relief sculptures from the Parthenon, also referred to as the Elgin Marbles:



Greek statues:





Some Roman British archeological finds:



This was found near Dorset in Hinton St Mary:



I was too overwhelmed at this point and had to leave, especially after I walked through a room that looked like one of those old-time reading libraries with dark wood floor-to-ceiling shelves and display cases with all kinds of neat archeological finds. It would take an hour or two just to see everything in that room. I will need to come back and spend at least two days just wandering through this museum alone.

Since it was my last evening in London, I decided to have a look around the South Bank.

This is The George, one of the oldest pubs in London. Shakespeare and Dickens spent time here. Shakespeare probably even performed here in his early acting days.



Here's a better view of the replica of Francis Drake's ship, The Golden Hinde, in which he circumnavigated the globe. From what I've read, it was far from a pleasure cruise.



The remains of Winchester Palace (this is the west end of what was the Great Hall):


Kudos to whoever realized this was worth preserving.


There's a kitschy prison museum called The Clink - I had it on good authority that it wasn't worth going in:



I wandered through the Borough Market. There was so much to see (and eat) there. It reminded me of Lexington Market in Baltimore.

Shakespeare's troupe used the upper floor of this pub for dressing rooms and costume changes, before dashing next door to the original Globe Theater:



Speaking of which, The Financial Times building (the shiny building - you can just see the FT on the side of it) sits on what is thought to be the original site of the Globe Theater:


I tried to get tickets to see something at The Globe, but since I was visiting in the last days of their performance season, tickets were not as readily available as they would have been earlier in the season.

The cream-colored skinny building with the red door is Christopher Wren's house. He lived here while he was building London.


It just happens to have a great view of what he considered his greatest achievement - St Paul's Cathedral (as seen from the new Millenium Bridge):



I had dinner at the Ebury Wine Bar, which is next door to the hotel. Maple-glazed duck with spinach and mushrooms, and dark magenta-purple blackcurrant sorbet for dessert. Dee-lish!

Saturday morning, I had one last breakfast at the hotel, and then I caught the bus at Victoria Station to get to Heathrow.

So there you have it - my week-long tour of London. I saw just about everything I wanted to see, and I was glad I had a couple of out-of-town trips as well. The highlights for me were the British Library and Oxford. I'll definitely go back. And of course, now I need to see the rest of England. And Scotland. And Wales. And Ireland.

I realize the US has historical places and things to see, but nothing like what you'd find in England, where you can see things that are thousands of years old, not merely hundreds of years old.

Paris next year for my 35th birthday, I think.

AoC - Day the Fifth: in which I see how the royal half lives

I spent all of last Thursday in Windsor and Eton. It takes about an hour to get to the Riverside or Central train stations from the Waterloo train station. Another 12 pounds well spent.

I saw this amusing sign at the Windsor station:


There's no escaping Jane Austen. I gave up years ago.


You can see the castle from the train station, and it's only about a 10-minute walk to get to it.



It's definitely not isolated with acres of empty fields around it. The village is right across the street:



The Queen says she considers Windsor her home. I found it to be too imposing-looking and museum-like to be a home (I suppose that shows you how of-the-people I am).





As per routine, no pictures allowed inside.

My first stop was Queen Mary's Dollhouse. It's a palace in miniature. The lights and faucets and elevators ("lifts") all work. Many of the pieces inside it are handcarved, handmade, and use materials like marble or silk.

Also in this display room, you can see two 3-foot-tall dolls that were given to then-Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret by the children of France. Each doll has her own traveling trunk and a full wardrobe of underclothes and dresses - all handmade, I'm sure.

The royal family's art collection isn't too shabby either - a DaVinci drawing or two and Michelangelo's drawings of royal ancestors are some of the highlights.

They even have their own chapel, which really looks like a full-size church. This is just part of it:


The Queen's parents and grandparents are buried here, along with her sister, Princess Margaret, as well as many other kings, queens, princes, and princesses. Henry VIII is buried with his favorite wife, Jane Seymour (the one who gave him a son who actually lived).

To say the royal family owns a lot of stuff is an understatement. The castle is cluttered with swords, guns, paintings, armor, furniture, statues, and china.

The town is cute and has lots of shops and cafes. I stopped for a roast chicken and chips lunch before going to check out the village of Eton.



The villages of Windsor and Eton are right next to each other, separated by a footbridge going over a cleaner part of the Thames.



And a cleaner Thames:



School was in session at Eton College, and the boys didn't seem at all fazed by all the tourists in the town. Why they should have to dress in tailcoats to sit in a classroom is beyond me.

Eton village looks a lot like Windsor village, but less crowded.



The college was closed to visitors for the season, but I did manage to get this bit of it:



There are a lot of other day trips you can take from London besides Oxford and Windsor - you could go to Cambridge, Greenwich, Bath, and even Paris.

I had dinner back in London at Jenny Lo's tea house, which is just down the street from my hotel. I had a yummy plate of Singapore noodles and a cup of green tea. They put the tea leaves right in the cup, and it's drinkable when the leaves sink to the bottom and you can pick up the cup (no handle on it) without burning your fingers.

