This and That and Other Nonsequitors

After two months in the United Kingdom, I am still finding sources of bemusement.  One is the fanatic interest in football, i.e., soccer, that has Brits talking for hours about their favorite teams and the teams' bitter rivalries.  It is rather like folks in the United States who talk incessantly about their favorite football (i.e., American football) teams and/or how the various members of their fantasy team are performing.  As a regular reader of sports news and follower of the progress of my favorite athletes among a wide range of sports, I certainly cannot suggest that only American males are football (American) junkies.  However, I am impressed by the verve with which the Brits, both male and female, cheer on their home team heroes.  As far as I can tell, Manchester United is the team individual Brits either love or hate--like the New York Yankees, I suppose (yes, I know the Yankees are a baseball, not football, team!).  And, Brits do not leave their football at home when they go abroad.  During our stay at a small hotel on Mallorca (next blog, I promise!), we met a lovely English couple with whom we shared a couple of dinners at the hotel restaurant.  The innkeeper was an ex-pat Brit from Liverpool, and, as I was relaxing one afternoon in the hotel garden, the three Brits talked for about an hour about teams, players, coaches, and owners.  The conversation continued at dinner, as the five of us shared a drink.  The subject of conversation might have been influenced by the fact that the husband half of the visiting couple is an architect who designs stadiums around the world.  However, my fellow tennis players at "home" at the University of Warwick Tennis Centre also quote chapter and verse on the latest football news.  As Henry and I managed in Munich during our sabbatical in 2009 (we went to a Bayern Munich match), I just might have to check out a match before we leave England.

As for cricket, I can only say it remains a total mystery to me.  Admittedly, I have yet to read or listen to the rules.  While at Stoneleigh Abbey (see blog entry Britishisms--Language and Local Color), I eyed a cricket match from a distance (cricket has been played on this "pitch" since the early 1800's).

With all players dressed in white, I could not tell (other than the pitcher and the batter, or whatever they are called) which players were on which team!  All was quite civilized, however, with drinks all around at the end of the match.

British language lesson for the day--In the US, when you buy a house, rent an apartment, or hire a contractor for a project, you often create a "punch list" of items that need to be completed before closing escrow, moving in, or paying the balance due to the contractor.  In Britain, you create a "snagging issue list".  Brits make "bookings" for rooms at hotels or tables at restaurants, while Americans make "reservations".  And, when Brits make a "faux pas", they "drop a clanger".

Did you ever wonder what a "military tattoo" is?  No, it is not an anchor or an eagle etched onto one's forearm!  I had not heard the term before we visited Edinburgh.  We arrived there just after the completion of the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which claims to be the largest annual arts and entertainment festival in the world.  It includes the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in front of Edinburgh Castle.  Having missed the festival, just the stands remained to be taken down.

In any event, the tattoo was originally a military drum performance, which dates back to the 1600's.  The term comes from the Dutch "doe den tap too", meaning "turn off the tap", a directive from military drummers sent around town to get soldiers out of the pubs and back to the barracks before curfew.  Later, the process became more of a show, which includes bands and displays with floodlights, and "tap too" morphed into "tattoo". Live and learn!

I also learned a bunch of art and design terms while visiting Aston Hall in Birmingham. Aston Hall is a Jacobean (as in after the Elizabethan and before the Caroline Era, i.e., between 1567 and 1625) style country mansion on which construction was begun in the early 1600's.

It became a museum in second half of the 19th century, after the Holte (original owner) family line ended.  In its current incarnation, it displays furnishings, art, and accessories from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, though at one point, it was a taxidermy museum!

Each room of the mansion now contains a summary of the room's history, along with a description of the various items on display.  The glossaries were particularly helpful!  For example:

Gesso--material, made from plaster and applied in layers, used to prepare a frame, furniture, or canvas for painting or gilding.

Ormulu--decorative objects, especially mounts for furniture, made of cast bronze.  An amalgam of gold and mercury is applied to the item and then fired until the mercury is driven off, leaving a thin gold film.

