Wednesday, September 29, 2010
To tide you over
Yeah, I know we haven't been blogging so much recently (especially Danny!), but it's with good reason - our parents were here! Now that their excellent visits have come to an end we hope to get back to semi-regular blogging...but not before a quick trip to Denmark to visit Familien Jacobsen. In the meantime, here are some pictures of Beppe and Nanni, just in case anyone was worried about their well-being in our absence. I think you'll find that living with Sam and Katie suits them just fine :)
Monday, September 20, 2010
But on the other hand...
...it still is your grandfather's England.
(Slight divergence for RPOTD:
Mike was here! We met up in Salzburg where he was attending a prion conference, then we took a quick swing through Munich to drink beer by the liter, then he hung out with us (and my mom!) in London for a day. It was excellent!)
But back to your grandfather's England. In many ways, England still exhibits that quaint, slightly stodgy charm that Americans expect from the home of Shakespeare and Jane Austen. For example, last week I took a day off work to explore the southwest edge of London with my mom. First we explored the truly magnificent Kew Gardens, which features
some of the oldest greenhouses in Europe, all full of flowering plants and other greenery from all over the world. There is also an excellent butterfly room. There is nothing that makes you appreciate the fragility of living things like looking at a butterfly up close.
What really struck me about this day, however, was the visit to Richmond, where we walked along the Thames and got afternoon tea. Here we were, sitting within the bounds of London, a city of 8 million people, and we had this view:
Okay, so it's hard to tell because of the glare of the window, but there are cows in that field. Cows! In London! My mom wanted to experience the English countryside, and it turns out we could get there on the tube.
Also amusing were the two men in suits discussing Somerset's unfortunate season in county cricket (despite another solid season from Trescothick), while enjoying coffee with biscuits. And they ordered the biscuits specifically. If there's one thing that ties all Englanders together, it may be a love of biscuits. All hotel rooms come with a small packet of these crunchy treats. At my conference in Oxford there was a break for tea and coffee every 90 minutes (!), which was always accompanied by a wide assortment of biscuits. The cafe around the corner served Danny a solo cup of tea, then came around to the table to offer him several fresh-baked ones when they came out of the oven. I've heard grown men grumble when their tea is served without an accompanying biscuit. And so on.
This is just a few small examples, but I think the love of biscuits and the proximity of cows to central London are good examples of how England has maintained a delightfully antiquated charm while still galloping along with the pace of the modernizing world. And just for the record, lest anyone think I am being judgmental, I love biscuits, too. I also love afternoon tea!
UPDATE FROM DANNY: For, perhaps, the best bit of biscuit humor I've ever seen, here's Rob Brydon on Would I Lie to You.
(Slight divergence for RPOTD:
Mike was here! We met up in Salzburg where he was attending a prion conference, then we took a quick swing through Munich to drink beer by the liter, then he hung out with us (and my mom!) in London for a day. It was excellent!)
But back to your grandfather's England. In many ways, England still exhibits that quaint, slightly stodgy charm that Americans expect from the home of Shakespeare and Jane Austen. For example, last week I took a day off work to explore the southwest edge of London with my mom. First we explored the truly magnificent Kew Gardens, which features
some of the oldest greenhouses in Europe, all full of flowering plants and other greenery from all over the world. There is also an excellent butterfly room. There is nothing that makes you appreciate the fragility of living things like looking at a butterfly up close.What really struck me about this day, however, was the visit to Richmond, where we walked along the Thames and got afternoon tea. Here we were, sitting within the bounds of London, a city of 8 million people, and we had this view:
Okay, so it's hard to tell because of the glare of the window, but there are cows in that field. Cows! In London! My mom wanted to experience the English countryside, and it turns out we could get there on the tube.
Also amusing were the two men in suits discussing Somerset's unfortunate season in county cricket (despite another solid season from Trescothick), while enjoying coffee with biscuits. And they ordered the biscuits specifically. If there's one thing that ties all Englanders together, it may be a love of biscuits. All hotel rooms come with a small packet of these crunchy treats. At my conference in Oxford there was a break for tea and coffee every 90 minutes (!), which was always accompanied by a wide assortment of biscuits. The cafe around the corner served Danny a solo cup of tea, then came around to the table to offer him several fresh-baked ones when they came out of the oven. I've heard grown men grumble when their tea is served without an accompanying biscuit. And so on.
This is just a few small examples, but I think the love of biscuits and the proximity of cows to central London are good examples of how England has maintained a delightfully antiquated charm while still galloping along with the pace of the modernizing world. And just for the record, lest anyone think I am being judgmental, I love biscuits, too. I also love afternoon tea!
UPDATE FROM DANNY: For, perhaps, the best bit of biscuit humor I've ever seen, here's Rob Brydon on Would I Lie to You.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sports-related pub discovery #2
It turns out that the Sky Sports feed at the Dartmouth Arms is German - straight after Chelsea-Blackpool finished, on come what appeared to be the Straubinger Tigers-Augsburger Panther game. So for you forlorn Deutsche Eishockey Liga fans in London who can't get your fix, make your way to Dartmouth Park!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Not your grandfather's England
Today's random photo is a lead-in to the topic of today's blog:
This is from when Jessica was visiting last month! That evening we got pre-dinner at Harrods: an enormous gelato sundae at Morelli's, one of the many tasty eateries in their famous food hall.
One thing that jumped out at me when as I scanned the rest of the people happily enjoying candy-covered ice cream, was that based on the dress of the women, everyone around us seemed to be Muslim. And there were interesting touches that reflected this Muslim predominance 
around the rest of the store, like the Arabic signs indicating which chocolates are alcohol-free, for example. One possible explanation for this is that Harrods in particular attracts a Muslim clientele. It was owned by Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed, an Egyptian businessman, from 1985 until 2010, when it was bought by Qatar Holdings.
But for someone who has lived the past 4 years in Brookline, Harrods is not the only place that the large number of Muslims living in and visiting the UK is apparent. As soon as I got off the plane at Heathrow, I saw more women in headscarves and varying types of Hijab at the arrivals gate than I had probably seen in my whole life up until that point. One of the Pope's assistants made a similar point before the recent papal visit, although his take was decidedly un-PC. For my research at the Trop I've been looking as some local public health reports, and was impressed by the number of websites (especially in places like London and Birmingham) that featured articles like "Guide to a healthy Ramadan" and "Controlling your diabetes during Ramadan." In many neighborhoods the streets are lined with Halal grocers and delicious-smelling kebab shops.
The obvious presence of Muslims living in London got me to thinking about the US, and the rampant anti-Muslim sentiment running through the population right now. I don't have any data to back this up (but I'm sure it's out there), but it seems to me that most of the anger/hatred/fear stems from people who don't actually have that much contact with Muslims in their daily life, simply because they live in parts of the country where there aren't that many Muslims. I think a good example of this is that is wasn't New Yorkers who raised the crazy opposition to the lower-Manhattan cultural center. And because there are many people who don't see Muslims on a regular basis, the right-wing pundits that been able to convince them that all Muslims are dangerous and stand for the destruction of America. I'm not saying that the UK doesn't have any problems with anti-Muslim feelings - obviously simply mixing populations does not cause immediate understanding and acceptance. It's an incredibly complicated issue. I guess my point is just that if the pastor in Florida had seen more Muslim families enjoying ice cream sundaes and peacefully celebrating Ramadan, he might not have been driven to burn their holy book.
This is from when Jessica was visiting last month! That evening we got pre-dinner at Harrods: an enormous gelato sundae at Morelli's, one of the many tasty eateries in their famous food hall.
One thing that jumped out at me when as I scanned the rest of the people happily enjoying candy-covered ice cream, was that based on the dress of the women, everyone around us seemed to be Muslim. And there were interesting touches that reflected this Muslim predominance 
around the rest of the store, like the Arabic signs indicating which chocolates are alcohol-free, for example. One possible explanation for this is that Harrods in particular attracts a Muslim clientele. It was owned by Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed, an Egyptian businessman, from 1985 until 2010, when it was bought by Qatar Holdings.
But for someone who has lived the past 4 years in Brookline, Harrods is not the only place that the large number of Muslims living in and visiting the UK is apparent. As soon as I got off the plane at Heathrow, I saw more women in headscarves and varying types of Hijab at the arrivals gate than I had probably seen in my whole life up until that point. One of the Pope's assistants made a similar point before the recent papal visit, although his take was decidedly un-PC. For my research at the Trop I've been looking as some local public health reports, and was impressed by the number of websites (especially in places like London and Birmingham) that featured articles like "Guide to a healthy Ramadan" and "Controlling your diabetes during Ramadan." In many neighborhoods the streets are lined with Halal grocers and delicious-smelling kebab shops.
The obvious presence of Muslims living in London got me to thinking about the US, and the rampant anti-Muslim sentiment running through the population right now. I don't have any data to back this up (but I'm sure it's out there), but it seems to me that most of the anger/hatred/fear stems from people who don't actually have that much contact with Muslims in their daily life, simply because they live in parts of the country where there aren't that many Muslims. I think a good example of this is that is wasn't New Yorkers who raised the crazy opposition to the lower-Manhattan cultural center. And because there are many people who don't see Muslims on a regular basis, the right-wing pundits that been able to convince them that all Muslims are dangerous and stand for the destruction of America. I'm not saying that the UK doesn't have any problems with anti-Muslim feelings - obviously simply mixing populations does not cause immediate understanding and acceptance. It's an incredibly complicated issue. I guess my point is just that if the pastor in Florida had seen more Muslim families enjoying ice cream sundaes and peacefully celebrating Ramadan, he might not have been driven to burn their holy book.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Academia, England-style
Random Photo that Danny thought was funny:
Oxford may only be the 6th best university in the world (thanks, Stephen, for posting the link), but it's still an amazing place for a weekend trip and conference! Thanks to my cushy connections at the LSHTM, I got to attend a Health Policy conference earlier this week, held at Madgalen College in Oxford. The conference was Monday and Tuesday, but Danny and I headed out on Sunday morning to see just how Oxford compared to Cambridge (which, incidentally, just leaped over Harvard for best university in the world). Although the hands-down verdict is that Cambridge is better (I mean, who punts from inside the boat?!), we had a great time. Highlights of the visit included:
- Visiting Christ Church (which is a college, not a church, although it does have quite a large church), where some scenes from Harry Potter 1 and 2 were filmed, and where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland. Alice was the young daughter of the dean of the college. Every night after dinner the dean would leave via a hidden door and back staircase - the white rabbit was based on him. Alice also had a cat named Dinah who would sit in a tree next to the library.
- Listening to bees. Just so you're assured that Oxford does have a hippy-dippy side, we visited a socio-ecological project where a guy has set up 2 bee hives, with a stethescope in each one so you can sit and listen to the bees doing their thing. It was pretty cool.
- Cream tea
- Dinner at one of Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurants. Tired of going to pubs and finding just one veggie option, we splurged for some home-made Italian goodness. And it was good.
- The Ashmolean museum: art and old things.
