Nobody 666

Sunday, October 1, 2006
Nobody # 666

Nobody Asked Me But:

Come on now, even I am suspicious of all the “when did they know?” bashing of the House Republican leadership over the Rep. Mark Foley e-mails. I may not like their politics, but Dennis Hastert and Co. were no more likely to cover up an internal sex scandal then would the Catholic Church.<<<

On Banned Books Week: This was a week to again remind oneself of the insurmountable difference between a liberal like I and the Radical Religious Right. They want to forbid me to read, among others “Harry Potter,” “Of Mice and Men” and “Tom Sawyer.” I do not want to ban them from reading their bibles.<<<

A question: Did the Republicans three, Senators McCain, Graham and Warner, after promising to fight the good fight, (a) get any real concessions from The White House on the Detainee Bill or (b) did they sell out? Answer: (b)<<<

On Socrates, Einstein, time and relativity: If you remember, I have had the gall to contradict Socrates by writing that the “unlived life is not worth examining.” For example, when we were in the UK we were too busy living to examine and with this an interesting phenomenon occurred. Rather than speeding up, time seemed to almost stand still. This leads me to wonder if I aged more slowly on this trip? If I did, does this mean that constant travel will keep me alive an extra 10, 20, 50 years?<<<

On driving in the U.K.: I will start this week’s vacation review by recounting the only negative of the trip – the driving. As you know, they do turn everything backwards over there. They drive on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. I am surprised that shifting into reverse doesn’t move one forward and vice versa. On my first day behind the wheel, I drove by the numbers - 5 left curbs hit, 4 cars on my left side-swiped, 3 times saved from disaster by the skill of other drivers, 2 pedestrians near misses and 1 frightened wife. A poor start, I’ll grant you, but I committed myself to making the following day better by cutting down on the curbs by at least 1.

The fact that I succeeded in my goal (barely) was in no way due to British roads or the signing thereof. Except for Expressways (marked M) and small country lanes, British law, it seems, requires a rounder every quarter mile. That same law requires that rounder exit signs be made as confusing as possible.

One final word about driving in the UK: except in very rare circumstances, do not expect to both drive and see. It works like this. The British have three types of roads. M stands for superhighway where the traffic is very fast and the scenery decaffeinated, much like on our Interstates in the U. S. Then you have the A roads, mostly two lanes, again with fast drivers, and the right/left challenged desperately trying to avoid the oncoming traffic on the right (wrong) and the small curbs on the left, while all of the time trying to read and round. The third type is what I call the See roads. There are so narrow that everyone has to go slow - and sometimes even back up. If you find yourself driving on one of these and the views on both sides are not blocked by large hedges, you might just catch a glimpse of an occasional cottage or estate, pheasant or deer. (or very large pig) Even than there were few places to pull over to take pictures.<<<

On “The Queen:” One of the great kicks on our trip, especially after witnessing the Princess Di thing at Harrod’s, was, while in Oxford, seeing this new film staring Helen Mirren. (It opened in NYC Friday and the rest of the U. S. on 10/6)

It is about the reaction of the Royal family to Diana’s death and of Tony Blair’s high wire act as the new Prime Minister who gently prodded royalty towards reality. Elizabeth wanted to ignore the whole event. After all, Royals don’t show their feelings in public, and feelings weren’t her strong point anyway. Besides, much to their relief, Diana hadn’t been royalty since the divorce.

Her royal husband, Phillip, had even more of a nobility ramrod up his rear than did his wife. Even though primarily an errand boy for HRH, he still gave the impression that “divine right” was alive and well.

Prince Charles was weakness personified – half afraid that an anti-royalist was going to assassinate him, half guilty about the way his failures as a husband contributed to the death of his children’s.

This story of how Elizabeth grudgingly sees the necessity of reaching out to her subjects in their time of need, is a marvelous film and Mirren is perfection in capturing a Queen who must step outside herself.<<<

But more of Oxford later, our next stop after London was Edinburgh, a living proof that old can be beautiful. It is an incredible city filled with literature and politics, yesterday and today. In the center of town there is a wondrous monument to Sir Walter Scott (left) and statues of Victoria and George IV. (Did you know that he was the “inspiration” for Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, which was really a secret way to mock the young prince?)

Nowhere is the contrast between yesterday and today more striking than on The Royal Mile, which is anchored at each end by the very old. At the top is Edinburgh Castle and at the bottom, Hollyroodhouse Palace, where Mary, Queen of Scots lived and where the Queen stays on visits to Edinburgh. Just before you get to the latter you pass the new Parliament building so out of place in its modern design that it is an embarrassment to the good people of the city.