Marquetry--work inlaid with various pieces of colored wood, ivory, or metal.

Instarsia--small pieces of wood or other material, used to make pictorial or abstract designs, often architectural representations.

Okay, enough of the art history lesson!  Here are a couple of nice tapestries.  It might be hard to see, but the first one depicts Aston Hall in the middle:

I suspect that in the 17th century, Thomas Holte, was told, "Every baronet's mansion must have a fancy fireplace in every room!"  Of course, in those days, without central heating, a fireplace would be necessary in every room, but the ones in this mansion were particularly ornate.

Another good museum in Birmingham is the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Although it apparently has the largest pre-Raphaelite (a group of British painters during the 1800's who took their inspiration from the art of late-medieval and early Renaissance Europe) collection of paintings in the world, this style of painting does not send me into uncontrollable ecstasy.  What particularly fascinated me was their collection from the Staffordshire Hoard.  (Sorry, no photos allowed.:-()  Discovered in 2009, the over 3500 items comprised the largest single find of Anglo-Saxon (around 700CE) gold and silver metalwork in the world.  Additional items were found nearby a couple of years later. Restoration experts are still painstakingly working on the items.  On the day I visited the museum, restorers were working in a special room open to the public.  As they carefully removed mud and grit from these delicate objects under a microscope (many of the items are extremely tiny), they displayed their progress in real time on a laptop screen.  These restorers spend three years studying their craft. I'm not sure I would have the patience they displayed so as not to destroy these ancient items by a slight slip of a scraper that looked like a dentist's tooth plaque scraper.  I also liked the fact that not every gallery displayed paintings from specific eras, as in Dutch Masters, Impressionists, Pre-Raphaelites, and so on. For example, one gallery was dedicated to portraits through the ages (well, about 250 years worth), concentrating on the theme of "Spaces and Surroundings".  The explanatory wall placard suggested that the environment in which a person is placed in a portrait can communicate certain information and/or evoke a certain emotional response in the viewer.  This was a welcome invitation to consider the portraits from a different perspective than simply colors, shadows, detail.



I have now been to the Coventry Transport Museum twice.  The first time, I did not realize until I readied my camera for my first photo that I had inconveniently left the memory card at the flat (I must have working on my blog and left the card inserted in my laptop)! Coventry is the birthplace of the British cycle and motor industry.  The museum chronicles the development of bicycles, cars, and other road vehicles in the Coventry area from the second half of the 1800's (bicycles) through World War II, when many of the factories switched to the manufacture of military equipment, into the latter part of the last century, when much of the car industry died out in the Coventry area (Jaguar Land Rover, which is now owned by Tata (from India) and was previously owned by Ford, might be the lone survivor).  Some of the vehicles have been restored, while others have been left in a "conserved" condition. Apparently, this collection is one of the finest in the world.  And, better yet, admission is free!  Here's a sampling:



(The Coventry Sewing Machine Company started manufacturing the above velocipede in 1869.)

Yes, this really is a sampling!  They are more or less in chronological order.  If you want me to identify any of these vehicles, let me know.

A couple of weeks ago, Henry and I spent a delightful Sunday in Shropshire, visiting the Bratch Locks and Wightwick Manor and Gardens.  Ah, the benefits of having a car to get to spots off the beaten track.  Our original plan was to have lunch at the Old Vicarage in Worfield (another restaurant we found in the Michelin Red Guide; it aspired to pretension, but we had a delicious Sunday 3-course meal in the "Orangery" (greenhouse/solarium)), and then proceed to Wightwick Manor, a National Trust site nearby.  Having arrived in the area early for a noon booking (the restaurant did not open until then), we noted a brown directional signpost for Bratch Locks.  Brown signs generally designate a sight of some sort. We knew nothing about these locks and almost missed them due to one faulty turn. As it turned out, they were a fascinating throwback to eras gone by.  As you can see from the photos below, they accommodate only the smallest or narrowest of boats and are operated by hand.  If no operator is on duty, instructions are available for the skipper to open and close the locks on his/her own.