- The Museum of the History of Science. Lots of beautiful, hand-made astronomical tools that I don't understand, the original 1940 journal describing the use of penicillin (not that long ago!), several of Marconi's first radios, and a chilling display of the first anesthesia delivery system from the 1840's next to a bone-saw kit from the late 1700's. Ouch.
But it wasn't all fun and games and tea (although we did buy a new game, and we did drink a lot of tea). We were also there to learn. While Danny went to the Bodleian library to read the records of the conservative party, I began in earnest my foray into the social sciences. It was really great to think about the more large-scale aspects of health, rather than just how we treat diseases. Topics ranged from the fairly straightforward (do policies to include patients in safety efforts work, and what determines whether patients want to get involved) to the obscure-but-thought-provoking (focusing on social governance and the fate of all humanity rather than politial and economic gains).
The keynote address happened to be by Ted Marmor, on the recent health care reform in the US, and how we managed to get a "Republican style" plan that no republicans voted for (answer? US senate structure. and some other stuff). But he is hopeful that some of the new laws regarding private insurance may pave the way towards more universal, if not single payer, health care.
Another point that was driven home in this conference is that in the UK, health care policy changes all the time. Yes, the NHS has been in place since 1948, but they (politicians) feel the need to make some slight change every 2-3 years - changing the details GP contracts, changing public health priorities, changing the flow of money. All of which of course means that there's very little time to evaluate policies, and everyone does so under the assumption that they will just change in a few years away. And doctors have just gotten used to the idea that while the policies change constantly, once the dust settles they will go back to practicing medicine as usual. Whether that will be the case with the new White Paper, though, is anyone's guess. But more on that later. For now, it's off to Salzburg!
Oxford may only be the 6th best university in the world (thanks, Stephen, for posting the link), but it's still an amazing place for a weekend trip and conference! Thanks to my cushy connections at the LSHTM, I got to attend a Health Policy conference earlier this week, held at Madgalen College in Oxford. The conference was Monday and Tuesday, but Danny and I headed out on Sunday morning to see just how Oxford compared to Cambridge (which, incidentally, just leaped over Harvard for best university in the world). Although the hands-down verdict is that Cambridge is better (I mean, who punts from inside the boat?!), we had a great time. Highlights of the visit included:
- Visiting Christ Church (which is a college, not a church, although it does have quite a large church), where some scenes from Harry Potter 1 and 2 were filmed, and where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was inspired to write Alice in Wonderland. Alice was the young daughter of the dean of the college. Every night after dinner the dean would leave via a hidden door and back staircase - the white rabbit was based on him. Alice also had a cat named Dinah who would sit in a tree next to the library.
- Listening to bees. Just so you're assured that Oxford does have a hippy-dippy side, we visited a socio-ecological project where a guy has set up 2 bee hives, with a stethescope in each one so you can sit and listen to the bees doing their thing. It was pretty cool.
- Cream tea
- Dinner at one of Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurants. Tired of going to pubs and finding just one veggie option, we splurged for some home-made Italian goodness. And it was good.
- The Ashmolean museum: art and old things.
- The Museum of the History of Science. Lots of beautiful, hand-made astronomical tools that I don't understand, the original 1940 journal describing the use of penicillin (not that long ago!), several of Marconi's first radios, and a chilling display of the first anesthesia delivery system from the 1840's next to a bone-saw kit from the late 1700's. Ouch.
But it wasn't all fun and games and tea (although we did buy a new game, and we did drink a lot of tea). We were also there to learn. While Danny went to the Bodleian library to read the records of the conservative party, I began in earnest my foray into the social sciences. It was really great to think about the more large-scale aspects of health, rather than just how we treat diseases. Topics ranged from the fairly straightforward (do policies to include patients in safety efforts work, and what determines whether patients want to get involved) to the obscure-but-thought-provoking (focusing on social governance and the fate of all humanity rather than politial and economic gains).
The keynote address happened to be by Ted Marmor, on the recent health care reform in the US, and how we managed to get a "Republican style" plan that no republicans voted for (answer? US senate structure. and some other stuff). But he is hopeful that some of the new laws regarding private insurance may pave the way towards more universal, if not single payer, health care.
Another point that was driven home in this conference is that in the UK, health care policy changes all the time. Yes, the NHS has been in place since 1948, but they (politicians) feel the need to make some slight change every 2-3 years - changing the details GP contracts, changing public health priorities, changing the flow of money. All of which of course means that there's very little time to evaluate policies, and everyone does so under the assumption that they will just change in a few years away. And doctors have just gotten used to the idea that while the policies change constantly, once the dust settles they will go back to practicing medicine as usual. Whether that will be the case with the new White Paper, though, is anyone's guess. But more on that later. For now, it's off to Salzburg!
A day at Lord's
We had hoped to go to the 5th day of the England-Pakistan Test at Lord's. You know, the one in which Stuart Broad cemented his place as a real Test batsman. But as it turned out, the Test finished halfway through the 4th day, with the shadows of spot-fixing allegations hanging over the Pakistan team. So our hopes to see Test cricket at the home of cricket were dashed.
Instead, we opted for a rather less significant match: a Pro40 one-day match between Middlesex and Derbyshire last Saturday. Last Saturday was a pleasant day, so why not spend it outside?
The match itself was a pretty tame affair: a 7-wicket win for Middlesex, with little sense of any other possible result for most of the afternoon. So rather than you a rather boring recap of the game action, here's a series of observations about watching a domestic cricket match at Lord's, the home of cricket on a Saturday afternoon in late summer.
But first, evidence that we were there:
Becca with the Media Centre.
Danny with the Pavillion.
- Beer is cheap. Well, cheap by pub standards. You're going to pay £4 for a pint of ale, whereas I think the priciest pint in a pub I've had in London is somewhere around £3.60. But given that you're at a professional sporting event, £4 is dirt cheap. Those of you who have been to Fenway recently know how much beer at a baseball game will set you back. And remember, here in England it comes in pints.
- People dress up to watch cricket. I suspect that this is much more common at Lord's (with its connection to the Marylebone Cricket Club, a sort of old-fashioned gentleman's club with a special interest in cricket), but still, it's rather striking to view to see dozens of men dressed in blazers and ties while drinking beer on a Saturday afternoon.
- Some of the best players in the world play before small crowds in domestic matches. I can't find any attendance figures for the match we went to, but I'd say that there were no more than 1,000 fans in attendance, most of them clustered together on one side of the pitch. This, in spite of the fact that England captain Andrew Strauss turned out for Middlesex. It was a bit of a shock to see him fielding, rather anonymously, at square-leg, just 15 meters away from us.
- Speaking of close contact with England players, we happened to find ourselves just a few steps behind fast bowler Steven Finn as we wandered around the stadium. At first I thought it was just a fan wearing the Middlesex kit. But we quickly realized that there aren't many fans that are 6'7". So there he was, just walking back to the dressing room as we wandered back to our seats.
- Pimm's and Lemonade on tap!
If you happen to be in London this weekend and want to see English cricket at its amateurish best, the final of the Village Cricket Cup is at 11:00 on Saturday morning at Lord's. Shipton-under-Wychwood versus Sessay for all the marbles.
Instead, we opted for a rather less significant match: a Pro40 one-day match between Middlesex and Derbyshire last Saturday. Last Saturday was a pleasant day, so why not spend it outside?
The match itself was a pretty tame affair: a 7-wicket win for Middlesex, with little sense of any other possible result for most of the afternoon. So rather than you a rather boring recap of the game action, here's a series of observations about watching a domestic cricket match at Lord's, the home of cricket on a Saturday afternoon in late summer.
But first, evidence that we were there:
Becca with the Media Centre.
Danny with the Pavillion.
- Beer is cheap. Well, cheap by pub standards. You're going to pay £4 for a pint of ale, whereas I think the priciest pint in a pub I've had in London is somewhere around £3.60. But given that you're at a professional sporting event, £4 is dirt cheap. Those of you who have been to Fenway recently know how much beer at a baseball game will set you back. And remember, here in England it comes in pints.
- People dress up to watch cricket. I suspect that this is much more common at Lord's (with its connection to the Marylebone Cricket Club, a sort of old-fashioned gentleman's club with a special interest in cricket), but still, it's rather striking to view to see dozens of men dressed in blazers and ties while drinking beer on a Saturday afternoon.
- Some of the best players in the world play before small crowds in domestic matches. I can't find any attendance figures for the match we went to, but I'd say that there were no more than 1,000 fans in attendance, most of them clustered together on one side of the pitch. This, in spite of the fact that England captain Andrew Strauss turned out for Middlesex. It was a bit of a shock to see him fielding, rather anonymously, at square-leg, just 15 meters away from us.
- Speaking of close contact with England players, we happened to find ourselves just a few steps behind fast bowler Steven Finn as we wandered around the stadium. At first I thought it was just a fan wearing the Middlesex kit. But we quickly realized that there aren't many fans that are 6'7". So there he was, just walking back to the dressing room as we wandered back to our seats.
If you happen to be in London this weekend and want to see English cricket at its amateurish best, the final of the Village Cricket Cup is at 11:00 on Saturday morning at Lord's. Shipton-under-Wychwood versus Sessay for all the marbles.
Historians' quest for context in the archive
What do you do when you find the same sort of letter over and over again in the archives? Like, say, this one:
I'll return to this letter in a minute.
Historians are big on context. When teaching undergraduate students, this can be as basic as developing reading skills: Be sure to read around the passage or phrase you're interested in to make sense of it. Be skeptical of claims based on quotations that seem too good to be true. Things get more complicated when you consider the full document that a quotation is drawn from.
At another level, historians are interested in the circumstances in which events occur and ideas develop. Unlike scholars in some disciplines who seek out "master factors" that explain everything, historians are suckers for making sure their stories incorporate lots of contextual information. At its worst, this can degenerate into mere description and lose any analytic rigor. But at its best, this "quest for context" (as I've heard Robert Self describe historians' project) helps us gain a richer understanding of the complexity and diversity of the human experience.
Now, back to that letter (go ahead, click on it). On first reading, it doesn't seem that promising a source for the historian of religious education. It's on a rather mundane topic: who should pay for particular educational materials, the Local Education Authority (think school board) or individual "voluntary" schools (schools that received some state funding but remained under the control of third-party, typically religious organizations). Letters that contain the phrase "requisitioned in the usual way" aren't exactly the sort of thing that inspire excitement.
If you read a bit more closely and realize exactly what sort of education materials are at issue, the letter becomes more interesting. This isn't a letter about math textbooks or art supplies. Instead, what the letter-writer wants to know is whether the LEA is allowed to buy prayer books for local church schools. Now things are starting to get juicy, right? You'd never see anything like this in the United States. State funds going to purchase explicitly religious materials for explicitly religious schools? Welcome to post-WWII England.
So far, so good. But this is just one letter. Perhaps the Isle of Wight education authority was just super-careful and wanted to make absolutely sure that they could pay for prayer books requested by voluntary schools (as the law in fact permitted them to do).
