Day 40

Another two day update

These seem to be coming in pairs for reasons I’m not entirely clear on. C’est la vie, I suppose.

Thursday marked the first interesting class of the year, so congratulations to Royce for pulling it together. Despite a useless reading on Film tricks (Look for make up choices and hairstyles, also, definitions of plot….sweet) we had a solid discussion on the Satanic Verses, the portrayals of Britain when done through the lens of an immigrant, and Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech, which read like Mein Kampf, but with an editor.

After class, a few of us headed to Forbidden Planet, which could easily be renamed Nerd Mecca. Walls of manga, anime, graphic novels, Star Wars toys, Lord of the Rings models, Dr. Who playsets and every other cult phenomenon paraphernalia one could ever want. Sadly, all the DVDs were region 2, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a copy of Watchman (likelihood of my acquisition of one before the flight home: 91%), and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t talk myself into buying Scott a scale model Balrog. It was winged and covered in flame and completely awesome.

Unfortunately, it was also 300 pounds. Schade.

Upon leaving heaven, we ventured towards Leicester Square, and ended up at Seven Dials, where we had seen Chicago a few nights before. This time, the shops were open and we lingered along the way. We found a few odd shops which were incredibly wonderful, if a tad bit overpriced, such is the curse of obscurity. Many were filled with odds and ends: a picture of the Great Wave with rabbits instead of white water, a small model of the Cat Bus from My Neighbor Totoro, wallets made out of air mail, etc. Places like that (Minneapolis’ Electric Fetus has the same vibe, but with LPs too!) make me ridiculously happy. I’m not sure if it’s the electic mix of things therein or the terribly obscure nature of their items ( I was happy to know the references of 80% of the things one shop had), but whatever the reason, I often miss stores like that, and I’ll probably be back at this one before the trip ends.

The next store was the Orc’s Nest, a Games-by-James in two floors and 1/8th the space. D&D books were everywhere and I was ruing the lack of a good DM on this trip, because I would totally love to play a full dungeon this time. The best product there, and really, in the known universe, was a card game simply titled “Yetisburg”.

The back was unclear on how the game worked, and none of us wanted to pony up the cash to buy it. Nevertheless, there exists a game called Yetisburg, with abominable snowmen dressed as Pickett and Grant, and the knowledge of that is good enough for me.

The rest of the evening was quiet. Dr. Who played in the lounge, along with Nevermind the Buzzcocks and regrettably, Beautiful People. The early morning meant that people wanted to sleep, and I fully understood.

………

Morning came WAY too early. I haven’t been sleeping well because of the terrible beds and my shoulder. My shoulder, which hasn’t really bothered me in years other than occasionally slipping out, is now quite sore, and I think its because I sleep almost exclusively on my sides. It could also be related to my neck which hasn’t fully recovered from cradling a phone in there for a few hours a day this summer. Whatever the reason, its an odd injury to have popping up once again.

We left for Old Baily at 9:35, 5 min late. This will be relevant later. Easy trip, really, Picadilly Line to Holburn, then Central Line to St. Paul’s. Show up at 9:30 in the lobby and we’d be fine, 9:15 if you wanted to mess with having a camera or phone (neither of which was allowed in court, but might have been nice to have for the rest of the day).

One of my biggest pet peeves is slow walkers, people who cannot, for whatever reason, keep up. I had short legs for many years, MANY, and yet I learned to walk with greater pace. It’s a curse now that I don’t have short legs, because almost no one keeps up with me. Fine, my pace isn’t the group’s, but the group’s pace is still much faster than some peoples.

So, we stopped up top at South Ken, Emily told everyone (who was there) the route and we moved on. As usual, we got split up into different cars, 24 people being hard to pack into one Tube car.

Apparently, we had left a few people, back at the dorm in fact. Remember, we left late as it was. This really pissed off a few people in the group who felt that Emily didn’t care, and they sought my support in confronting her. They also complained that no one knew how to get where we were going.

Once again, I’m going to blame Boychoir for the idea that, shockingly, if you’re late and get behind the group…its not the leader’s fault. The found no comfort from me, afterall, we left late and they were still walking slowly. Bad combo guys, quit your bitching and start walking.

The trial at the Old Baily was interesting, though we lacked the proper background to really get into it. It was an assault, possibly drug or theft related, and it centered around the man on the stand, who, for all his faults was a terribly efficient liar. The attorney battered him around for a good 25 min about how often he’d been caught lying to the police. She was condescending, completely terrifying, and looked downright silly in the curled wig they have to wear. He, for his part, was an idiot and almost certainly guilty. At least, that’s what we found over the course of an hour. Who knows what the rest of the case was like?

We spent the next few hours walking around the areas near the court, many of which contained pubs and office buildings unique to the legal community, just as Dickens portrayed it Bleak House. The idea of such a self contained community is fairly intriguing, but I can’t help but feel like lawyers should be out in the world, understanding the ways and means of it, so that, if a client should run afoul of the law, his advocate might better understand the circumstances surrounding his crime. Just a though.

Lunch and shopping in Covent Garden were nice, if unremarkable, though I had a strong sense of Déjà vu, which freaked me out a little bit. A few of us headed to Primarkt, a famed London establishment, which, unlike the other famed London stores, wasn’t designed for Kate Moss in terms of both style and price.

I wish I could describe for you what it was like. The store itself is large, two floors and about ¼ of a block long. There were scores of people inside, like a stadium, only everyone is looking at clothing on racks and moving around and trying to get past each other, instead of all wanting to sit and watch the game.

The atmosphere, because of the dirt-cheap prices, was akin to the day after thanksgiving sales, or the Mall of America on Christmas eve. It was that crazy, on a normal Friday. It took us nearly an hour to successfully round up four of us, after two of us had already finished and found each other.

It was a successful trip, however, as I emerged from the scrum holding a very nice black, green, and grey scarf. It’s a nearly perfect match for my Kühl jacket and will go splendidly with my Pea Coat. And if it doesn’t, well, it was two pounds, which makes it less than a beer; I’ll survive the loss. And with the exchange rate the way it is, well, all the better. 1.57 today and falling. At this rate, it won’t be so damned expensive to buy, well, anything in Chelsea, and life will be much better in SW3 6NA.

Another quiet evening punctuated by Dr. Who, and Beautiful People (which I’m growing to dislike more and more every time I see it). Fortunately, I skipped out on that to work on my BA and to send an update to Prof. Wilkinson. I’m fairly pleased with my progress, so I hope he will be too.

There is a group headed to Highgate tomorrow, but I don’t think I’ll make it. A) Because I have no idea when they are leaving, and B) because I desperately need to get some work done. I don’t know why we have a 5-page paper due Monday, but we do. Maybe I’ll just turn this blog in, its nearly the right length, and about as coherent as any lit. analysis I do on Dickens is likely to be!