Wightwick (which, according to a tennis colleague who corrected me, is pronounced "wittick") Manor and Gardens also proved to be a good find.

Even Henry (after his post-lunch espresso at the garden cafe) enjoyed a stroll through the manor.  The Victorian home, which was built in the latter 1800's, contains many of its original William Morris designed furnishings and Pre-Raphaelite paintings, as well as items purchased for a pittance (e.g., 5GBP) at estate sales of families who could no longer afford the steep expense of maintaining their large homes.  By the 1930's, the British Member of Parliament who owned Wightwick Manor was in a similar bind.  However, in the late 1930's, he achieved a major coup when he convinced the National Trust to accept his home for display AND permit his family to continue living there (which they do to this day).  Right after I took these photos of the piano (the silk wallpaper was a William Morris design) and hidden staircase, 

I was told that photographs inside the premises were not permitted.  That must have been another perk the MP managed to negotiate!  In any event, even in the continuing drizzle, the gardens provided good photo ops.

A couple of other interesting tidbits about the manor:  (1) It is very dark inside by today's standards.  One of the docents pointed out that in the early days of electricity (the era in which the home is displayed), lights did not produce more than about 40 watts; (2) The guest wing has just one shared toilet for multiple guest rooms, but the docent again pointed out that a butler was always around to bring hot water to the guest room for washing up.  Piss pots helped as well.

As some (and, maybe all) of you know, the Jewish High Holidays came and went in early September.  Henry and I managed to locate a local Reform congregation for services, and we came away richer for the experience.  In some ways, it reminded me of when I was growing up and my father and several others helped found a new congregation in Larchmont, NY.  The congregation was small and met in rented space above the Shopwell supermarket (do Shopwells even exist anymore?).  It was very closely knit, with everyone knowing each other. The Coventry Reform Jewish Community, as the congregants refer to themselves, is even smaller, with perhaps 75 members (and I don't mean 75 families!).  They have no permanent home, owned or rented, and hold their bi-monthly Shabbat services in congregants' homes. The single Torah scroll sits in an ark made from a converted dresser drawer and gets transported, along with prayerbooks and other paraphernalia in the trunk (sorry, boot) of a congregant's car.  For the High Holydays (they are not "holidays" here), the congregation rented a small space in a nearby senior care facility.  No tickets were required, and the congregation's secretary and her husband kindly drove us to and from services.  As many as 40 people attended each service.  One of the congregants acted as the rabbi and led all of the services. Although he had no singing voice and most of the congregants sang out of tune (or without tune), a sense of purpose permeated throughout.  Indeed, because more parts of the services were in English than Hebrew, and the Reform prayerbook employs more contemporary "translations" of the prayers than the Conservative prayerbook used at home, I found these services more meaningful than what I have often experienced in San Diego. Following the Rosh Hashanah services, they held a "shared" (we call it "potluck") lunch at a congregant's home, and welcomed us as if we had been members for years. We are sorry to be missing their upcoming gala celebration of their 20th anniversary, which will take place while we are away.



What is it like to go to the movies in England?  I've now gone twice to the movie theatre in Coventry and found a number of differences compared to standard American theaters. Mind you, I cannot remember the last time I was in an American movie theater, but I do know it was less than a year ago!  Also, I have yet to check out the luxury Cinepolis movie theater at the Del Mar Highlands Center.  In any event, at the Coventry theatre, one need not worry about arriving late and missing the first few minutes of a movie. Advertisements and previews last for almost 25 minutes!  The advertisements are full length segments for everything from cars to bathroom products to television shows. Contrary to the US, previews for other movies are not rated as suitable for all audiences. Rather, their content is commensurate with the rating of the feature presentation.  Ratings are not G, PG, PG-13, and so on.  Instead, they have U, PG, 12, 15, 18, and R18 (adult, for licensed premises only). Silly me!  Before I looked this up and noted that the movie I was going to see was rated a 12, I thought the rating system was entirely numerical, going from 1 to a number higher than 12!  Duh, just as in the US, those numbers are ages. When you buy the movie ticket, you are asked where you would like to sit, and you receive a specifically assigned seat.  Fancy a drink or snack while watching the movie?  Beer, wine, and hard liquor are sold at the concession stand.