In fact, there are dozens of letters just like this in the records of the Ministry of Education. So many, in fact, that you get a clear sense of just how exasperated ministry officials were getting with these information requests. After reading a few of these letters, I could practically write the replies myself, "The local education authority is required to provide the funds for regular education expenses for voluntary schools, including religious education, as long as the costs are reasonable."
It wasn't just the Isle of Wight, in other words, that was unsure about the regulations surrounding religious education in the 1944 Education Act. Across England, education authorities pestered the Ministry of Education about what sort of religious education they could and couldn't pay for. In some cases, it's clear that the LEA wanted to support the denominational voluntary schools but were uncertain if the law allowed them to do so. In others, like the West Riding of Yorkshire, the education authority, more secularist in outlook, had to be leaned on rather heavily by the Ministry of Education to fulfill its statutory obligation.
But there's a thread that connects all these letters: the question of "denominational" education. In letter after letter, you see the phrases "denominational instruction," "distinctive of any denomination," and the like. A phrase that seems technical or mundane in just one letter assumes far greater import when it's inescapable.
So I would argue that this letter only makes sense in the context of the dozens of other letters raising the exact same issue. The existence of so many letters on one topic reveals something deeper than any single letter on its own can suggest: that there was widespread confusion and anxiety about what constituted "denominational" religious instruction in the immediate aftermath of the 1944 Education Act. This claim can also be spun into a larger discussion of denominational conflict in the immediate postwar era (of which there was plenty).
The historian's task, then, is more than just collecting a series of texts and reporting on their contents. Historians have to look for connections across documents. And it is those connections that allow the historian to transcend the particularities of any given piece of evidence to make broader claims about the past.
Historians are big on context. When teaching undergraduate students, this can be as basic as developing reading skills: Be sure to read around the passage or phrase you're interested in to make sense of it. Be skeptical of claims based on quotations that seem too good to be true. Things get more complicated when you consider the full document that a quotation is drawn from.
At another level, historians are interested in the circumstances in which events occur and ideas develop. Unlike scholars in some disciplines who seek out "master factors" that explain everything, historians are suckers for making sure their stories incorporate lots of contextual information. At its worst, this can degenerate into mere description and lose any analytic rigor. But at its best, this "quest for context" (as I've heard Robert Self describe historians' project) helps us gain a richer understanding of the complexity and diversity of the human experience.
Now, back to that letter (go ahead, click on it). On first reading, it doesn't seem that promising a source for the historian of religious education. It's on a rather mundane topic: who should pay for particular educational materials, the Local Education Authority (think school board) or individual "voluntary" schools (schools that received some state funding but remained under the control of third-party, typically religious organizations). Letters that contain the phrase "requisitioned in the usual way" aren't exactly the sort of thing that inspire excitement.
If you read a bit more closely and realize exactly what sort of education materials are at issue, the letter becomes more interesting. This isn't a letter about math textbooks or art supplies. Instead, what the letter-writer wants to know is whether the LEA is allowed to buy prayer books for local church schools. Now things are starting to get juicy, right? You'd never see anything like this in the United States. State funds going to purchase explicitly religious materials for explicitly religious schools? Welcome to post-WWII England.
So far, so good. But this is just one letter. Perhaps the Isle of Wight education authority was just super-careful and wanted to make absolutely sure that they could pay for prayer books requested by voluntary schools (as the law in fact permitted them to do).
In fact, there are dozens of letters just like this in the records of the Ministry of Education. So many, in fact, that you get a clear sense of just how exasperated ministry officials were getting with these information requests. After reading a few of these letters, I could practically write the replies myself, "The local education authority is required to provide the funds for regular education expenses for voluntary schools, including religious education, as long as the costs are reasonable."
It wasn't just the Isle of Wight, in other words, that was unsure about the regulations surrounding religious education in the 1944 Education Act. Across England, education authorities pestered the Ministry of Education about what sort of religious education they could and couldn't pay for. In some cases, it's clear that the LEA wanted to support the denominational voluntary schools but were uncertain if the law allowed them to do so. In others, like the West Riding of Yorkshire, the education authority, more secularist in outlook, had to be leaned on rather heavily by the Ministry of Education to fulfill its statutory obligation.
But there's a thread that connects all these letters: the question of "denominational" education. In letter after letter, you see the phrases "denominational instruction," "distinctive of any denomination," and the like. A phrase that seems technical or mundane in just one letter assumes far greater import when it's inescapable.
So I would argue that this letter only makes sense in the context of the dozens of other letters raising the exact same issue. The existence of so many letters on one topic reveals something deeper than any single letter on its own can suggest: that there was widespread confusion and anxiety about what constituted "denominational" religious instruction in the immediate aftermath of the 1944 Education Act. This claim can also be spun into a larger discussion of denominational conflict in the immediate postwar era (of which there was plenty).
The historian's task, then, is more than just collecting a series of texts and reporting on their contents. Historians have to look for connections across documents. And it is those connections that allow the historian to transcend the particularities of any given piece of evidence to make broader claims about the past.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Bank Holiday Weekend
Finally took a photo of a Vegetarian Full English Breakfast. The lighting is weird because we were eating outside!
Last weekend (August 28-30th) was a bank holiday weekend. Why? Because, as my boss put it, "In the UK we actually get holidays, though not nearly as many as Continental Europe." In addition to the expected public holidays (Easter, Christmas, New Years Day, and the Queens Diamond Jubilee to be held in 2012), there are three Bank Holiday Mondays - two of which are inexplicably held in May (Early May Bank Holiday and Spring Bank Holiday), and one on the last weekend in August. How to celebrate? It was too late to make reservations to take a true vacation, since most of England plans a weekend getaway, but we did take a day trip out of London to the New Forest
National Park.
The New Forest is a good example of the difference between natural beauty in the US vs. UK. While some parts of Northern England and Scotland and North Wales are impressive, much of English beauty is more...subtle. The New Forest would never be a National Park in the US. It is mostly open grass pastures with grazing cows, horses and ponies, interspersed with pretty forests and small towns with thatched roofs. But the great thing about the New Forest is the cycling trails - many miles of cycle-only trails, and plenty of pubs and tea rooms to keep cyclists refreshed. Just an hour and half train ride from London, it's the perfect day trip! You just have to be careful, because there are often ponies on the road, on the cycle trail, and just outside the pubs...
Sunday was unimpressive in terms of what we did, although we did check out a new farmers market, which is always exciting. On Monday we ventured down to the famous Notting Hill Carnival, which is held every August Bank Holiday. Apparently it's the "largest street festival in Europe", and I'd believe it. It's an impressive West Indian cultural festival, with a parade and some of the most spectacular costumes
I've ever seen. It's also an impressive display of young Londoners' eagerness to get drunk in the middle of the day (you could buy shots at tables set up on the sidewalk), and their ability to tolerate huge crushes of people. We left relatively early to go play ultimate with Curve - we hadn't been in over a month! Then we came home and made Shakshuka. All in all a great weekend!
Last weekend (August 28-30th) was a bank holiday weekend. Why? Because, as my boss put it, "In the UK we actually get holidays, though not nearly as many as Continental Europe." In addition to the expected public holidays (Easter, Christmas, New Years Day, and the Queens Diamond Jubilee to be held in 2012), there are three Bank Holiday Mondays - two of which are inexplicably held in May (Early May Bank Holiday and Spring Bank Holiday), and one on the last weekend in August. How to celebrate? It was too late to make reservations to take a true vacation, since most of England plans a weekend getaway, but we did take a day trip out of London to the New Forest
National Park.The New Forest is a good example of the difference between natural beauty in the US vs. UK. While some parts of Northern England and Scotland and North Wales are impressive, much of English beauty is more...subtle. The New Forest would never be a National Park in the US. It is mostly open grass pastures with grazing cows, horses and ponies, interspersed with pretty forests and small towns with thatched roofs. But the great thing about the New Forest is the cycling trails - many miles of cycle-only trails, and plenty of pubs and tea rooms to keep cyclists refreshed. Just an hour and half train ride from London, it's the perfect day trip! You just have to be careful, because there are often ponies on the road, on the cycle trail, and just outside the pubs...
Sunday was unimpressive in terms of what we did, although we did check out a new farmers market, which is always exciting. On Monday we ventured down to the famous Notting Hill Carnival, which is held every August Bank Holiday. Apparently it's the "largest street festival in Europe", and I'd believe it. It's an impressive West Indian cultural festival, with a parade and some of the most spectacular costumes
I've ever seen. It's also an impressive display of young Londoners' eagerness to get drunk in the middle of the day (you could buy shots at tables set up on the sidewalk), and their ability to tolerate huge crushes of people. We left relatively early to go play ultimate with Curve - we hadn't been in over a month! Then we came home and made Shakshuka. All in all a great weekend!
Friday, September 3, 2010
Best discovery of the week
Our local pub, the Star, has an upstairs room with 1) a comfy couch, 2) a big-screen TV with the football on, 3) a fireplace, and 4) no one else there tonight. Throw in beer from the bar downstairs and it's like a cozy second living room around the corner from us.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Why has my only post in the past week been about cricket?
To answer that question, I present a photograph:
This one should be self-explanatory. So minus mailing a transcript request form and sending in a photo, my residency application is done! Which is just in time, because the next 6 weeks are an exciting stream of visitors (parents! friends!), vacations (Salzburg! Denmark! Glasgow!), and conferences (Oxford for me, Rennes for Danny). Throw the high holy days and my birthday in there, and it's looking pretty busy. But busy with awesomeness, and hopefully with blogging about that awesomeness!
This one should be self-explanatory. So minus mailing a transcript request form and sending in a photo, my residency application is done! Which is just in time, because the next 6 weeks are an exciting stream of visitors (parents! friends!), vacations (Salzburg! Denmark! Glasgow!), and conferences (Oxford for me, Rennes for Danny). Throw the high holy days and my birthday in there, and it's looking pretty busy. But busy with awesomeness, and hopefully with blogging about that awesomeness!
Friday, August 27, 2010
47 for 5 to 346 for 7, or, Draco can bat
I don't know if I've sparked anyone's curiosity about cricket, but if you have even the faintest interest, the Test match between England and Pakistan that's going on right now at Lord's, here in London, is about as good as it gets.
Today's play was just astonishing: in the first 15 minutes, Pakistani bowler Mohammad Amir ripped through England's batting line-up, taking four wickets in eight balls without allowing any runs. England had scored 47 runs and lost five wickets. To baseball fans, 47 runs sounds like a lot. But in cricket, when many matches have at least one player who scores 100 runs by himself, 47 runs is practically nothing.
At this point, I predicted that England would struggle to get to 80 runs.
They promptly went on to get to 346, with three wickets still to go. To put this into perspective, at 11:30 this morning, it looked as if Pakistan would roll to victory in this match, possibly by Sunday evening. By the time play ended, the chances of England losing are minimal, with victory very much theirs for the taking.