Two more stops in tomorrow's post.

AoC - Day the Fourth: in which I climb a lot of stairs and get very soggy

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that it costs 12 pounds (about $19 as of this writing) to tour the War Rooms, and it's free to get into the National Gallery.

Onward.

Sometimes life requires a high-protein breakfast, especially when you're up and around, out and about all day long. The Lime Tree Hotel serves what might at first look like a heavy breakfast, but is actually just what you need for a day out - you never know what you may take a fancy to doing, as you will soon see.

The hotel's traditional breakfast includes a scrambled or poached egg, bacon (more like Canadian bacon than the streaky, fatty stuff), a small sausage link, and a side of vegetables, usually mushrooms or grilled tomatoes, plus toast, orange juice, and tea or coffee. All of it served hot and fresh sent up on the dumb waiter from the basement kitchen. And the British are so much more reasonable about portion sizes. You get just enough on your plate to fill you up, but you don't feel overstuffed.

Since a lot of people were staying at this hotel at the time (lower off-season room rates, you know), I never knew whom I'd be sitting with in the cute breakfast room (the brown wallpaper with the Georgian silhouetted faces just teetered between tacky and charming, and the placemats displayed Victorian renderings of some of the famous sites in the city). One of my breakfast companions was a retired gentleman whose wife died of cancer last summer. They had always traveled together. This was his first trip without her, and his five daughters were nervous about him traveling alone. I'd say he was heartier than they gave him credit for. Another couple, a semi-retired civil engineer and his wife, were traveling all over the UK , and had stopped in London for a week. They told me all about sitting on a rock near Hadrian's Wall, eating bacon sandwiches. Another family had "come up from the country" to spend a week "in town." Apparently, if you say you're "going up to town" in the UK, it means you're going to London.

Thus sated with protein, I spent the morning at St Paul's Cathedral. There's a 10-pound (about $16 as of this writing) entry fee. Sigh, no pictures allowed in this one either. But here's the outside:



And here's a statue of Queen Anne, who was ruling when the church was completed.



Here's its garden side:



Five churches have occupied this site over the centuries, the first in 604. Christopher Wren designed the current one. Originally, he was commissioned to repair the previous one, even though he wanted to tear it down and start from scratch. He was overruled, but then the Great Fire of 1666 overruled those who overruled Wren, so he got his way in the end because the old church burned down. Wren's version is open and spacious and light inside the cathedral, whereas Westminster Abbey feels a little cramped and dim, despite its size. The nave doesn't have any adornments or paintings on the ceiling, per Wren's design. But those Victorians just can't leave well enough alone, and they added (some say, overdid) decorative elements near and around and above the high altar later. The ceiling mosaics look as though they're glittering - in fact, the tiles are set at angles to catch the light.

St Paul's was an important psychological symbol during World War II. Since it miraculously withstood 28 bombs dropped on it in one day during the Blitz, then as far as the people were concerned, there was hope for winning the war. Churchill declared that at all costs, St Paul's must be protected, even if that meant sacrificing other buildings. Citizens took turns standing guard inside. Their job was to extinguish any incendiary bombs that might fall in it - only two of the bombs did any damage. Another bomb fell just outside the church, but did not explode. Other citizens hauled it away and defused it. There's a plaque dedicated to these people near the entrance. There are candle stations nearby, too. I paid another 60p and lit a candle for you. And one for them.

The Duke of Wellington has a huge memorial in the middle of the nave. The top of it features a statue of Wellington on his horse. This statue is not without some controversy. First, some thought the horse was sacrilegious, although if I recall my Bible stories correctly, God created animals before creating man, so I don't see what the fuss is about. Copenhagen (the horse) was Wellington's trusty companion. You couldn't have one without the other (Copenhagen even got his own state funeral). Then there was the question of which way the horse should face. If his head faced the altar, his bum would be greeting people as they walked in. Then again, you don't want his bum facing the altar either, so worshipers and visitors were just going to have to look politely in another direction.

You can actually touch Henry Moore's sculpture of the Mother and Child in the north quire aisle. Although it's an abstract piece, it's easy to tell what it represents - birthing, nurturing, protecting, and worrying over a child.

John Donne preached at the Cathedral, and there's a creepy sculpture of him wrapped in a death shroud in one of the alcoves.

Wellington's tomb as well as Admiral Nelson's tomb are in the crypt. Wren's burial plot only has a simple marker (at his request). His epitaph plainly states, "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you." Florence Nightingale is here as well.

You can get some exercise by climbing the stairs (all 528 of them) to the top of the outer dome, where you can get an amazing view of London. No, there's no elevator, and it's all spiral staircases, some between two walls - sometimes the walls hug you; sometimes you get some space - some are freestanding wrought-iron staircases. There's one way up and another way down - no turning back once you get started.

Of course I climbed them! You expected otherwise?

It's not as bad as it sounds - there are places where you can rest. I approached it like interval training - climb a hundred or so steps to the nearest landing and have a rest, climb the next hundred and then rest, etc. If you're not that ambitious, you can stop off at lower points along the way. The first major stop is the Whispering Gallery (257 steps). This is at the fattest part of the inner dome. The acoustics are so perfect that if you stand on one side of it, and whisper something against the wall, someone on the opposite side, 170 feet away, can hear what you said perfectly, as though you were right next to them - it's true, I tried it with the tour guide. If you lean over the railing, you can see directly down over the altar area.