I finally had to get my hair done here in Britain.  My hair coloring lasts only so long before it starts to fade and new growth of gray hair becomes too obvious to ignore.  I had explicit directions from my hairdresser at home regarding the correct color tones and developer to use.  One would think I would have an easier time dealing with this matter in England, with a common language, than I did in 2009 in Zurich and Munich.  However, having the language barrier in Zurich and Munich led me to more readily take the plunge and accept the result there than here.  No, my hair still looks pretty normal, but, despite my hairdresser's instructions, which I passed on to this hairdresser, the color process turned to be different (application was on wet hair, rather than dry), the developer was different (more stringent and sat longer on my head), and the haircut was only so-so.  The good news is that the color will fade and my hair will grow.  The bad news is that the color will fade and my hair will grow, and I will need to repeat the process before the end of the sabbatical!



Did you know that 80% of British towns have a HIgh Street?  I cannot admit to a scientific analysis, but Henry and I performed an empirical study of this phenomenon.  When we want to force the GPS to set a route that is different than the default, quickest route, we enter into the system a town along our preferred route. Invariably, the GPS next asks for a street name. High Street pops up as an option 80% of the time! Okay, we have no idea what the percentage is, but it surely is a large majority.



What is wrong with a "full English breakfast", as offered at various Bed and Breakfast inns at which Henry and I have stayed?  If you eat it all, you have no room left for lunch or dinner and you still gain weight! It includes eggs, bacon (similar to Canadian bacon), sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, and toast (with jam and marmalade). And, often, fresh fruit, cereal, and yogurt are on offer to accompany the rest of the breakfast.



After two months of sampling British hard cider, I have become a dedicated fan. So far, I have tasted Strongbow (apple and pear), Aspall, Bulmers, and Magners. Draught tastes better than bottled, as does beer for that matter, and the Strongbow draught pear cider is particularly appealing. One problem with cider is that it is like a margarita or other such cocktail--it goes down like a non-alcoholic drink, so it's hard to figure when you have drunk too much. Amazingly, some ciders are over 7% alcohol!



The more time we are spending in England, the more I am convinced that roundabouts will simply not work well in Del Mar.  Roundabouts were proposed as part of the Del Mar downtown revitalization plan rejected by the voters a year ago. One of the reasons the plan was defeated was that it tried to cover too many things at once. As a result, there were aspects for a majority of the voters not to like, even if voters differed as to which were unpalatable. Revitalization efforts continue and roundabouts remain an option. What I have noticed with the roundabouts in England is that they can handle only up to a certain level of traffic, and create dreadful backups when there is any type of blockage. With the start of the fall term this week at the University of Warwick, traffic backed up through the roundabouts for miles. A couple of weeks ago, roadwork was being done at just one roundabout along the road bordering the school. Even without the increased traffic that exists during the term, cars were backed up past the motorway entrance/exit over two miles away.  In addition, the more cars in a roundabout along a main road, the more difficult it is to enter the roundabout from a minor road. I can imagine sitting in my car on 11th Street in Del Mar, trying to enter a roundabout on Camino del Mar at about 5:30PM, and waiting until the traffic on the main street is almost completely stalled before I can edge the nose of my car into the roundabout. Adding a traffic light at 15th Street, as proposed, would create the same blockage as an accident or roadwork. Combine that with commuter traffic, and you have a huge mess!



Enough of that soap box! Speaking of soap, and to close this blog, I have a punny picture to share (back of a delivery truck):