And that captures what I love about Test cricket: the possibility that, until the very end of the game, either team can win. In most sports, when you have a big lead, you can just run out the clock. In Test cricket, you can't win that way. You need to bowl out the opposition (twice, in fact), and until you do that, they still have a chance to win, no matter how slim. Today, England took full advantage of that chance. Still a long way to go, of course, but if you were following today's action, you may have witnessed one of the greatest reversals in Test history. Not quite Headingley in 1981, but not far off.
England's really hero of the day (Jonathan Trott's stubbornness at the crease notwithstanding) was Stuart Broad, who struck his first first Test century. Batting in the ninth spot in the line-up (i.e. way down), Broad came to the crease just after lunch with England at a precarious position: 102 runs on the board with 7 wickets down. He was still there at the end of the day, having scored 125 runs, 49 more than his previous best. He's a bowler, first and foremost, but there's always been talk of his batting potential. Today, that potential was fulfilled, and under the most pressure imaginable. Call it heresy, but I've got a feeling he's going to end up a better allrounder than Andrew Flintoff.
So if you've got some spare time tomorrow, give a listen to Test Match Special online. Even if you can't really follow the details of the match, the commentary is charming and you'll get a sense of the flow of the game. Also, a great collection of English accents, from the plummy Henry Blofeld to Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott. Seriously, give it a try - this is the time.
Update: Jonathan Agnew got it exactly right in his column on today's play: "But days like this can only happen in one sport, and the 26,000 or so here will never forget it."
Today's play was just astonishing: in the first 15 minutes, Pakistani bowler Mohammad Amir ripped through England's batting line-up, taking four wickets in eight balls without allowing any runs. England had scored 47 runs and lost five wickets. To baseball fans, 47 runs sounds like a lot. But in cricket, when many matches have at least one player who scores 100 runs by himself, 47 runs is practically nothing.
At this point, I predicted that England would struggle to get to 80 runs.
They promptly went on to get to 346, with three wickets still to go. To put this into perspective, at 11:30 this morning, it looked as if Pakistan would roll to victory in this match, possibly by Sunday evening. By the time play ended, the chances of England losing are minimal, with victory very much theirs for the taking.
And that captures what I love about Test cricket: the possibility that, until the very end of the game, either team can win. In most sports, when you have a big lead, you can just run out the clock. In Test cricket, you can't win that way. You need to bowl out the opposition (twice, in fact), and until you do that, they still have a chance to win, no matter how slim. Today, England took full advantage of that chance. Still a long way to go, of course, but if you were following today's action, you may have witnessed one of the greatest reversals in Test history. Not quite Headingley in 1981, but not far off.
So if you've got some spare time tomorrow, give a listen to Test Match Special online. Even if you can't really follow the details of the match, the commentary is charming and you'll get a sense of the flow of the game. Also, a great collection of English accents, from the plummy Henry Blofeld to Yorkshireman Geoffrey Boycott. Seriously, give it a try - this is the time.
Update: Jonathan Agnew got it exactly right in his column on today's play: "But days like this can only happen in one sport, and the 26,000 or so here will never forget it."
Explaining Cricket
Okay, before I start on this most difficult task, RPOTD:
The vegetarian alternative to a sausage - baguette with cheddar, smothered in onion and real ale chutney.
Okay, now it may seem a little strange that I am writing this post and not Danny, but we decided that since I wasn't quite as deeply embedded in cricket stats and history, maybe I would have a better perspective on how to explain it to people who know nothing about it. My goal is to explain this humorous description that's been hanging in our bathroom for the last 4 years:
Object of the Game:
There are two teams, and the object is to score more runs than the other team. Like most other sports, this is done through a combination of scoring lots of runs, and preventing the other teams from scoring too many. Good so far?
Overall Structure of the Game:
Each team has 11 members. I didn't want to use too many baseball analogies, but I will use this one: imagine a baseball game with only two innings, where one team bats, then the other teams bats, then they each bat one more time, then the game is over. That's cricket.
The Pitch:
A cricket pitch, or field, is a large grass oval, and in the middle there is a thin dirt rectangle, called the wicket. At each end of the wicket there are three wooden posts, with two small pieces of wood bridging the top. These are called the stumps. The main action of the game takes place on the wicket, but there are defensive fielders on the rest of the pitch. Fielding positions are fairly fluid, though there are people who specialize in being far from the wicket, and some who specialize in being close to the batsman.
Central Tension:
The main interactions of the game involves 2 people batting, and 2 people throwing the ball towards them, called bowling. At any given moment, however, there is only one bowler bowling to one batsman - the other bowler and batsman stand to the side of the stumps and watch. The batsmen stands in front of his stumps and swings his bat to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps. By hitting the ball he can also score runs (see below). Each bowler goes 6 times from one end of the wicket (6 balls is called an over), then the other bowler goes 6 times from the other end of the wicket, and they go back and forth, bowling to whichever batsman is on the opposite end of the wicket. Also, the physical act of bowling is quite strange to watch at first, and bowlers must keep their arm straight for the entire bowling motion, and they are often trying to bounce the ball off the ground in funny ways.
Scoring Runs:
Each time the batsman hit the ball, there are several options. If the ball doesn't go very far, he can just stand there and wait for a fielder to throw the ball back in to the bowler. This does not score any runs. This is totally fine and happens a lot. If the ball goes a moderate distance, he and the other runner can each run to the opposite stump, crossing in the middle - this gets them a point. If the ball is still out in the field they can switch again, for another point, and so on. However, if the ball is hit a long way and rolls all the way to the boundary of the pitch, this is an automatic 4 points. If this ball is really given a good whack and clears the boundary in the air, it's a automatic 6 points.
Getting Out:
While the batsmen are hitting balls, trying to run back and forth, the bowlers are trying to get them out, and there are several ways that this can happen. If the batsmen misses and the ball hits the stumps, it is out (bowled). If the batsmen hits it in the air and it is caught, it is out (caught). If the batsmen try to run back and forth and one of the fielders throws it back and hits the stump before the runner gets close to the stump, it is out (run out). If the batsman lets the ball his his leg (which has ample padding), and the umpire determines that the ball would have hit the stumps if it hadn't his the batsman's leg first, it is out (leg before wicket, or LBW). In other works, you can't defend the stumps with your body. These are the main ways you can get out. I should also point out that there is some confusing terminology here. While a wicket describes the middle, getting people out is described as "taking wickets", and getting out is "losing wickets".
Overall Game Play:
Like any good game, it starts with a coin toss. The winner of the toss decides, based on the weather and conditions of the pitch, if they want to field first, or if they want to "have a bat." The fielding team, all 11 of them, go out on the field: 2 bowlers and 9 other fielders in various positions. The batting team has established a batting order, and the first two batsmen put on their kit, or pads, and go out to the wicket. Everyone else on the batting team sits in the clubhouse, watching and eating candy. The first bowler bowls 6 times, then the next bowler goes 6 times, etc, trying to get the batsmen out in one of the 4 ways described above, and the bowlers try not to get out and to score runs. If one of the batsmen gets out, he goes back to the bench to eat candy, and the next batsmen comes in. It continues like this until 10 of the batsmen have gotten out, even though the last person is "not out", because you can't play with just 1 batsmen. Then the teams switch - the team that was batting now goes out into the field, and the team that was in the field puts their first two batsmen onto the wicket. This cycle goes through twice, so each team bats twice and each team fields twice.
And in terms of bowling, any given team has 4 or 5 people who specialize in bowling. They tend to be less good at batting, though there is the occasional all-rounder. So at any given time 2 of these bowlers are taking the position of the bowler, and the other 2 or 3 are just part of the fielding positions. The bowlers can move in and out of the bowling positions fairly fluidly throughout the game.
Duration of the Game:
What's I've described is a multi-day match, which is the traditional form of the game. This can either be 4 or 5 days. So it's an approximation that in a 4 day match, each team will bat for about a day, then field for a day, then bat for a day, then field for a day. But of course this is subject to a huge amount of variation. In today's match, as Danny has discussed, England lost 4 wickets in about 10 minutes, which if you extrapolated suggested that England might only bat for 30 minutes! However, if the batsmen are doing really well, your team could be batting for almost 2 days. There's also a lot of individual variation - today Kevin Pietersen got out on the first ball bowled to him, while Jonathan Trott stood out there and batted ALL DAY. So unlike many other sports, in these multi-day matches it's generally more important to bat for a long time and focus on not getting out than to try an score runs quickly. So the progress of the game is really measured in how many outs have been made.
A Note about Scores:
In these long matches, scores are in the multiple hundreds. The best batsmen are hoping to score 100 runs by themselves, called a century. The record for most runs scored by a single batsmen in one match is by Brian Lara of the West Indies, 400 and not out. The most runs a team has scored in one turn batting is 952 by Sri Lanka in 1997. So the 346 that England scored today, with 7 outs, is very respectable.
Exceptions to these rules:
Way to many too list here, of course. There are some shortened versions of the game, some situations where a team might bat twice in a row, sometimes when getting points quickly is essential, bad weather conditions that truncate the match, etc. But that is the basic premise of the game.
Howzat!?
The vegetarian alternative to a sausage - baguette with cheddar, smothered in onion and real ale chutney.
Okay, now it may seem a little strange that I am writing this post and not Danny, but we decided that since I wasn't quite as deeply embedded in cricket stats and history, maybe I would have a better perspective on how to explain it to people who know nothing about it. My goal is to explain this humorous description that's been hanging in our bathroom for the last 4 years:
Object of the Game:
There are two teams, and the object is to score more runs than the other team. Like most other sports, this is done through a combination of scoring lots of runs, and preventing the other teams from scoring too many. Good so far?
Overall Structure of the Game:
Each team has 11 members. I didn't want to use too many baseball analogies, but I will use this one: imagine a baseball game with only two innings, where one team bats, then the other teams bats, then they each bat one more time, then the game is over. That's cricket.
The Pitch:
A cricket pitch, or field, is a large grass oval, and in the middle there is a thin dirt rectangle, called the wicket. At each end of the wicket there are three wooden posts, with two small pieces of wood bridging the top. These are called the stumps. The main action of the game takes place on the wicket, but there are defensive fielders on the rest of the pitch. Fielding positions are fairly fluid, though there are people who specialize in being far from the wicket, and some who specialize in being close to the batsman.
Central Tension:
The main interactions of the game involves 2 people batting, and 2 people throwing the ball towards them, called bowling. At any given moment, however, there is only one bowler bowling to one batsman - the other bowler and batsman stand to the side of the stumps and watch. The batsmen stands in front of his stumps and swings his bat to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps. By hitting the ball he can also score runs (see below). Each bowler goes 6 times from one end of the wicket (6 balls is called an over), then the other bowler goes 6 times from the other end of the wicket, and they go back and forth, bowling to whichever batsman is on the opposite end of the wicket. Also, the physical act of bowling is quite strange to watch at first, and bowlers must keep their arm straight for the entire bowling motion, and they are often trying to bounce the ball off the ground in funny ways.
