We’re Being Watched

CCTV outside St. Paul's Cathedral

Bridges Crossed: 9/12 (Lambeth, Westminster, Hungerford, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Millennium, Southwark, London, Tower)

Train Stations: 7/10 (Charing Cross, Victoria, Liverpool Street, Waterloo, Paddington, Euston, King’s Cross) 

I made a big dent in my Bridges and Stations checklists this week. Chalk that up to plain old health and determination. I have my health back! I am thrilled to be able to swallow pain-free and to have a body that doesn’t ache. It’s the little things in life that keep me going each day. I joke, but truly, there are few things worse than illness. It’s like a reminder that your own body can turn on you at any moment. I finally made it the National Gallery on Friday and I saw several classic paintings of St. Jerome meditating on mortality by hitting himself with stones and staring at a skull, but I feel like an acute sore throat would have been equally effective.

As I wander through London, usually going in the right general direction but never by the most efficient route, I’m being watched. I read once that the British are the most videotaped people in the world, and just a day in this country will make you believe it. Not only is CCTV everywhere, it is embraced by public and private properties alike. I get the feeling that everyone read 1984 and instead of being appalled by rampant totalitarianism, they thought, “Hey, you know what? That’s a great idea!”

I’m curious if this excessive taping actually results in lower incidences of crime. Possibly property crimes are reduced, which would explain the use of cameras outside entrances and alleyways, but there are also many cameras that just peer into the street. Is anyone monitoring them? There seem to be extensive disclosure laws about CCTV that require it to be announced on trains or posted on walls that taping is occurring, which just makes it all the more ubiquitous.

What is a henge exactly? No one alive know for sure.

On Saturday I went to Stonehenge and Bath. The henge was better than I had been led to expect—you can actually walk quite close to the stones and there is a kind of eerie and mystical sense about the Salisbury plain that wasn’t fully diminished by the herds of tourists taking pictures of the stones from every possible angle. I was one of the click happy masses, and it wasn’t until hours later, as I went through my photos that I realized that I had taken over 50 pictures of rocks.

I went with a tour bus (which I normally would shun), but as it came to the attention of my fellow interns that we all planning on Bath for the same day, I agreed to also buy a ticket for their tour. Organized tours can be nice on occasion; I went on several very fun ones in Thailand with my mom and step-dad, for example. But this one reminded me why I tend to avoid such things. Other than the fact that without the bus, stopping off at Stonehenge would have been difficult, I was completely under-whelmed by the experience. No breaks, no snacks, not enough pamphlets so sharing was militantly enforced, and a tour guide who clearly hated her job and all of us tour attendees passionately. In my experience, buses in non-English speaking countries almost always include snacks. How inhospitable of us!

Moreover, and this was the real crime of the day, we were only afforded a piddling hour and fifteen minutes to “explore” Bath on our own and this was also the first available time to get lunch. So all I really learned about Bath was that one may procure a tolerable baguette sandwich from one of the many street cafés.

The light stones of the characteristic Georgian architecture in Bath reminded me of a northern Italian town. I would like very much to come back to Bath one day with someone that I love and spend several days there. It is not a town for an hour’s viewing.

The Roman Baths. These were silted over when Jane Austen lived here. Her heroines bathed in the King's bath nearby.

Celebrity Celerity

This week the parade of important visitors at Westminster seemed especially high. On Wednesday I was one of the last bodies to cram into a speaking event with the Dalai Lama. He warmly talked about happiness and tolerance and fruit; fruit seemed to be a consistent metaphor. His accented English was not helped by the fact that I was wedged into a corner near the door, which saw many people trying but failing to enter and exit without commotion. A cell phone rang and I was delighted to see one of the Buddhist monks from the Tibetan delegation answer it embarrassingly. Who calls monks? Other monks? I wish I had a monk to call. 

Leaving with MP from the event (her seat had been much better than mine of course), we went down a lift that I didn’t know existed and popped out into a hall that I’d never been to and there was His Holiness!!! He had been ushered out before the herds of MPs could beg for pictures earlier, so at this opportunity MP and I sprang into action. She rushed forward hand out and I started flashing my camera like a practiced paparazzo. His Holiness was perfectly gracious at our obnoxious behavior, as was Speaker Bercow who had been escorting him and ended up in my picture too. Elated as I trooped back to my office I felt that if I did nothing else for MP, at least I got her that picture! It felt like a real feat. 