Walking the Mile one passes the birthplace of John Knox, the Protestant reformer whose ideas were the foundation of the Presbyterian Church and the grave of Adam Smith, the great politician, economic philosopher and author of “The Wealth of Nations.”

Walk two blocks off the Mile and you encounter a different kind of literary memorial. The Black Medicine Coffee Company is the coffee house where J. K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book.

And to prove that new is not always bad, along the Mile one can always stop in at two Starbuck’s.

Other Scottish writers honored in this city of monuments include R. L. Stevenson, of whom I wrote last week, the great philosopher David Hume, J. M. Barrie, (Peter Pan) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and, of course for Auld Lang Syne, Scotland’s National Poet, Robert (Bobby) Burns.

Our hotel was a good example of the old and the new in Edinburgh. Its entrance looked to be 19th Century, but around it a beautiful hotel has been built. It was our best of the trip and our room one of our top 10 of all time.

Each suite is named after a type of Scotch. Ours was Bowmore and, sure enough, a complementary mid-sized bottle awaited us. Naturally I had a shot a day - just to be courteous, of course.

In addition to the national drink, our room had leather coaches, a very large bathroom and a divider that separated sitting from king-sized sleeping. A Sharp Aqua was set into the divider and swiveled 180 degrees to serve both rooms. From our balcony which almost equaled our room size, we could see newly-sculptured metal giraffes below, a statue of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that was almost a century old across the street, an even older church on another corner and, to the North, the Fifth of Forth, (try to say that after a 12-year-old Scotch) the river and estuary that separates Edinburgh from St. Andrews and other towns. Just to make it practically perfect, there were power switches by the bed that controlled everything including the drapes.

We put the television to great use one night. Barb discovered that there was to be an Inspector Rebus show on that evening. Rebus is the main character in a series of books written by Ian Rankin. Both the author and his character live and work in Edinburgh and by design I was reading a Rebus at the time. So it was great fun to see the program while we were there.<<<

We had some of our best food in Edinburgh and most certainly the worst. Searching for a good dinner our first night, we took the advice of two girls working in a sporting goods store close to the hotel and walked about 3 blocks to Vittoria. I had risotto with sausage and radicchio and Barb, chicken. She liked hers and I loved mine. We returned on our final night for an excellent pizza and very good lasagna.

Even better was the black and white muffin we shared from a place called Chocolate Soup – as good or close to as good as any we have ever eaten. Needless to say, we returned another day for seconds.

Probably Barb’s very favorite food on the whole trip, excluding ice cream and muffins, was the fried onions at Bell’s Diner, a hamburger place about which she had read. It took us two taxi rides – the first driver got lost – to get there but the food was worth it. So was the small bookstore across the street where we talked with the manager until closing time.

As for the worst, one day we were walking and tired and didn’t see much promising, so we settled on the Conan Doyle Pub across from our hotel. The history was great, Doyle had lived close by, but the food was bad. I had 3 types of Scottish Sausage, none of which I liked, with mashed potatoes in onion gravy and Barb, mediocre fish and chips.<<<

St. Andrew’s:

St. Andrew’s is about an hour and a quarter’s drive from Edinburgh. Since this was my first day behind the wheel, it took us 3 hours. But when we finally got to this beautiful birthplace of golf, it all proved to be worthwhile. However, all the getting lost experiences (I even got lost in the men’s room at the Old Course Hotel) meant we didn’t have nearly enough time to explore this quaint city on the North Sea.

By happy accident, the course is closed on Sunday so I, along with many other adults, children and their dogs, had the thrill of walking part of the 18th fairway in the footsteps of Tiger, Nicholas, Palmer and so many other golf greats.

We had only a short time in the quaint town, but it was long enough to make us regret our late arrival and also long enough for me to buy a cool shirt, Barb, a beautiful sweater at the hotel and to have (surprise) ice cream.

The drive back was somewhat easier.<<<

We also had two interesting encounters that day. A young Serbian man asked Barb for directions in St. Andrews and a Chinese couple asked us for directions after we were back in Edinburgh. We were a “big help.”<<<

The next morning we left for York, so I will conclude this week’s true-life adventure with some general observations about our short stay in Scotland.

We loved it.

If London is, as I observed, cosmopolitan, Edinburgh is provincial.

There are more sirens in Edinburgh.

England’s legal system is based on common law, Scotland’s on Roman law. Here is one example of the difference. England has a twelve-person jury and no double jeopardy*. Scottish juries have 15 people and limited double jeopardy.

* England recently passed a law (no written constitution, no need to amend) permitting double jeopardy for certain crimes if new hard evidence is discovered.

Next week I will complete my account of our first trip across the Atlantic.