Scoring Runs:
Each time the batsman hit the ball, there are several options. If the ball doesn't go very far, he can just stand there and wait for a fielder to throw the ball back in to the bowler. This does not score any runs. This is totally fine and happens a lot. If the ball goes a moderate distance, he and the other runner can each run to the opposite stump, crossing in the middle - this gets them a point. If the ball is still out in the field they can switch again, for another point, and so on. However, if the ball is hit a long way and rolls all the way to the boundary of the pitch, this is an automatic 4 points. If this ball is really given a good whack and clears the boundary in the air, it's a automatic 6 points.
Getting Out:
While the batsmen are hitting balls, trying to run back and forth, the bowlers are trying to get them out, and there are several ways that this can happen. If the batsmen misses and the ball hits the stumps, it is out (bowled). If the batsmen hits it in the air and it is caught, it is out (caught). If the batsmen try to run back and forth and one of the fielders throws it back and hits the stump before the runner gets close to the stump, it is out (run out). If the batsman lets the ball his his leg (which has ample padding), and the umpire determines that the ball would have hit the stumps if it hadn't his the batsman's leg first, it is out (leg before wicket, or LBW). In other works, you can't defend the stumps with your body. These are the main ways you can get out. I should also point out that there is some confusing terminology here. While a wicket describes the middle, getting people out is described as "taking wickets", and getting out is "losing wickets".
Overall Game Play:
Like any good game, it starts with a coin toss. The winner of the toss decides, based on the weather and conditions of the pitch, if they want to field first, or if they want to "have a bat." The fielding team, all 11 of them, go out on the field: 2 bowlers and 9 other fielders in various positions. The batting team has established a batting order, and the first two batsmen put on their kit, or pads, and go out to the wicket. Everyone else on the batting team sits in the clubhouse, watching and eating candy. The first bowler bowls 6 times, then the next bowler goes 6 times, etc, trying to get the batsmen out in one of the 4 ways described above, and the bowlers try not to get out and to score runs. If one of the batsmen gets out, he goes back to the bench to eat candy, and the next batsmen comes in. It continues like this until 10 of the batsmen have gotten out, even though the last person is "not out", because you can't play with just 1 batsmen. Then the teams switch - the team that was batting now goes out into the field, and the team that was in the field puts their first two batsmen onto the wicket. This cycle goes through twice, so each team bats twice and each team fields twice.
And in terms of bowling, any given team has 4 or 5 people who specialize in bowling. They tend to be less good at batting, though there is the occasional all-rounder. So at any given time 2 of these bowlers are taking the position of the bowler, and the other 2 or 3 are just part of the fielding positions. The bowlers can move in and out of the bowling positions fairly fluidly throughout the game.
Duration of the Game:
What's I've described is a multi-day match, which is the traditional form of the game. This can either be 4 or 5 days. So it's an approximation that in a 4 day match, each team will bat for about a day, then field for a day, then bat for a day, then field for a day. But of course this is subject to a huge amount of variation. In today's match, as Danny has discussed, England lost 4 wickets in about 10 minutes, which if you extrapolated suggested that England might only bat for 30 minutes! However, if the batsmen are doing really well, your team could be batting for almost 2 days. There's also a lot of individual variation - today Kevin Pietersen got out on the first ball bowled to him, while Jonathan Trott stood out there and batted ALL DAY. So unlike many other sports, in these multi-day matches it's generally more important to bat for a long time and focus on not getting out than to try an score runs quickly. So the progress of the game is really measured in how many outs have been made.
A Note about Scores:
In these long matches, scores are in the multiple hundreds. The best batsmen are hoping to score 100 runs by themselves, called a century. The record for most runs scored by a single batsmen in one match is by Brian Lara of the West Indies, 400 and not out. The most runs a team has scored in one turn batting is 952 by Sri Lanka in 1997. So the 346 that England scored today, with 7 outs, is very respectable.
Exceptions to these rules:
Way to many too list here, of course. There are some shortened versions of the game, some situations where a team might bat twice in a row, sometimes when getting points quickly is essential, bad weather conditions that truncate the match, etc. But that is the basic premise of the game.
Howzat!?
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Extension of a Sunday in North London
Take a swim in the Ladies Bathing Pond
Have a little extra time during that epic adventure on Hampstead Heath? Well, on your way up to the Kenwood Estate, why not take a dip in a chilly freshwater oasis in the middle of the city? I supposed this one is a little unfair to the gents, but only a little since they can just head down the hill to take a dip in the Mens bathing pond. The ladies bathing pond is truly serene. It is surrounded on all sides by trees, so it is just you, the sky, and the other intrepid ladies who want to swim on a brisk, windy day late in the English summer. Oh, and the ducks, who at this point are so used to their pond companions that they just paddle around with you. And after you swim you can soak up the day's last rays of sunshine, as you lay in one of the "meditation gardens", where no cell phones are allowed. Okay, so there's a bunch of leaves and sticks floating on much of the surface, as well as duck feathers, and there may be a blue-green algae bloom warning that discourages you from swallowing water or indeed putting your mouth under water at all. But all of that is a pretty fair trade-off for getting to feel like you're enjoying a Maine vacation, just over a mile from your doorstep.
Have a little extra time during that epic adventure on Hampstead Heath? Well, on your way up to the Kenwood Estate, why not take a dip in a chilly freshwater oasis in the middle of the city? I supposed this one is a little unfair to the gents, but only a little since they can just head down the hill to take a dip in the Mens bathing pond. The ladies bathing pond is truly serene. It is surrounded on all sides by trees, so it is just you, the sky, and the other intrepid ladies who want to swim on a brisk, windy day late in the English summer. Oh, and the ducks, who at this point are so used to their pond companions that they just paddle around with you. And after you swim you can soak up the day's last rays of sunshine, as you lay in one of the "meditation gardens", where no cell phones are allowed. Okay, so there's a bunch of leaves and sticks floating on much of the surface, as well as duck feathers, and there may be a blue-green algae bloom warning that discourages you from swallowing water or indeed putting your mouth under water at all. But all of that is a pretty fair trade-off for getting to feel like you're enjoying a Maine vacation, just over a mile from your doorstep.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
How to spend a Sunday in North London
Walk up to Kenwood House on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath
Remind yourself that this used to be the countryside; Kenwood House was the estate of the 1st Earl of Mansfield during the 18th century. It was only in the nineteenth century, with the coming of the railway, that "London" began to reach this far north. It was only around the turn of the nineteenth century that London's population exceeded one million.
Get lost wandering in Hampstead Heath
At almost 800 acres, there's a lot to get lost in. Fortunately, there are landmarks throughout (roads, ponds, and the like). This isn't a wide-open green space like Hyde or Regent's Park. While there are open spaces, much of the Heath is wooded. On the whole, it feels quite wild and you can almost forget that the hum of central London is just a few miles away. Worst-case scenario if you get truly lost: walk in one direction long enough and you'll find yourself back in civilization. Still, not a bad idea to bring a map and compass.
All right, so it wasn't actually our plan to get lost. But it happened. Twice. As I said, it's wild and unruly on the Heath, with lots of twisting paths. It's all too easy to lose your sense of direction. But it does wonders for your sense of adventure.
If you find yourself in the neighborhood of North End (as we did), marvel at the fact that there are dirt-and-gravel roads in London.
Eat ice cream and look at the emus in Golders Hill Park
Though it's technically part of the Heath, it feels very different: manicured lawns, a "water garden," and the ubiquitous cafe. You can't have a park in London without an accompanying cafe. The mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes like summer.
Stroll down the hill to Hampstead
Always described as a "village-y" bit of London, it lives up to its reputation. Outside the pub prices (see below), you could imagine yourself having just found a respite from a long walk in the countryside (something we know about). A few Hampstead highlights:
- Have a pint at the Horsheshoe. The beer's not cheap (almost £4 a pint), but it's local (brewed downstairs) and good. Their wheat beer is the darkest I've seen.
- Hampstead Creperie. Not to miss. Seriously. We were just in Paris, and this blows the crepes we had in Paris out of the water (if my abstract gets accepted to a conference in Rennes, I'll be sure to report on how the Breton entry in the Great Crepe Competition of 2010 fares). Becca's choice: mushroom and cheese. Danny's honey and walnut.
After enjoying the charms of Hampstead, make your way home through South End Green, stopping for ingredients for dinner. Our recommendation: roasted garlic and sage risotto with walnuts, sauteed zucchini, and a Greek-ish salad. Finish it off with a caramel and cashew cheesecake and you've had yourself an awfully good day.
Remind yourself that this used to be the countryside; Kenwood House was the estate of the 1st Earl of Mansfield during the 18th century. It was only in the nineteenth century, with the coming of the railway, that "London" began to reach this far north. It was only around the turn of the nineteenth century that London's population exceeded one million.
Get lost wandering in Hampstead Heath
At almost 800 acres, there's a lot to get lost in. Fortunately, there are landmarks throughout (roads, ponds, and the like). This isn't a wide-open green space like Hyde or Regent's Park. While there are open spaces, much of the Heath is wooded. On the whole, it feels quite wild and you can almost forget that the hum of central London is just a few miles away. Worst-case scenario if you get truly lost: walk in one direction long enough and you'll find yourself back in civilization. Still, not a bad idea to bring a map and compass.
All right, so it wasn't actually our plan to get lost. But it happened. Twice. As I said, it's wild and unruly on the Heath, with lots of twisting paths. It's all too easy to lose your sense of direction. But it does wonders for your sense of adventure.
If you find yourself in the neighborhood of North End (as we did), marvel at the fact that there are dirt-and-gravel roads in London.
Eat ice cream and look at the emus in Golders Hill Park
Stroll down the hill to Hampstead
Always described as a "village-y" bit of London, it lives up to its reputation. Outside the pub prices (see below), you could imagine yourself having just found a respite from a long walk in the countryside (something we know about). A few Hampstead highlights:
- Have a pint at the Horsheshoe. The beer's not cheap (almost £4 a pint), but it's local (brewed downstairs) and good. Their wheat beer is the darkest I've seen.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Things to love about Britain
In the first 15 minutes of Would I Lie to You?, four different supermarket chains have been mentioned. Better yet, we apparently have been paying enough attention this past month or so to get the jokes about Waitrose, Asda, Tesco, and Sainsbury's.
Also, Rob Brydon doing an impression of Ronnie Corbett.
Also, Rob Brydon doing an impression of Ronnie Corbett.
À Paris!
I realize that the Random Photo Of The Day is kind of a misnomer, because I'm not blogging every day (lately it's barely been every week!), but I'm going to continue calling it that anyway:
More birds! The first day Jessica arrived (yay!) we set off immediately to see some of London's great sights - Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the posh shopping area of Knightsbridge, finished off with a trip to Harrods. Somewhere in the middle of the day we took a break in St. James Park, which is a green, peaceful oasis in the middle of the madness of central London. And it has pelicans! Jessica felt a little guilty for falling asleep on a park bench, but it actually worked out really well because the pelican and the heron took that time to pose for this perfect picture. Jessica will hopefully be doing a guest blog post later this week (an option for all visitors!), so I'll let her share more stories of what we did while she was here. But I will talk about Paris!