Later that day at one of several cancer receptions I tagged along to, I met one of the other interns and his MP. His MP insisted on getting a picture with a buxom, heavily made-up girl, and given what I'd heard about this guy, I assumed that he just liked to take pictures with pretty girls. Later I found out that the girl is a British celebrity from a “reality” show here: The Only Way is Essex—which is one of those embarrassing TV circuses about shallow, rich people with more latex than brains. It’s nice to know that America doesn’t hold a monopoly on trash television. One of the cancer lobbyists, who cornered me uncomfortably for most of the reception, told me that this particular celebrity had 1.2 million followers on Twitter. He mentioned that when they can get her to tweet about (whichever type they were promoting awareness for) cancer, it has a good reach.

Also, dear readers, you might have seen that Aung San Suu Kyi spoke to both chambers of Parliament on Thursday. I  wasn’t able to make it in to Westminster Hall to see her, but I did glimpse her enter the building as I was passing through to Portcullis House and then I watched her speech on the internal television feed in my office. She is a truly inspiring woman. I dearly hope that she has more than 1.2 million Twitter followers.

She spoke about the need for Britain and other established democracies to help Burma as they attempt to become more democratic. She also said that the Burmese assembly is too formal for her liking—she would rather there was more spirit and heckling like the British Parliament. At this the cameras panned to David Cameron and Ed Miliband who were sitting in the front row together.

All Creatures Sick and Well

Thirsk and Sowerby

James Herriot's books about being a veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales were well-loved in my family as I was growing up. They directly contributed to a determination of being a vet someday for several years of my young life, and while that dream eventually faded into other pursuits, the stories have stayed with me. His books are as comforting to me as old friends, so naturally I felt that a trip up north to see the Dales couldn't be missed.

My Friday train tickets to Thirsk and York had been purchased in advance, so when my slight sore throat began to turn into a rather painful one on Thursday afternoon, I went into home doctor mode. I tried gargling with salt water, thick applications of Vick's vapor rub, cups of hot water with honey and lemon, plenty of fluids and bed rest--it all went into action. But it was too little, too late. At 6am Friday morning I purchased aspirin and lozenges and hauled myself to King's Cross station--feeling like this was all a very bad idea indeed.

Undoubtably one of the grandchildren of a patient of Herriot's

The station in Thirsk is over a mile from the town centre. When I am at full strength, that would be no distance at all, even in the light rain. However, sick Deborah moves slower and complains a lot more--even with no one around to hear her. I had drawn myself a map of the route thankfully, so I found the James Herriot museum with only a slight detour into Sowerby (which turned out to be a charming neighboring town). 

The dispensary

Thirsk is the town where Alf Wight (James Herriot) came to work in the veterinary practice of Donald Sinclair (Siegfried Farnon in the books), although he called it Darrowby. I really enjoyed the museum and the helpful staff there. They said they appreciated that my own extensive JH knowledge came from his books rather than the TV show which was quite popular over here.

Intense concentration was needed for this calving; I think it might be a breech presentation.

York

From Thirsk, I journeyed south to York (or Old York, as I like to call it, now that I live in the New York). I was told that I would like York because, "it's one of those old English cities that Americans love." And of course I did love it. Every building is perfectly ancient and have plaques announcing this or that event that happened in the 1st or 14th centuries by Richard the III or Emperor Constantine. I wandered through the lovely museum gardens and the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey and decided that what my poor throat really needed was some ice cream. 

Yorkminster

In my sickly state I decided that it was necessary to climb the tower of Yorkminster. Five quid and three hundred dizzyingly circular steps later, I was spent. The view was well worth it however, and I rewarded myself afterward with Yorkshire cream tea at Betty's tea house. Charmingly, York still has city walls that can be walked on--although they lost some of their magic for me when I realized that I would have to walk a half mile past the train station to get down from them. 