The next major stop is the Stone Gallery (another 119 steps). You can go outside and see some of the London skyline through the high stone railings. Here are a few pictures I took from there.





Finally, if you're fit and don't give up easily and heights don't bother you, you come out onto the Golden Gallery (the last 152 steps), which has an alarmingly narrow balcony with a waist-high railing, but it goes all the way around the tip of the dome. Some pictures from there:





And then you get to go all the way back down again, squeezing back into this narrow space:



I had lunch in the crypt (what is it with cafes in crypts in this city?), and then I caught a train to Oxford ($11 for a round-trip ticket!). And that's when it really started to rain.

I know someone who works in administration at Oxford, so I was to have a private, half-day walking tour of some of the colleges and the city. I can't say enough nice things about Jonathan and his family for taking time out for me on a cold and wet day.

Many famous people have studied at Oxford, including 25 British Prime Ministers, 30 international leaders, 12 saints, 86 Archbishops of Canterbury, seven poets laureate, and an impressive list of writers such as John Fowles, Theodor Geisel (Dr Seuss), Evelyn Waugh, Lewis Carroll, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Graham Greene, Phillip Pullman, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Donne, A. E. Housman, W. H. Auden, and Philip Larkin.

Supposedly, 80% of British university novels are about Oxford, and most of them are written by former students reminiscing about their own days as Oxford students. (I came across this in Oxford: A Literary Guide by John Dougill, which I picked up in a nearby book shop.)

Oxford is a pretty and walkable town, even in a chilly downpour. Jonathan said it’s one of those places in which you can tuck yourself away behind the walls and be happy. I would agree. The world may go insane outside (doesn’t it appear to be doing so lately?), but inside, where the atmosphere is ancient, seen-it-all, laid back, and lacking in hierarchy, you can be safe and content. I could go for that in a minute.







There are 38 colleges in the university, with about 20,000 students distributed among them. Some of the colleges are more well-known than others. The two I peeked into were Christ Church and Magdalen (pronounced "maudlin").

This is the courtyard of Christ Church (well, the left side of it, anyway).



And the right side:



Some of the scenes from the Harry Potter films were shot here. You might recognize this staircase:



The dining hall was the inspiration for the one you see in the Harry Potter films (obviously the one in the films was bigger to accommodate four houses’ worth of kids):



One of the custodians of the college (they're easily recognizable in bowler hats) told us about some of the paintings and stained glass windows.



Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey founded the college, which was originally named Cardinal College. However, they had a famous falling out “over a woman,” and Wolsey was kicked out.

Here is the Alice window. Alice is in the lower left corner:



The original Alice (for whom the Alice stories were written) was the the daughter of Henry George Liddell, who was the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University and Dean of Christ Church College. Many of the scenes in the Alice stories were inspired by sites and people in and around Oxford and Christ Church. For instance, there is a small door just behind the high table (where the professors sit) that was the inspiration for the small door Alice tries to fit through. The "Rabbit Hole" was inspired by the stairs at the back of the main hall.

The custodian also told us that some of the paintings were done in such a way that they look as though the heads are slightly turning and following you as you walk down the aisle between the tables.

We also visited Kenneth Grahame’s grave, which was in a quiet and peaceful cemetery crowded with headstones and overgrown grass. I didn’t take a picture of his gravestone, as it seemed disrespectful to do so. The Wind in the Willows is such a wonderful book and great comfort reading. I’d have visited C.S. Lewis’ grave elsewhere in the town, but ran out of time.

Some pictures of Magdalen College:









C.S. Lewis taught here for almost 30 years. In fact, as busy as his academic life was, it’s amazing he found the time to write all the books and essays and speeches that he did. Oscar Wilde studied at Magdalen as well.

I noticed there wasn't any overt signage to let you know which college was which. Jonathan said that was deliberate. Each college is its own entity - if you don't know where a particular one is, you probably don't have any business being there.

Here is a pretty path down to the river.



You can go punting, too. Wasn’t quite up to it due to the weather.



We stopped for some tea in a cafe, and I noticed a woman sitting next to me working on a pastel portrait of two other women who were deep in conversation as a nearby table. I’d have photographed her, but she looked as though she was trying to be inconspicuous, so I didn’t want to blow her cover.

Here’s part of the Bodleian Library - a copyright library, rather than a lending library:



And the Radcliffe Camera, which is also part of the Bodleian:



This place just oozes history, it's overwhelming. The crowning touch - the pub where The Inklings met:



I considered taking a picture of the Rabbit Room inside the pub, but the locals were eyeing me with a "don't even think about it" look, so I passed.

We had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant. I had roasted vegetables with duck.

There are few things in my life that I’d change, but I think one of them would be to have gotten a degree at Oxford or Cambridge. I’ve not seen Cambridge yet, but given what I’ve seen of Oxford, it would more than do.

Another day trip in tomorrow's post.