I'd like to say that I was able to resist the temptation of all the cliched Paris activities - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, etc, but it would be a lie. I had only been to Paris once before, for a few day in high school, and I don't really remember much of it except going up the Eiffel tower, so I felt that I had to start over. Luckily, even though Jessica had been there 5 times (!!!) and Danny had been there 3 times, they didn't object. I apologize in advance if this post just reads like a list of things we did - I'll try to provide some exciting commentary as well.
First of all, many thanks to Maike for recommending the Hotel Saphir - a nice location on the rive gauche, at a very reasonable price! The most exciting thing for me about this place was the shops it shared a street with -
at least 3 boulangeries, several fruit and vegetable grocers, a gelato stand, a lively café on the corner, and the most tempting cheese shop I've ever seen (Fromagerie Vacroux et Fils, slogan: "Sauvons Le Goût," which I think translates to "Savour the taste," or something like that.) I was charmed the minute we stepped off the metro and onto our little street.
Day one went something like this: dropped off stuff at hotel; bought croissants and a baguette; walked through cemetery Montparnasse (lots of Jewish headstones mixed in with Catholic and other religions, which I thought was very interesting); relaxed in the extremely french
Luxembourg gardens and ate said baguette (Frenchness is derived from the perfect organization); visited the beautiful churches St. Sulpice, which has an impressive organ, and St. German de Pres, which was incredibly dark because, as Danny put it, "They hadn't figured out how to do windows yet."; got crepes and cider at a Breton restaurant; walked to Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame cathedral, walked to Île Saint-Louis for the famous Berthillon ice cream 
(I got pear and gingerbread...soo delicious) and on the way passed some WWII-era movie being filmed; headed back toward the Louvre via the Hôtel de Ville, which was hosting a music festival that at that time was featuring French hip hop...later on in the evening was going to be the "French rival to Lady Gaga", and the Centre Pompidou (crepe #1 for Jessica - with Nutella); took advantage of the Louvre's late night hours on Fridays, where even though we split up, Jessica and I both decided we like Dutch art from the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque, apparently), and I just happened to bump into Danny in the Caravaggio section; walked back towards the hotel for a late and yummy dinner at Restaurant Polidor; finally crashed at the hotel, exhausted after our 5:25 train that morning!
I can't believe that was just one day! The second day followed a similar pattern of walking and eating, with maybe a church or museum thrown in. Basic rundown: missed breakfast at the hotel because we needed our sleep, which forced us to get more pastries on our street; walked directly to the other side of the river then sprawled out on the grass in well-planned square that is the Place des Vosges; enjoyed the small Victor Hugo museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived from 1832-1848 and houses quite a collection of letters, portraits, and examples of his gaudy taste in furniture; wandered around the Marais district of the city, which is both the traditionally Jewish neighborhood and a trendy shopping area (we got falafel for lunch and weathered a rain storm in an expansive bookstore); fought the crowds to get hot chocolate at Angelina's; wandered through the Tuileries to Place de la Concorde and down the Champs
Elysee with a destination of the Arc de Triomphe, but took a detour midway through to check out L'église de la Madeleine, a church in a neo-classical building that Danny remembered learning about way back in his Humanities class in high school; made the obligatory trip back across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, which you have to admit is a very impressive structure; got on the metro (Jessica and I split a crepe with strawberry jam on the way) to go to Montmartre to have dinner (a dinner which featured a cheese plate to die for); Jessica got her 3rd crepe of the trip - plain chocolate this time; took in the view of the city from the steps of the Sacré Coeur, where guys are walking around selling bottles of Heinekin - so weird; rode the metro back to our neighborhood, where Danny and I split a carafe of Côte du Rhône and Danny and Jessica got crepes (just sugar for Jessica this time) at the aforementioned café on the corner. What a great way to end a busy day!
The last day we just had the morning, as out train was leaving at 2:40pm. We decided we would either just wander the neighborhood and have a relaxed picnic lunch in the Parc Montsouris or see another museum, depending on the weather. We woke up and it was pouring - well then! We enjoyed baguettes with jam for breakfast, and we were joined by the tiny black cat that lived in the hotel. Jessica headed off to the Musée Cluny to look at old stuff, and Danny and I headed off to the Musée Marmottan to look at only moderately old stuff...impressionist painting, to be specific. Thanks to my mom for the tip on this museum! It was in a cute, quiet neighborhood, on the edge of a very nice park. A park that was home to a statue of Jean de la Fontaine,
with his Corbeau et le Renard! This may not mean much to most of you, but in AP French we had to memorize a poem each semester, and the first semester we all had to stand at the front of the class, one by one, and dutifully recite "Le Corbeau et le Renard...par Jean de la Fontaine". I still remember most of the poem, so seeing this statue was really amazing! The Monets at the Marmottan were also quite good. It was also nice to see a collection of paintings by Berthe Morisot, since female painters don't really have much of a presence.
We successfully met up with Jessica at Gare du Nord for our Eurostar train home. What a trip! The only sad part of the weekend was that we found out that Danny's family dog Buddye's bladder cancer had spread and that he really wasn't doing very well, so he was going to be put down on Sunday, the last day of our trip. We were hoping that if we raced home from the train station Danny would be able to see him on skype one last time, but unfortunately the train left 15 minutes late.
We miss you, Buddye - we hope doggy heaven is full of tennis balls, swimming pools, and belly rubs, and that there are never any thunderstorms. We know that there are lots of nice dogs there for you to play with...
More birds! The first day Jessica arrived (yay!) we set off immediately to see some of London's great sights - Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the posh shopping area of Knightsbridge, finished off with a trip to Harrods. Somewhere in the middle of the day we took a break in St. James Park, which is a green, peaceful oasis in the middle of the madness of central London. And it has pelicans! Jessica felt a little guilty for falling asleep on a park bench, but it actually worked out really well because the pelican and the heron took that time to pose for this perfect picture. Jessica will hopefully be doing a guest blog post later this week (an option for all visitors!), so I'll let her share more stories of what we did while she was here. But I will talk about Paris!I'd like to say that I was able to resist the temptation of all the cliched Paris activities - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, etc, but it would be a lie. I had only been to Paris once before, for a few day in high school, and I don't really remember much of it except going up the Eiffel tower, so I felt that I had to start over. Luckily, even though Jessica had been there 5 times (!!!) and Danny had been there 3 times, they didn't object. I apologize in advance if this post just reads like a list of things we did - I'll try to provide some exciting commentary as well.
First of all, many thanks to Maike for recommending the Hotel Saphir - a nice location on the rive gauche, at a very reasonable price! The most exciting thing for me about this place was the shops it shared a street with -
at least 3 boulangeries, several fruit and vegetable grocers, a gelato stand, a lively café on the corner, and the most tempting cheese shop I've ever seen (Fromagerie Vacroux et Fils, slogan: "Sauvons Le Goût," which I think translates to "Savour the taste," or something like that.) I was charmed the minute we stepped off the metro and onto our little street.Day one went something like this: dropped off stuff at hotel; bought croissants and a baguette; walked through cemetery Montparnasse (lots of Jewish headstones mixed in with Catholic and other religions, which I thought was very interesting); relaxed in the extremely french
Luxembourg gardens and ate said baguette (Frenchness is derived from the perfect organization); visited the beautiful churches St. Sulpice, which has an impressive organ, and St. German de Pres, which was incredibly dark because, as Danny put it, "They hadn't figured out how to do windows yet."; got crepes and cider at a Breton restaurant; walked to Île de la Cité to visit Notre Dame cathedral, walked to Île Saint-Louis for the famous Berthillon ice cream 
(I got pear and gingerbread...soo delicious) and on the way passed some WWII-era movie being filmed; headed back toward the Louvre via the Hôtel de Ville, which was hosting a music festival that at that time was featuring French hip hop...later on in the evening was going to be the "French rival to Lady Gaga", and the Centre Pompidou (crepe #1 for Jessica - with Nutella); took advantage of the Louvre's late night hours on Fridays, where even though we split up, Jessica and I both decided we like Dutch art from the 17th century (Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque, apparently), and I just happened to bump into Danny in the Caravaggio section; walked back towards the hotel for a late and yummy dinner at Restaurant Polidor; finally crashed at the hotel, exhausted after our 5:25 train that morning!I can't believe that was just one day! The second day followed a similar pattern of walking and eating, with maybe a church or museum thrown in. Basic rundown: missed breakfast at the hotel because we needed our sleep, which forced us to get more pastries on our street; walked directly to the other side of the river then sprawled out on the grass in well-planned square that is the Place des Vosges; enjoyed the small Victor Hugo museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived from 1832-1848 and houses quite a collection of letters, portraits, and examples of his gaudy taste in furniture; wandered around the Marais district of the city, which is both the traditionally Jewish neighborhood and a trendy shopping area (we got falafel for lunch and weathered a rain storm in an expansive bookstore); fought the crowds to get hot chocolate at Angelina's; wandered through the Tuileries to Place de la Concorde and down the Champs
Elysee with a destination of the Arc de Triomphe, but took a detour midway through to check out L'église de la Madeleine, a church in a neo-classical building that Danny remembered learning about way back in his Humanities class in high school; made the obligatory trip back across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, which you have to admit is a very impressive structure; got on the metro (Jessica and I split a crepe with strawberry jam on the way) to go to Montmartre to have dinner (a dinner which featured a cheese plate to die for); Jessica got her 3rd crepe of the trip - plain chocolate this time; took in the view of the city from the steps of the Sacré Coeur, where guys are walking around selling bottles of Heinekin - so weird; rode the metro back to our neighborhood, where Danny and I split a carafe of Côte du Rhône and Danny and Jessica got crepes (just sugar for Jessica this time) at the aforementioned café on the corner. What a great way to end a busy day!The last day we just had the morning, as out train was leaving at 2:40pm. We decided we would either just wander the neighborhood and have a relaxed picnic lunch in the Parc Montsouris or see another museum, depending on the weather. We woke up and it was pouring - well then! We enjoyed baguettes with jam for breakfast, and we were joined by the tiny black cat that lived in the hotel. Jessica headed off to the Musée Cluny to look at old stuff, and Danny and I headed off to the Musée Marmottan to look at only moderately old stuff...impressionist painting, to be specific. Thanks to my mom for the tip on this museum! It was in a cute, quiet neighborhood, on the edge of a very nice park. A park that was home to a statue of Jean de la Fontaine,
with his Corbeau et le Renard! This may not mean much to most of you, but in AP French we had to memorize a poem each semester, and the first semester we all had to stand at the front of the class, one by one, and dutifully recite "Le Corbeau et le Renard...par Jean de la Fontaine". I still remember most of the poem, so seeing this statue was really amazing! The Monets at the Marmottan were also quite good. It was also nice to see a collection of paintings by Berthe Morisot, since female painters don't really have much of a presence.We successfully met up with Jessica at Gare du Nord for our Eurostar train home. What a trip! The only sad part of the weekend was that we found out that Danny's family dog Buddye's bladder cancer had spread and that he really wasn't doing very well, so he was going to be put down on Sunday, the last day of our trip. We were hoping that if we raced home from the train station Danny would be able to see him on skype one last time, but unfortunately the train left 15 minutes late.
