My Grand Tour of England and Wales - Part 1 of X

Editor's Note: I took just about 300 pictures and movies on this trip, but due to the plummet in Internet Advertising in recent years, am at a loss as to where to host them, if at all. Any suggestions would be welcome - otherwise I'll just post the most exceptional ones, and use generic Internet images to illustrate the rest of my tale.

Singapore-KL-London

Nothing eventful happened, except my breaking my self-imposed restriction on wearing non-white socks with non-Army footwear, happened till KLIA where there was this whole group of chinese muslims waiting for a flight to Chengdu (presumably after returning from Mecca) - the men were in white skullcaps and had flowing beards, and the women were in white tudungs. I wonder about the significance of the white.

At Heathrow, the Immigration Officer asked me what I did back home. When I replied that I was a conscript soldier, she asked to see my return ticket. Maybe she thought I would go AWOL in Britain. Actually, that would have been a rather good idea, then I could have claimed asylum!

When I got to Jie's (my sister) apartment, I finally met the cat which they'd been raving about to me for so long - FCUK (Furry Cat United Kingdom) [Ed: These people being acronym crazy, they give an acronym to everything, even to food near expiry (RF - Rotten Food)] FCUK is actually the neighbour's cat, yet he frequents Jie's apartment because there, he gets spoilt rotten, has the run of the house and gets to bully Jie and Hwa (my brother-in-law), especially the latter, because they're suckers for pussies. He looks rather stupid, and a bit evil (as are most cats), but as cats come, is rather quite and friendly. For some reason though, Jie and Hwa insist on calling him a she, as they are entrenched in their archaic ways, not having discovered his true gender till recently.

Having learnt my lesson from my last time in London, I did not count on my naturally elevated resistance to Jet Lag but instead made minor alterations to my sleeping patterns, so I was almost not affected by it at all.

Day 1 (Monday) - London-Sherwood Forest

Since the temperature was pretty tolerable, I changed into shorts and stayed in them all the way (not the same pair, though) till the next Monday.

We left somewhat early (would've been earlier if Jie had not refused to wake up) and drove straight out of London, all the way to Northamptonshire, where the Rushton Triangular Lodge (image)was. This curious building is full of religious symbolism being, among other things, three sided (to represent the Holy Trinity) - one of those things aristocrats with too much time and money do with them.

We then proceeded to look at one of the few remaining intact Eleanor Crosses, in Geddington, I believe. After that was Tattershall Castle.

The next stop was Lincoln, where I visited the gigantic Medieval Bishops' Palace (which had a vineyard, even), then the Castle while Jie and Hwa went to the Cathedral. It having been advertised as one of the 8 original Castles built by William the Conqueror, I was disappointed when I saw that the Keep and inner buildings did not survive in any condition, and that it'd been slightly slighted by Cromwell and friends. However, I got to see their Magna Carta (together with the copy I saw in Salisbury last year and the 2 I subsequently saw in the British Library, I can now say I've seen all original copies of the 1215 version), do a Wall Walk, see a cute bust of King George III and half-kill myself climbing up the observatory with its devilish stairs which gave me trouble squeezing through - not because of my girth, but the width of my shoulders (I wonder how I managed St Paul's 2 years back) (image).

At the Magna Carta exhibit, I was disappointed that all photography and video filming was disallowed to "prevent further damage" to the document. Bah. Like my CCDs damage the vellum by absorbing mystic particles and vital energies from it, causing it to lose its integrity. There's at least some justification for banning even non-flash photography (idiots who are either unable or unwilling to disable their flashes), but video recording? It's fine if they want to earn more money from postcard sales, but they shouldn't disguise their intents by claiming that it is in the interest of preservation (as did the people running the Little Penguins' Penguin Parade near Melbourne). The document itself was rather well preserved, though not quite as legible as the Salisbury version.

The Magna Carta exhibition also made much light of the importance and significance of the Magna Carta as a key step for democracy, but as many people do with history, they forget the context and ignore the fact that the Barons were securing said rights for themselves and only themselves, and had no intention of allowing their villeins fair jury trials.

At the Castle shop, I bought a DIY "Bob the Dog" pop-out for Bob to construct when he's at Wallaby. By then though, it was past 5pm, and too late for me to look at "the finest example of 12th Century Architecture in Europe", Lincoln Cathedral, at least as a paying tourist, but not for me to sit in at Evensong.

Evensong has a lot of monotone sung statements, some of which are very long, but at least all the replies are homophonic. A lot of the songs are monophonic, and many tunes are boring, but I guess if you have a million hymns to set the tunes to, they can't all be tuneful.

After Evensong, we went to Tesco to buy dinner, and I saw that Tesco Finest stocked Chicken Chasseur! Now, some may remember this dish from the School of Military Medicine (SMM) cookhouse, when the weekly pseudo-Western meal would inevitably include Chicken Chasseur - except that eahc week, the colour of the sauce would change, as would its taste. Having been disappointed by SFI, I was excited to see *real* Chicken Chasseur, which was described as Chicken with a "white wine and tarragon sauce" - haram, which may explain why the SMM cookhouse didn't cook it authentically.