While I was wandering around York I learned from a pub sign that the England-Sweden game would be going on while I was en route to Liverpool and that my friend, who had offered to meet me, would be missing part of the game. He knew that of course, but had been too courteous to say anything. English boys are much more polite than their American counterparts it seems. As it was, the football match was tied 2-2 when he picked me up, and England scored (leading to their win) just as we were entering a pub and ordering Guinness (another remedy for my throat?)! 

very attractive English and Swedish fans prepare to cheer for their teams in the Euros

Three Hundred Cups of Tea

There is a wonderful portrait of Edmund Burke staring disapprovingly down at the receptions held in the Member’s Dining Room. Yesterday afternoon I met MP there for a lobbying reception for guide dogs. In addition to the usual speeches and backslapping, the organization showed a video about attacks on guide dogs by other dogs that made tears drip into my teacup. 

Organizations here, quite cleverly, draft press releases ahead of time and then provide a photo opportunity and a cameraman for the members. MPs queued up to kneel down with Norman the guide dog and some bigwig at a kennel association for a picture to go with the press release. Another reception I went to had a nationally famous TV doctor and a banner about whichever disease was being touted for awareness to pose with.

I went to an interesting meeting this week on the American Presidential election, which featured two prominent pollsters from either side of the aisle. They both emphasized that the election will largely come down to a highly coveted and hard to pin down demographic: white, married women who often make voting decisions based on what they hear from their friends and family rather than taking their cues from the media. Of course their friends and family are likely taking their cues from the media, so it’s really a matter of filtering; what breaks through is important. I love this kind of analysis and it was fun to have Americans sharing with a British audience and being probably a bit more candid than they would be normally in the States. I also really appreciated the looks of intense concentration and confusion on the Americans’ faces as they tried to understand the variety of accents in the audience questions.

At the inevitable reception that followed (this one had tiger prawns, yum!), I chatted with the Republican pollster, a game show host type guy with a blindingly white smile and a pocket-handkerchief. We had a cordial discussion about whether the right-wing buzzword of elitism only reflected academics (his view) or if the term included and was perhaps even dominated by the very rich (my view). I googled him after the event and was delighted to see that he had been an advisor on the Michelle Bachmann campaign last year.

The halls of Westminster were quiet after Labour’s attempt yesterday to oust the Culture, Media and Sport Minister for his shady connections with News International and the grounds that he lied to the Parliament about a disappearing memo.  The Liberal Dems abstained from the vote for the most part, injuring their already fragile coalition with the Conservatives, but the vote still failed.

A Hard Day's Night

My new Liverpudlian friend came down to London last weekend. On Friday night we waited in line at what seemed like a perfectly ordinary restaurant at least a half an hour, before being surreptitiously ushered into a secret door disguised as a kitchen refrigerator. The secret passage led down to a dark, wood-paneled pub with wingback armchairs and very strong Old Fashioneds.

On Saturday we went to a street dance party with a bunch of his friends from college. The weather was perfect—hardly a cloud in the sky for once.  After 6+ hours of dancing during the day, we then went to the after-party, which was set up in an empty carpark. I just can’t dance as long as I used to, and I’ve never really enjoyed dancing to the stuff that the Europeans love, the drum and bass, trance/house/techno/whatever they are calling it now music. It’s fun for a while but then you realize that all the songs sound the same and that the two Red Bulls that you downed earlier have worn off. So I people-watched for the last hour. The whole scene brought back so many memories of being in Germany in high school. The English will hate me for calling them European, but when it comes to dance parties, it may as well have been 2002 on the Continent again.

A few of my friends will attest that I was concerned about what one wears to a street dance party turned indoor after-party with people that are in all likelihood younger than I am and indisputably cooler. So you can imagine my delight when one hipster girl, wearing a ruffled denim skirt and at least three differently flower-patterned accessories, told me that she liked my jacket.


Can you spot said jacket (with me in it!) in this video made of the event around the 30 sec mark? hint: it's orange.

Photo Journal: Kent

Dover

Dover Castle

Creepy hologram monk

See? Actual white cliffs.

Deal

This small child photo-bombed my picture by cutely eating an ice cream cone.

Dad, I found you a new boat.

Best fish and chips in England

It's like Seaside....except with a pier, and less icky.

Sandwich 

The River Stour

Why yes, I thought this was quite necessary.

