Things I Did in England
The days of summer are speeding passed. I just realized it’s Friday. Today I cleaned up a bit and then I oiled the table I recently got. It looks pretty good.
But the reason I decided to post today is that I wanted to write down some of my thoughts about England. Outside the symposium, I also got to go to the Portsmouth ship yards for a tour of the Victory. This famous ship was commanded by a man by the name of Nelson. Under his command, this ship was responsible for the victory of the battle at Trafalgar against a combined French and Spanish fleet. It was really quite a ship. The story told of the battle and the death of Nelson are dramatic and best told by someone who knows the history better than I. There was only one sail remaining after the famous water battle and it lies now on display in the Victory Museum. That evening, we had a lovely dinner on the HMS Warrior, the first iron hulled navy ship of her class. She also combined steam power and sail power. The chimneys for the steam could be hinged down onto the deck and the massive screw was pulled up into the captain’s quarters when sailing was desirable.
There were a few things I’d heard about England before I traveled there. Two of them turned out to be just untrue:
1. Not everyone in England has bad teeth. Sure, some people do, but for the most
part most of the people I came in contact with had pretty decent choppers.
2. The women are ugly. I found that many of the men are handsome and many of
the women quite attractive. Coupled with this is today’s fashion. Many
women in England show a lot of skin, I think. But maybe that perception is
skewed by the fact that it’s generally too cold to show any here. The fashions
for men are geared more toward simple comfort and practicality. That, to me, is
far more becoming for men than some tight uncomfortable synthetic fabric (as is
the fashion here in Iceland) or a business suit.
There were other things that I found to be completely true:
1. The English don’t complain. Several times I ended up in a long line that was
taking forever and nobody grumbled or voiced complaint. In fact, when I was
at the London Aquarium the emergency warning system went off and everyone
had to file out of there. Now, first, not even a little panic occurred-despite the
bombings last year. Secondly, since the aquarium is organized such that as you
travel further into the museum you continue to spiral down underground the
escape route was one long staircase after another. Nobody complained-except
the American military man who was there with his wife and kids. The whole
affair was over in a few minutes because everyone filed calmly out of the
building.
2. English food is terrible. I tried the breakfast the first day of the symposium even
though I could see right away that the scrambled eggs came out of a box of
dried egg flakes. As a rule, eggs should only be eaten when they are freshly
cracked and come from the back end of a chicken. I’ve tried guillemot
(svartfugl) eggs and they are terrible! Anyway, The eggs were better than the
sausage. I didn’t know it was possible to make sausage taste so bad. I almost
threw up upon touch it to my tongue. The “bacon” was like shoe leather with
bacon grease rubbed on it. Oh, and of course, the toast was cold. There were a
few other times when I had to eat English food due to functions connected to the
symposium. None of it was any good.
However, I did have some great food as well. The food on board the HMS Warrior was delicious. All of the Indian food I had in England was quite tasty-especially the korma that was on the buffet at the restaurant Posh (Port Out Starboard Home). But there was one dish that really blew me away. One of the days that I was in London by myself I went up to Soho and wandered the streets looking for some grub. At first, I found nothing but touristy sidewalk cafes. I was looking for something especially good due to the fact that the stipend for food that was calculated before we went was higher than it should have been. I happened upon a place called Zaytouna (at 45 Frith Street, in case you’re there and want a good meal). This small Moroccan restaurant somehow filled me with promise of delicious food. So I went in and opened the menu. One dish immediately jumped out and said, “Order me!” It was a dish of baked sea bass served with an aubergine salad. Now, I’ve eaten a lot of fish in my days. I’ve had some particularly memorable dishes (monkfish, sole, salmon, and a few others). But the sea bass at this restaurant was definitely the best fish I’ve had. The blend of spices awakened my taste buds before the fork had reached my mouth. The aroma of the meal filled my head and made me imagine being in a sunny place overlooking the sea. Maybe I’m going a bit over board. But the meal could not have been better-unless my dear wife had been sitting across from me enjoying it with me.
I mentioned that I went to the London Aquarium. Although it’s very small by American standards, it’s not a bad aquarium. The habitats are well designed and maintained. There is some innovation in the way some of them are presented and they have a touch tank with three species of skate. I didn’t get to the marine invertebrate exhibit because of the forced evacuation of the museum, so I don’t know if they have another touch tank down there with other critters. Another problem is that many of the labels on the tanks are not correct or incomplete. One was labeled as having some kind of frogfish (only the biology nerds will know what that is!) but the only fish in the tank were two scorpion fish. Other tanks had some of the fish listed properly but not all of the fish described.