After more driving, we ended up at our accommodation for the night - the Sherwood Forest Youth Hostel. Now, having heard tales of Youth Hostels from Jie, I wasn't expecting very much, though she'd assured me that they'd improved since her days of youth when she trekked halfway across Spain on foot. To my surprise, though, I found that the place was actually rather bright, neat and clean.

For the uninitiated, I will describe some aspects of Youth Hostels briefly. Youth Hostels are charitable houses which offer cheap, yet acceptable accommodation for people of little means (eg me). You get to sleep in double bunk foam beds, and instead of bedsheets, you get this shroud which you lay on the bed and clamber into, throwing your duvet over yourself. This saves time and costs for them. Most (at least all we went to) Youth Hostels have self-catering kitchens to save you even more money.

Day 2 - Sherwood Forest-York

On Tuesday morning, Hwa and I woke up an hour or so before my sister to embark on an invigorating , nippy walk through Sherwood Forest. Being casual walkers, we selected the shortest route - the one to the Major Oak and back, and along the way we saw plenty of people walking their dogs.

The Major Oak is an 800 year old tree in the centre of Sherwood Forest. It is so old and weak now, many of its branches are propped up with supports, and it it surrounded not by soil but by an inert mulch, to prevent the soil form drying. (More Information)

After waking my sister, we headed to Bolsover Castle in Derby. While walking the ruined buildings of the hall, some bird shit splattered on my arm. At one end of the compound was an inner castle, a stylised medieval castle incorporating Renaissance ideas and ideals, so looking quite surreal. Inside, there were wall and ceiling paintings in excellent condition, though I wasn't quite fond of them because they included such classical elements as depictions of Hercules and his labours, but executed in a style not faithful to classical painting. Overall, the castle gave me the impression of being very fake - a romanticised idea of what an earlier age was like, but with a plastic feeling.

On the way to our next destination, I had a look at open strip coal mining, and it looked extremely destructive.

The next stop was Haddon Hall, near Bakewell. The owner of the house doesn't seem to take very much pride in it, considering that he lives in it, as the middle portions of all the steps are extremely worn (I even took a picture of the most worn step I've ever seen), and most surfaces are uneven and unrepaired.

After Haddon Hall we left for York. By the time we got there, it was already very late, so we only got to visit Jorvik Viking Centre, where there was a theme park-esque ride, with a gay "scientist" in a hard hat sending us on a Time Travel experience (the disadvantages of pandering to kids). As rides went, it was good, maintaining a high standard of historical accuracy while still being entertaining. To increase its immersiveness, the ride had olfactory elements which, while not uncommon on rides of this sort, was a nice touch. The bulk of the smells were the generic "Ye Olde World" type which you always get in fantasy-themed rides when you pass through habitations, sort of a romaticised version of animal dung, but at one point, there were smells of cooking - perhaps the first time I've experienced this sort of thing. All in all, the ride was nice, but I think it would be cheaper and more cost effective to have the experience without the frill of having a car you sit in, and instead walk through with an audioguide.

After the ride was an exhibition, where I finally got my hands on some Lapis Lazuli, Amber and Hematite and bought them, a reproduction Viking coin and a Viking pendant, among other things. The exhibition had some wooden and leather artefacts, which is quite rare for items of this age, and there was a form for visitors to ask questions which would be answered by some experts on their staff.

At the shop they were selling weapons, which I would have bought if I'd had more money to burn - like Damascus Sword (just a fancy name for a more well-decorated sword) for 375 pounds. I enquired as to the popularity of these weapons, and the salesgirl said that the axes were quite popular. Actually I could go to Caesar's for a sword, but their swords tend to be too ornate and more for display purposes than practical use (so to speak). If I get one, it must be an authentic one, and not one with plenty of engravings and filigree.


Misc notes:

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, spiritual leader of Hamas, looks like a druid, what with his white cowl and beard - all he needs is leaves in his beard!

With my acquisition of a digital camera, my mother can no longer complain that I waste film taking pictures of cockroaches (read: Scenery shots, without anyone in them). As an aside, I was discussing with Ben in camp about printing digital camera images, and he claimed you needed to take 1MB sized photos to print them in 4R size to analog quality, something which I doubt. I was also decrying the tendency of Singaporeans to exclusively take shots with people in them, but we reasoned it was probably because there is little scenery in Singapore worth shooting, so people rather take people shots. I suppose it's become ingrained in most Singaporeans then, but it is truly a tragedy when people waste all their film taking dull people shots for their bodies tend to block the scenery. After all, isn't that what they came for? To take in the view, and not to boast to people that they have been there.

Though the quality of ice cream is higher in the UK (no palm oil, no thank you!), with almost every type you get being of premium quality, made with cream, double cream or clotted cream, the flavours are decidedly more limited, and largely fruit-based. Partially this is due to their not using artificial flavourings, but also it is because the British palate has not been exposed to a wide range of flavours. I wonder how successful flavours such as Green Tea would be.


Quotes:

We don't just visit houses and gardens. We only go to houses which have an interesting history, or have someone connected to them, or a cat.

Bloody aristocrats. The French did the right thing by chopping all their heads off.

TO BE CONTINUED