Fishing in the rain

The White Cliffs of Dover

Bridges Crossed: 6/12 (Lambeth, Westminster, Hungerford, Waterloo, Blackfriars, and Millennium)

Train Stations: 5/10 (Liverpool Street, Waterloo, Paddington, Euston, King’s Cross) 

You may have heard that the Queen has been on her throne for 60 years. This is considered to be quite a big deal here. In her honor, nearly the whole country received Monday and Tuesday off of work to properly celebrate her. I stood for hours in the cold alongside the Thames with a million natives on Sunday, and eventually had the opportunity to climb up on the shoulders of a fellow intern to photograph the Queen standing on a barge. Or rather, a barge that the Queen was standing on, although no one could actually see her, small as she is. Strangers all around passed their cameras up to me, but I failed to take one with my own camera. 

Monday’s bank holiday was spent on Brick Lane where the vintage shopping is famous. I also saw the movie Prometheus in 3D and almost successfully hid my eyes during the scary parts.

Several weeks ago—when I was just arrived, someone mentioned to me with disdain how Americans always “want to go to Dover,” but they had no idea why. Having never once thought about Dover, I was naturally and immediately intrigued. Turns out it is a town on the English Channel, on the narrowest part, in the shadow of the famed white cliffs. It also has an almost as famous castle. Moreover, just a few stops farther on the train, is the charming seaside town of Deal, and beyond that, the medieval style town of Sandwich—famous for bread and meat combinations that have satiated travelers and schoolchildren for centuries. How could I resist these Kent delights?

Therefore, on Tuesday I bought an open return to Sandwich. Although train travel is hitting my budget hard, there are some handy features. If you return the same day that you go to a place, roundtrip will cost the same as a one-way and you can take almost any train on return. Also it is perfectly allowable to get off the train en route and get back on later on the same ticket. So by buying one ticket with open return to Sandwich, I was able to get off for 4 hours in Dover to see the cliffs and the castle, get back on and then off at Deal for 3 hours of fish and chips and a street jubilee party as well as a walk down the pier, and finally I could pop on the train for a short ride to Sandwich, stay for a few hours and then get back on the train to London that evening. It was a long day though and I was beat by the end of it.

Dover Castle is lovely and marvelously preserved. The entrance fee is steep (as was the walk up to it), but I was soon appeased by its sense of atmosphere. Someone dressed as Henry II bid me hello with a hearty: "God serve you, madam" as I walked over a drawbridge. Dover Castle has seen many battles with France, and was fixed up by King Henry II to distract his people from the fact that he had murdered Thomas Beckett, the popular Archbishop of Canterbury (Distraction! One of the best political devices--I don't think it worked too well in this case though.) Also, there are tunnels beneath the castle that were used as a hidden war hospital during WWII.

Deal was possibly my favorite stop of the day. The channel is a surprisingly aqua shade of blue and the fish and chips were the best I’ve had in England so far. Moreover I was able to witness a (in my mind) hilarious irony: How do the good people of Deal celebrate their Queen's jubilee? By wearing cowboy hats and a rollicking street party with a Johnny Cash cover band. Yes, a good ol’ Americana-style celebration of a monarch, who would’ve thought? Here is a short video I made of the party:

I almost didn't make it to Sandwich. It started to rain hard while I was on the platform to leave Deal and I had to give myself a stern little talk to keep onwards. Once in Sandwich, I was walking head down against the wind and rain on a deserted and charmingly medieval-style road when I was hailed. An older woman needed my assistance, since there was no one else around. She had vertigo and needed to cross the street but couldn’t bring herself to do it safely. I was happy to take her arm, and walking her across several streets, about 50 meters, to a wall along a straightaway, where she insisted that I leave her. "Buy yourself a lotto ticket, child. You've done your good deed for the day," she said. 

I ducked into The Crispin Inn, in business since the 16^th century, and read P.G. Wodehouse by the window while the rain stampeded across the glass. Buoyed by cider, I ventured out to “see the sights.” While I was cold and wet, I couldn’t really be too dismayed. After all, the medieval Guildhall and the Barbican reminded me of the hard lives that they must have led back then. Compared to the days of plagues and feudalism, a few hours of chill followed by a warm train and eventually a warm meal would seem like paradise.

This summer here is a gift. A chance to discover what my true interests and preferences are, without the heavy insinuations of my career path. I must bring this sense of calm resolve home again.

How grossly I’ve been trying to stuff my nomadic soul into a small box for too long. It is a poor fit. I am not meant to push ruthlessly forward every day of my life until I die. I will go the longer route, by way of the sea and the cliffs and the stream. I will go by train, by boat, by foot—ever by foot! 