We miss you, Buddye - we hope doggy heaven is full of tennis balls, swimming pools, and belly rubs, and that there are never any thunderstorms. We know that there are lots of nice dogs there for you to play with...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Frantic catch-up post
It's been a while, we know. So instead of trying to get through the backlog in anything approaching thorough-ness, we'll give you the super-quick version of the last few weeks. Then we'll do our best to keep up in the future, I promise.
Wednesday, July 28 - Five Days in the Lake District, Part 5
The day began in Keswick, a town of pubs and outdoors stores. Seriously, there's not much else. I've never seen so many outdoors stores in such a small area. But given Keswick's centrality in the Lake District, it makes sense. After a lazy morning wandering around Keswick, we hopped on the bus to Carlisle, where we raced around the cathedral and castle. At the Carlisle train station, I practiced my forward defensive shot, much good that it did me.
Tuesday, August 3 - Our First Night of the Proms
Each summer, Royal Albert Hall hosts "the world's greatest classical music festival," a series of daily classical music concerts. Seats aren't cheap, but there's the wonderful tradition of "promming" - show up a few hours before the concert and buy a standing-room ticket for just £5. We went to Prom #23 and heard Fould's Dynamic Triptych, Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music and "The Lark Ascending," and Elgar's Symphony #1. We'll prom at least once more this summer, so we'll provide a fuller report then.
Thursday, August 5 - Went the Day Well? at the BFI Southbank
My adviser recommended this, a WWII film that imagines a German invasion of a strategically located English village. Full of simple English folk, from all walks of life, doing their duty. Rather charming.
Friday, August 6 - The National Gallery
We met up with a friend from college (and elementary school, in my case) at the National Gallery to see the exhibit on Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. If you have any doubt about the role that science plays in the art world these days, have a look. It also raises all sorts of questions about authenticity and the experience of seeing works of art - does a work suddenly become less powerful because it turns out that it was done by a student of Rembrandt rather than the master himself?
Sunday, August 8 - A day with the birds
Another nice day brought us out to the London Wetland Centre in Barnes. Wholly man-made, it has a zoo-like section with micro-climates supporting birds from around the world as well as a larger, more open area where you're on your own in terms of spotting the birds. I'll leave the list of birds we saw to Becca - she's much better at identifying them than I am. I'm pretty sure these guys are ducklings, though.
Monday, August 9 - Harrods
Becca's cousin arrived last Monday. She enjoys a good department store, and we hadn't been to the spectacle of Harrods yet, so off we went. Our visit was made all the more sweet by the fact that I had a gift certificate (thanks, Mom and Dad!) just waiting to be used on chocolate truffles. Harrods isn't really the sort of place where graduate students actually buy anything, so this was mostly a time for ogling. If only I had £1,200 for that smoking jacket...
Tuesday, August 10 - An afternoon at the palace
Liz and Phil spend their summers in Scotland, which means the likes of us get to scope out their place. A good day for it, too, since the rain that had been holding off for so long finally descended on us. What struck me is how you can trace the history of the British monarchy over the past few centuries through the changing styles and decorations of successive rooms.
Wednesday, August 11 - Othello in Waterlow Park
Somehow I've gone the first 28 years of my life without seeing Othello. Yes, it really is that good, and yes, Iago really is that devious. The actor playing Iago was superb, not least in dealing with the hiccups that inevitably come with outdoor theatre, like a group of loud, loutish teenagers walking by in the middle of a monologue. Is there any better way to spend a summer evening than seeing Shakespeare in a park while drinking a beer?
Whew. With that, I'll turn it over to Becca for a recap of our weekend in Paris.
Wednesday, July 28 - Five Days in the Lake District, Part 5
Tuesday, August 3 - Our First Night of the Proms
Each summer, Royal Albert Hall hosts "the world's greatest classical music festival," a series of daily classical music concerts. Seats aren't cheap, but there's the wonderful tradition of "promming" - show up a few hours before the concert and buy a standing-room ticket for just £5. We went to Prom #23 and heard Fould's Dynamic Triptych, Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music and "The Lark Ascending," and Elgar's Symphony #1. We'll prom at least once more this summer, so we'll provide a fuller report then.
Thursday, August 5 - Went the Day Well? at the BFI Southbank
My adviser recommended this, a WWII film that imagines a German invasion of a strategically located English village. Full of simple English folk, from all walks of life, doing their duty. Rather charming.
Friday, August 6 - The National Gallery
We met up with a friend from college (and elementary school, in my case) at the National Gallery to see the exhibit on Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries. If you have any doubt about the role that science plays in the art world these days, have a look. It also raises all sorts of questions about authenticity and the experience of seeing works of art - does a work suddenly become less powerful because it turns out that it was done by a student of Rembrandt rather than the master himself?
Sunday, August 8 - A day with the birds
Monday, August 9 - Harrods
Becca's cousin arrived last Monday. She enjoys a good department store, and we hadn't been to the spectacle of Harrods yet, so off we went. Our visit was made all the more sweet by the fact that I had a gift certificate (thanks, Mom and Dad!) just waiting to be used on chocolate truffles. Harrods isn't really the sort of place where graduate students actually buy anything, so this was mostly a time for ogling. If only I had £1,200 for that smoking jacket...
Tuesday, August 10 - An afternoon at the palace
Liz and Phil spend their summers in Scotland, which means the likes of us get to scope out their place. A good day for it, too, since the rain that had been holding off for so long finally descended on us. What struck me is how you can trace the history of the British monarchy over the past few centuries through the changing styles and decorations of successive rooms.
Wednesday, August 11 - Othello in Waterlow Park
Somehow I've gone the first 28 years of my life without seeing Othello. Yes, it really is that good, and yes, Iago really is that devious. The actor playing Iago was superb, not least in dealing with the hiccups that inevitably come with outdoor theatre, like a group of loud, loutish teenagers walking by in the middle of a monologue. Is there any better way to spend a summer evening than seeing Shakespeare in a park while drinking a beer?
Whew. With that, I'll turn it over to Becca for a recap of our weekend in Paris.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Cheeses of England #3: Fresh Iambor
Disclaimer: this is not a typical English cheese. It is a buffalo cheese, inspired by traditional Romanian cheese-makers, but it is made in Somerset and sold at our farmers market, so it counts as an English cheese. The maker is Alham Wood Organics, and they make a range of buffalo and cows cheeses and yogurt, both pasturized and "raw". 
This is one of the pasturized fresh cheeses, or Iambors. Danny describes it as "solid ricotta", but I think it has a much more mature and slightly saltier taste. Maybe a cross between ricotta and feta. It was really delicious on the olive bread we got from one of the stalls at the farmers market, the name of which we now cannot remember. The bread was delicious, if a little expensive, but it was sold to us by a French man, and when a French man offers you freshly baked bread, you take it.
Alham Wood also makes the cheese-tasking yogurt (or yoghurt, if you prefer). Next time I'm going to go crazy and try the buffalo yoghurt!
This is one of the pasturized fresh cheeses, or Iambors. Danny describes it as "solid ricotta", but I think it has a much more mature and slightly saltier taste. Maybe a cross between ricotta and feta. It was really delicious on the olive bread we got from one of the stalls at the farmers market, the name of which we now cannot remember. The bread was delicious, if a little expensive, but it was sold to us by a French man, and when a French man offers you freshly baked bread, you take it.Alham Wood also makes the cheese-tasking yogurt (or yoghurt, if you prefer). Next time I'm going to go crazy and try the buffalo yoghurt!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Five Days in the Lake District, part 4
Day 4: Great Langdale to Keswick
This is the only day of the trip that we stuck to the Cumbria Way the whole time (though it's actually day 3 of the Cumbria way).
The day started out looking cloudy but dry, with even a hint that maybe the sun would come out later. In the time it took me to put on sunscreen outside the front door, it starting raining. blah. But not a heavy rain, just the light drizzle we had come to expect, and we were hopeful it would be short-lived. We struck out from the Old Dungeon Ghyll, deeper and deeper into the Langdale valley towards Mickledon, the basin where the Langdale peaks come together. At this point you have to make a decision: turn around or head up and over. Luckily, the Way goes up and over the lower part of the ridge, but still high enough to afford a great view of the valley, with it's broad river bed and rocky terrain.
Just image what it would have looked like if we could have seen the peaks! Surprisingly, this valley actually reminded me of some river beds in Denali National Park of all places. Smaller mountains, though.
After the climb out of Mickledon we descended into another beautiful valley with a good Scottish name: Langstrath. It was in this valley that we saw what I can only describe as "The great sheep migration of July 2010". What we saw was a line of dozens of sheep walking out of another valley that branches off Langstrath, following the path and walking in a nearly single-file line. And they were being pretty noisy about it! The sheep just kept on coming...soon it looked like a hundred or more sheep all walking alongside the river with great purpose (on the opposite bank from us, sadly). We could only assume that they were being herded by someone deep in the valley, but we couldn't see it. After about a half hour of this we encountered a short line of sheep
walking towards us on our side of the river, and they were followed by a real-life shepherd carrying a crook, and his real-life sheepdog, who was having the time of his/her life running up and down hills herding sheep (who really are amazingly easy to herd). It was pretty awesome.
After a few hours the trail brought us to the hamlets of Stonethwaite and Rosthwaite, in the valley of Borrowdale, which seem to exist only to accommodate walkers and vacationers like us. I should mention that by this point it had been fairly dry for a while, but our boots, which had started the day a bit damp from the day before, were completely soaked through, and I was grumpy about it. The bits of chocolate in our gorp weren't enough to get me through my afternoon grumpiness, so we had to stop for a pint at the Scafell hotel.
Fueled by beer, the next few miles passed without too much trouble: rolling hills and farmland, crossings of the River Derwent, clearing skies, lots of adorable sheep, craggy fells all around us. By the time we reached Grange-in-Borrowdale it was downright sunny for the first time in the trip (see photo of me wearing sunglasses for proof)!
The only problem was that when we got to Grange we still had 5 miles left, and our feet were really starting to ache from all the walking in wet, dirty socks. The lesson here is CHANGE YOUR SOCKS! Which we did not. And our feet just got more tired and our moods more glum the closer we got to our destination.
Which is really a shame, because it should have been a very nice ramble. The sun was shining, and most of the rest of the walk was flat and through a pretty forest along the edge of Derwentwater, another tempting lake. Derwentwater has a system of shuttle boats that we could have taken to Keswick, but it really seemed more appropriate to walk, even if at that point it was more of a hobble to the tune of constant whining.
Knocking on the door of the Bridgedale Guesthouse was a huge relief, as was a shower and a pair of dry socks. I'll save descriptions of Keswick for our last post, but I'll put in a huge plug for the pub we went to that night, called the Dog and Gun. It's 100% dog friendly, and even has a dog menu. Also fantastic local ales (Keswick Brewing Company = awesome) and big plates of tasty food (butternut squash lasagna!) for the cheapest prices we saw in the Lakes. Check it out! you know, when you happen to be passing through Keswick...