Another trip brought me to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum through Hyde Park. Of course, this trip allowed me the opportunity to listen to some of the speakers at Speaker’s Corner. That was a treat. One of them was a Muslim ranting about the sale of death by the West through the production and sale of guns to dictators. Another was a guy with no grasp of reality in regards to the current state of equality of the sexes. He was saying that women are inferior to men, blah blah blah. Then, there was the guy with the horns. He simply made no sense and the only thing that I could understand of all that I listened to is that he has converted 33 people to his new religion. As I was leaving a fourth man stood up and started reading from the Book of Job. I don’t know where he was going with that. I wandered then across the dead grass toward the shade of the trees on the far side of the park. I was headed toward the Natural History Museum. But first I was looking for the bird sanctuary that is supposedly in the park. I never found it. But I did see a couple of guys practicing some form of martial art in the shade and a very very old man sitting on a bench just watching life go on around him. When I got to the Serpentine-a body of water in Hyde Park-I watched the birds and the kids feeding the birds. It reminded me of my son. He, like most little kids, really enjoys coming into contact with animals. I found British birds in London and Southampton to be elusive critters, of the most part and only managed to spot two species I haven’t seen before despite the fact that I could hear them.
In the museum, I had a lot of fun poking around at the exhibits. It was terribly hot in there, but I managed to see just about all of the museum before I was too uncomfortable. It was getting late and I hadn’t had anything to eat. I went out and found some fast food and then headed over to the Science Museum. I only had time for an Imax movie on sharks because I was flying out that evening and I was too tired from all the walking to wander the museum.
Then I headed home.
But the reason I decided to post today is that I wanted to write down some of my thoughts about England. Outside the symposium, I also got to go to the Portsmouth ship yards for a tour of the Victory. This famous ship was commanded by a man by the name of Nelson. Under his command, this ship was responsible for the victory of the battle at Trafalgar against a combined French and Spanish fleet. It was really quite a ship. The story told of the battle and the death of Nelson are dramatic and best told by someone who knows the history better than I. There was only one sail remaining after the famous water battle and it lies now on display in the Victory Museum. That evening, we had a lovely dinner on the HMS Warrior, the first iron hulled navy ship of her class. She also combined steam power and sail power. The chimneys for the steam could be hinged down onto the deck and the massive screw was pulled up into the captain’s quarters when sailing was desirable.
There were a few things I’d heard about England before I traveled there. Two of them turned out to be just untrue:
1. Not everyone in England has bad teeth. Sure, some people do, but for the most
part most of the people I came in contact with had pretty decent choppers.
2. The women are ugly. I found that many of the men are handsome and many of
the women quite attractive. Coupled with this is today’s fashion. Many
women in England show a lot of skin, I think. But maybe that perception is
skewed by the fact that it’s generally too cold to show any here. The fashions
for men are geared more toward simple comfort and practicality. That, to me, is
far more becoming for men than some tight uncomfortable synthetic fabric (as is
the fashion here in Iceland) or a business suit.
There were other things that I found to be completely true:
1. The English don’t complain. Several times I ended up in a long line that was
taking forever and nobody grumbled or voiced complaint. In fact, when I was
at the London Aquarium the emergency warning system went off and everyone
had to file out of there. Now, first, not even a little panic occurred-despite the
bombings last year. Secondly, since the aquarium is organized such that as you
travel further into the museum you continue to spiral down underground the
escape route was one long staircase after another. Nobody complained-except
the American military man who was there with his wife and kids. The whole
affair was over in a few minutes because everyone filed calmly out of the
building.
2. English food is terrible. I tried the breakfast the first day of the symposium even
though I could see right away that the scrambled eggs came out of a box of
dried egg flakes. As a rule, eggs should only be eaten when they are freshly
cracked and come from the back end of a chicken. I’ve tried guillemot
(svartfugl) eggs and they are terrible! Anyway, The eggs were better than the
sausage. I didn’t know it was possible to make sausage taste so bad. I almost
threw up upon touch it to my tongue. The “bacon” was like shoe leather with
bacon grease rubbed on it. Oh, and of course, the toast was cold. There were a
few other times when I had to eat English food due to functions connected to the
symposium. None of it was any good.