She Came in Through the Bathroom Window

I just spent the week up north in the MP’s constituency, about 30 miles north of Liverpool.


I'd given myself plenty of time to make the train from Euston Station so I ended up people watching. It has occurred to me, as I travel through this much older country, that everything around us will someday in the future be considered charming and old-fashioned, maybe even quaint. All our technology and clothes and customs will someday be heavily researched for period dramas. I watched people going to their trains and tried to pull myself out of my time and take it all in like a time traveler. It’s easier to play in England because everyone does seem to be in a slightly different time.


MP has all four of her staffers working up in the constituency. She says herself that if it doesn’t affect the good people who voted for her, she doesn’t bloody care. And her focus on the needs of her constituents is even clearer to see up there. MP has a wonderful way of shifting from Good Cop to Bad Cop in each meeting that leaves everyone else off-balance. I tagged along for a meeting with a police superintendent, a hospital ward visit where there had been allegations of elderly care misconduct, and a primary school’s Jubilee party where they all mumbled along to  “God Save the Queen” and the Headteacher introduced me as: “Lauren, who came all the way from New York to see us!” (He was very apologetic later for getting my name wrong.)

The constituency office is terribly dilapidated—another example of the national sense that public servants should have the worst possible amenities. After accepting my second cup of tea the first day, I learned that the water was so bad it makes your teeth hurt. The ‘facilities’ are part of what was at one time an outhouse, but it has a makeshift 'roof' attaching it to the main building that is useless when it rains. Dressing the outside up with banners and Union Jacks in preparation for the Olympic Torch coming by, we decided to not put up one of the larger flags for fear that drilling the flag hook in would bring down chunks of the exterior wall. For all that, I was quite sad to leave. MP’s staffers were gracious and welcoming. It was spoiling to have nice people to talk to while working—as opposed to Westminster, where I’ll resort to prattling on to the guy who delivers the post.

Accents are a huge deal here, especially up in the north. At first, nearly everyone sounded the same to me, but I am slowly picking up on the more obvious differences. I heard a lot about Scouse accents, which is sort of an intense Liverpudlian accent that is considered sort of blue-collar and uneducated. I thought it sounded marvelous, but with my boring Northwest American/Californian dialect, I evidently don’t know any better.

MP asked a friend of hers to put me up and she couldn’t have picked a lovelier family. They gave me a gorgeous top floor room with an attached bath and a view of the neighborhood, fed me delicious food, consulted me on television preferences, and even picked me up late at the local train station after my one evening in Liverpool. My first evening there, a local city councillor^[1] stopped by. She started out with: “Shake hands? C’mon dear, let’s have a bit of a cuddle!” gave me a big hug, and talked my ear off about the volunteer driving that she is doing for the Olympics. In general, I found that everyone up North was much friendlier than Londoners. To this observation, they said:  "If you do meet anyone in London who is friendly, they are probably just a Northerner who has moved!"

The Torch came through Friday morning. I've never been much of an Olympics spectator. It's hard to say why, but I guess it can all seem like overindulgent, patriotic nonsense at times. I know that it was originally meant to foster friendly competition between nations, but personally, I'll take the World Cup over the Games any day. Nonetheless, seeing the crowd line up for the Torchbearers, I got a little thrill. MP jostled with the Mayor against the crowd to get a good picture with the bearer waiting at the 'kiss point' for the incoming flame.^[2]

I was a bit worried that I’d come all the way up north without actually getting to see Liverpool, but MP's scheduler (who is more my age) showed me around Thursday night. We took the train into Liverpool, saw the Royal Liver building, the port, the 'pool' that the city was built on, Mathew Street and the Cavern (where the Beatles got their start). Being shown the area by a local, I restrained myself from getting too fanatic. It was naturally thrilling, but I was more than okay with just seeing everything without taking an awkward photo with the statue of John Lennon.

1. Mary, the mom, had previously been a city councillor as well. I met a succession of local politicians while I was there; mostly Labour members. MP herself had been the Lord Mayor (a ceremonial post) before she was a Member of Parliament, so she knew frankly everyone for miles around.

2. Actual athletes will carry the flame when it is closer to London and the start of the Games, but as the torch makes its way through the rest of the country local community members and do-gooders pass the torch off to each other.