15 miles walked.
Towns: Stonethwaite, Rosthwaite, Grange-in-Borrowdale (seen from afar!), Portinscale (just outside Keswick), Keswick
Peaks: none
This is the only day of the trip that we stuck to the Cumbria Way the whole time (though it's actually day 3 of the Cumbria way).
The day started out looking cloudy but dry, with even a hint that maybe the sun would come out later. In the time it took me to put on sunscreen outside the front door, it starting raining. blah. But not a heavy rain, just the light drizzle we had come to expect, and we were hopeful it would be short-lived. We struck out from the Old Dungeon Ghyll, deeper and deeper into the Langdale valley towards Mickledon, the basin where the Langdale peaks come together. At this point you have to make a decision: turn around or head up and over. Luckily, the Way goes up and over the lower part of the ridge, but still high enough to afford a great view of the valley, with it's broad river bed and rocky terrain.
Just image what it would have looked like if we could have seen the peaks! Surprisingly, this valley actually reminded me of some river beds in Denali National Park of all places. Smaller mountains, though.After the climb out of Mickledon we descended into another beautiful valley with a good Scottish name: Langstrath. It was in this valley that we saw what I can only describe as "The great sheep migration of July 2010". What we saw was a line of dozens of sheep walking out of another valley that branches off Langstrath, following the path and walking in a nearly single-file line. And they were being pretty noisy about it! The sheep just kept on coming...soon it looked like a hundred or more sheep all walking alongside the river with great purpose (on the opposite bank from us, sadly). We could only assume that they were being herded by someone deep in the valley, but we couldn't see it. After about a half hour of this we encountered a short line of sheep
walking towards us on our side of the river, and they were followed by a real-life shepherd carrying a crook, and his real-life sheepdog, who was having the time of his/her life running up and down hills herding sheep (who really are amazingly easy to herd). It was pretty awesome.After a few hours the trail brought us to the hamlets of Stonethwaite and Rosthwaite, in the valley of Borrowdale, which seem to exist only to accommodate walkers and vacationers like us. I should mention that by this point it had been fairly dry for a while, but our boots, which had started the day a bit damp from the day before, were completely soaked through, and I was grumpy about it. The bits of chocolate in our gorp weren't enough to get me through my afternoon grumpiness, so we had to stop for a pint at the Scafell hotel.
Fueled by beer, the next few miles passed without too much trouble: rolling hills and farmland, crossings of the River Derwent, clearing skies, lots of adorable sheep, craggy fells all around us. By the time we reached Grange-in-Borrowdale it was downright sunny for the first time in the trip (see photo of me wearing sunglasses for proof)!
The only problem was that when we got to Grange we still had 5 miles left, and our feet were really starting to ache from all the walking in wet, dirty socks. The lesson here is CHANGE YOUR SOCKS! Which we did not. And our feet just got more tired and our moods more glum the closer we got to our destination.Which is really a shame, because it should have been a very nice ramble. The sun was shining, and most of the rest of the walk was flat and through a pretty forest along the edge of Derwentwater, another tempting lake. Derwentwater has a system of shuttle boats that we could have taken to Keswick, but it really seemed more appropriate to walk, even if at that point it was more of a hobble to the tune of constant whining.
Knocking on the door of the Bridgedale Guesthouse was a huge relief, as was a shower and a pair of dry socks. I'll save descriptions of Keswick for our last post, but I'll put in a huge plug for the pub we went to that night, called the Dog and Gun. It's 100% dog friendly, and even has a dog menu. Also fantastic local ales (Keswick Brewing Company = awesome) and big plates of tasty food (butternut squash lasagna!) for the cheapest prices we saw in the Lakes. Check it out! you know, when you happen to be passing through Keswick...
15 miles walked.
Towns: Stonethwaite, Rosthwaite, Grange-in-Borrowdale (seen from afar!), Portinscale (just outside Keswick), Keswick
Peaks: none
Five days in the Lake District, part 3
An early start to the day in Grasmere, as we left the hostel shortly after 7:00. But before we started the rambling in earnest, we stopped at St. Oswald's, where Wordsworth worshipped. Two pictures, the first one suitably softened into the Romantic early mist.
This second, rather more prosaic, picture captures one of the key trends within British Christianity in the last few decades: the decline of denominational conflict
After being disappointed by the still-closed bakery (what kind of bakery isn't open by 7 AM?!), we started the walk proper. Up and over a little ridge to rejoin the Cumbria Way at Chapel Stile. From the top of the ridge the main view was a rather unsightly slate quarry, but by the time we reached the valley floor the quarry disappeared from view and picturesque-ness returned.
We stopped by a small stream for a bit of breakfast: pita, cheese, and gorp. Then it was into the valley of Great Langdale. Our guidebook told of the tremendous views of the Langdale Pikes to the north, but the cloud cover kept them pretty obscured. We did, however, see plenty of sheep, like this friendly pair.
Four miles into the day we arrived at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, a famous destination for Lake District hill-walkers and climbers, complete with the Hikers' Bar watering hole. We dropped off our big bag at the hotel, then had a look at the weather forecast for the day.
The initial plan for the day was arrive at ODG early enough to make it to Scafell Pike and back. But 14 miles of serious hiking with less than a 10% chance of views from the summit (coupled with gloomy skies in Great Langdale) dissuaded us from climbing England's highest mountain. Instead, we opted for a walk that kept us closer to "home," ascending High Raise, described in our guidebook as the "overlord" of the Langdales.
The ascent up High Raise had three distinct phases. First was a steep but well-traveled path following Stickle Ghyll to a waterfall. This part of the climb was full of other hikers, including some young children with impressive hardiness - we overheard no whining about the rain. The power of the waterfall is rather poorly captured in this photograph, but it at least provides a sense of the terrain.
Just above the waterfall, at an elevation of approximately 1,500 feet, is Stickle Tarn, a small lake that was dammed in the early 19th century. Towering over the tarn is the imposing face of Pavey Ark.
After Stickle Tarn, the path upwards became a lot more lonely, and also much less clear. No longer able to just follow the stream up, we had to use our compass and handy Ordnance Survey map. About two-thirds of the way up this section of the climb, we were crossed paths with another hiker who had been bounding ahead of us. "You can't see jack from up there," he warned us, as he rather gloomily passed us by. But at this point we were committed to making it to the top, so we continued upward.
The next clear stopping-point was Sergeant Man, a subsidiary peak of High Raise. The clouds actually did roll away enough for us to get a nice view of the valley below, though they continued to enshroud the high peaks in the distance.
From Sergeant Man, the final ascent to High Raise was nothing more than a short walk, with a barely perceptible change in elevation. Given the mist that had settled on the summit, I'm not sure that we would have found the summit cairn without a clear compass heading to follow. Here I am at the summit of High Raise at 762 meters.
Our plan from this point had been to descend back into the valley via some other peaks, bagging Thunacar Knott, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, Pick o'Stickle, and Loft Crag along the way. But that would have involved finding a different path down the western slope of High Raise. Given the mist, lack of landmarks (we even struggled a bit finding our way back to Sergeant Man), and advancing hour, we decided to just descend the way we had come up. A bit below the tarn, the clouds finally cleared enough to allow a decent photograph of the valley below.
From there, back to the hotel to check in and enjoy a hot shower. Dinner at the Hikers' Bar was disappointing (not least because they didn't actually have either of the menu items I order), but sometimes, as a vegetarian, you just have to accept your fate. At least the stilton and broccoli soup was flavorful and warming.
We had a long day to Keswick in front of us, so early to bed...
Approximately 10 miles walked
Towns: Grasmere, Chapel Stile
Peaks: Sergeant Man, High Raise
After being disappointed by the still-closed bakery (what kind of bakery isn't open by 7 AM?!), we started the walk proper. Up and over a little ridge to rejoin the Cumbria Way at Chapel Stile. From the top of the ridge the main view was a rather unsightly slate quarry, but by the time we reached the valley floor the quarry disappeared from view and picturesque-ness returned.
We stopped by a small stream for a bit of breakfast: pita, cheese, and gorp. Then it was into the valley of Great Langdale. Our guidebook told of the tremendous views of the Langdale Pikes to the north, but the cloud cover kept them pretty obscured. We did, however, see plenty of sheep, like this friendly pair.
Four miles into the day we arrived at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, a famous destination for Lake District hill-walkers and climbers, complete with the Hikers' Bar watering hole. We dropped off our big bag at the hotel, then had a look at the weather forecast for the day.
The initial plan for the day was arrive at ODG early enough to make it to Scafell Pike and back. But 14 miles of serious hiking with less than a 10% chance of views from the summit (coupled with gloomy skies in Great Langdale) dissuaded us from climbing England's highest mountain. Instead, we opted for a walk that kept us closer to "home," ascending High Raise, described in our guidebook as the "overlord" of the Langdales.
The ascent up High Raise had three distinct phases. First was a steep but well-traveled path following Stickle Ghyll to a waterfall. This part of the climb was full of other hikers, including some young children with impressive hardiness - we overheard no whining about the rain. The power of the waterfall is rather poorly captured in this photograph, but it at least provides a sense of the terrain.
Just above the waterfall, at an elevation of approximately 1,500 feet, is Stickle Tarn, a small lake that was dammed in the early 19th century. Towering over the tarn is the imposing face of Pavey Ark.
After Stickle Tarn, the path upwards became a lot more lonely, and also much less clear. No longer able to just follow the stream up, we had to use our compass and handy Ordnance Survey map. About two-thirds of the way up this section of the climb, we were crossed paths with another hiker who had been bounding ahead of us. "You can't see jack from up there," he warned us, as he rather gloomily passed us by. But at this point we were committed to making it to the top, so we continued upward.
The next clear stopping-point was Sergeant Man, a subsidiary peak of High Raise. The clouds actually did roll away enough for us to get a nice view of the valley below, though they continued to enshroud the high peaks in the distance.
From Sergeant Man, the final ascent to High Raise was nothing more than a short walk, with a barely perceptible change in elevation. Given the mist that had settled on the summit, I'm not sure that we would have found the summit cairn without a clear compass heading to follow. Here I am at the summit of High Raise at 762 meters.
Our plan from this point had been to descend back into the valley via some other peaks, bagging Thunacar Knott, Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, Pick o'Stickle, and Loft Crag along the way. But that would have involved finding a different path down the western slope of High Raise. Given the mist, lack of landmarks (we even struggled a bit finding our way back to Sergeant Man), and advancing hour, we decided to just descend the way we had come up. A bit below the tarn, the clouds finally cleared enough to allow a decent photograph of the valley below.
From there, back to the hotel to check in and enjoy a hot shower. Dinner at the Hikers' Bar was disappointing (not least because they didn't actually have either of the menu items I order), but sometimes, as a vegetarian, you just have to accept your fate. At least the stilton and broccoli soup was flavorful and warming.
We had a long day to Keswick in front of us, so early to bed...
Approximately 10 miles walked
Towns: Grasmere, Chapel Stile
Peaks: Sergeant Man, High Raise
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