However, I did have some great food as well. The food on board the HMS Warrior was delicious. All of the Indian food I had in England was quite tasty-especially the korma that was on the buffet at the restaurant Posh (Port Out Starboard Home). But there was one dish that really blew me away. One of the days that I was in London by myself I went up to Soho and wandered the streets looking for some grub. At first, I found nothing but touristy sidewalk cafes. I was looking for something especially good due to the fact that the stipend for food that was calculated before we went was higher than it should have been. I happened upon a place called Zaytouna (at 45 Frith Street, in case you’re there and want a good meal). This small Moroccan restaurant somehow filled me with promise of delicious food. So I went in and opened the menu. One dish immediately jumped out and said, “Order me!” It was a dish of baked sea bass served with an aubergine salad. Now, I’ve eaten a lot of fish in my days. I’ve had some particularly memorable dishes (monkfish, sole, salmon, and a few others). But the sea bass at this restaurant was definitely the best fish I’ve had. The blend of spices awakened my taste buds before the fork had reached my mouth. The aroma of the meal filled my head and made me imagine being in a sunny place overlooking the sea. Maybe I’m going a bit over board. But the meal could not have been better-unless my dear wife had been sitting across from me enjoying it with me.
I mentioned that I went to the London Aquarium. Although it’s very small by American standards, it’s not a bad aquarium. The habitats are well designed and maintained. There is some innovation in the way some of them are presented and they have a touch tank with three species of skate. I didn’t get to the marine invertebrate exhibit because of the forced evacuation of the museum, so I don’t know if they have another touch tank down there with other critters. Another problem is that many of the labels on the tanks are not correct or incomplete. One was labeled as having some kind of frogfish (only the biology nerds will know what that is!) but the only fish in the tank were two scorpion fish. Other tanks had some of the fish listed properly but not all of the fish described.
Another trip brought me to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum through Hyde Park. Of course, this trip allowed me the opportunity to listen to some of the speakers at Speaker’s Corner. That was a treat. One of them was a Muslim ranting about the sale of death by the West through the production and sale of guns to dictators. Another was a guy with no grasp of reality in regards to the current state of equality of the sexes. He was saying that women are inferior to men, blah blah blah. Then, there was the guy with the horns. He simply made no sense and the only thing that I could understand of all that I listened to is that he has converted 33 people to his new religion. As I was leaving a fourth man stood up and started reading from the Book of Job. I don’t know where he was going with that. I wandered then across the dead grass toward the shade of the trees on the far side of the park. I was headed toward the Natural History Museum. But first I was looking for the bird sanctuary that is supposedly in the park. I never found it. But I did see a couple of guys practicing some form of martial art in the shade and a very very old man sitting on a bench just watching life go on around him. When I got to the Serpentine-a body of water in Hyde Park-I watched the birds and the kids feeding the birds. It reminded me of my son. He, like most little kids, really enjoys coming into contact with animals. I found British birds in London and Southampton to be elusive critters, of the most part and only managed to spot two species I haven’t seen before despite the fact that I could hear them.
In the museum, I had a lot of fun poking around at the exhibits. It was terribly hot in there, but I managed to see just about all of the museum before I was too uncomfortable. It was getting late and I hadn’t had anything to eat. I went out and found some fast food and then headed over to the Science Museum. I only had time for an Imax movie on sharks because I was flying out that evening and I was too tired from all the walking to wander the museum.
Then I headed home.
posted by Our Hero, at 6:27 PM
2 Comments:
Sounds like you had a good time. By the way at my last job I worked with some Brits. I found that about half of them had really bad breath (I always assumed it was due to poor dental hygiene). I got to ask, why did you oil your table?
Since you are not a man who's done a lot of woodworking, I'll pass on making fun of you this time. I put furniature oil on my table because that seals the grain of the wood so that ou don't get discolored rings everytime you put down a wet glass or a hot coffee mug. I was not using lubricating oil (which, I assume, is what you were thinking). The table I bought was very inexpensive and after buying it, I saw that one reason that it is cheap is that they didn't spend the proper amount of time oiling it. This is a fairly time-consuming process when done properly because you have to put the oil on and then wipe off the excess and then put on more oil and wipe off the excess and so on. You're done when the wood stops absorbing the oil. Then you sand it very lightly with extremely fine grit sand paper and oil it again. After that you wait for 24 hours and then repeat that step. This gives you a nice smooth finish that's waterproof. Some people then wax it, but that inhibits further oiling as the furniature ages. Using oil brings out the natural beauty of wood.
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