******I saw the movie "Joyeux Noel" (Merry Christmas). I am a sucker for these sort of feel-good dramas, but it WAS based on a historical event. The premise is how on the front lines during WWI the Scottish and French, and the Germans spontaneously called a truce and traded gifts and had a Christmas service. Perhaps most famously, they even played a game of soccer.

The movie was good, I have no reservations about that. It was the humane artists who brought the people together. The emotional climax is, in fact when a German tenor on the front lines starts singing "Adeste Fideles" (O Come All Ye Faithful) on Christmas Eve (in Latin the pan-Western European language!) and both sides join in.

The only thing that gave me a bit of a pause was it's use as Christendom as the unifying ideology of Europe. Don't get me wrong, I wish it was... But I'm not sure, even in 1914. The movie portrayed the Scots as Catholics, and while there always have been Scottish Catholics, most are Presbyterian. Likewise not all the Germans are Catholic. So when everyone united for the Christmas mass... I wanted to believe it, but I almost couldn't suspend disbelief.

Don't get me wrong Christianity was certainly common ground in 1914, but Christians in Europe had been treating each other in most unchristian fashion for hundreds of years... Regardless, the truce happened, and that IS the most plausible explanation, even if the dramatic characterization isn't totally accurate.

A movie to watch if you're feeling misanthropic and need to be reminded that men have a propensity to be much nobler than those who lead them.

******Back in London. I had the fortune to be on a plane, once again, with a high school trip. A band trip. Lots of flash pictures. Lots of farting. Lots of noise. Lots of misanthropy.

I also went to see the Degas, Sickert, Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit at the Tate Britain. Usually not my cup of tea, but I have new respect for some of these impressionists (? ok not exactly maybe), even though I still think Degas was probably a pretty twisted guy.

Most of this type of art is extremely confident, even when it depicts decrepit subject matter. But what I couldn't help but be struck by were the paintings of upper class dandies and the other artists. Supremely self-assured and lording over life. Makes a bit jealous to be honest, that some people can live that way. Wouldn't I like to be like this guy:




As an interesting side note, there was a painting of a woman called May Bellfort. She was an Anglo-Irish dancer who was noted for lesbian affairs and her scandalous act in which she danced dressed as a baby. I can only imagine that this was as shocking to Victorian morality as... well I don't know what is shocking to us.

When I saw the painting across the room, I thought it was a Japanese print. When I got close up I realized it wasn't but was still struck by the obvious influence of Japanese themes:




What is even MORE striking, is that May Belfort's fashion sense has apparently become a fad in Japan. There is a style called "Gothic-Lolita" that consists of Japanese girls wearing Victorian baby costumes. You can make what you will of the connection...




??/??/? anonyma on a fine day 0rz

*******I saw the "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." This may be the first novel I ever read.

The movie, was exactly what it should be and either one likes it or not based on one's suppositions. As a film, it was pretty strong. The battle scenes in particular were well filmed (in some ways better than "Lord of the Rings." A few small editing problems.

Speaking of Narnia, this is pretty funny!!!

>>/>>/> las proximas 0rz

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Dinner with my family...there isn't really much more one should want in life. :)

******King Kong is about sex. Plain and Simple.

Since there is no need to tell people whether this movie is good or bad (I loved it...Jack Black self-aware sarcasm was the only weak point...it was quite anachronistic... BUT... fighting dinosaurs and the Depression? They had me right there). I will preface this also by saying that I saw this film at the expensive theatre in Leicester Square.. and Danny Devito was there to see it too! He was there with a girl who was apparently his daughter and had the misfortune to have inherited his height (5'1'' MAX) and Rhea Pearlman's looks. That is a really horrible thing to say, but I don' think too many girls are afraid to look at me and say, "Look at that guy with Caracalla's looks, George the Animal Steele's body, and King Kong's hair," so this is a bit of cosmic balance. And at least little Devito will also inherit her parents substantial monies...and maybe even their sense of comedic timing.

But back to Kong. This movie had NOTHING to do with race. The "civilized" go to the ends of the earth and find "black" people...but truly BLACK people...not brown like Africans. Furthermore, they dont' have African features... they are whites and Maoris painted black. This is once again following in the tradition of Mandeville, where black primitives and dragons live out in the Indian Ocean.

The movie has everything to do with society, the biological imperative, and how they conspire to keep a guy away from the girl he wants. Here you have a large feral beast, happy in his solitude, and going about his life in a way that is in harmony with his nature. And what happens? Society plops a beautiful maiden down in front of his very eyes. It may seem as if she's not willing, but it is all part of a trap. She thrills from this exposure as much as the society that ultimately profits from it.

She is beautiful. She is talented. She is clever. Her parents rule a province the size of Germany (oops, wrong story). But what can the hirsute creature do? He is compelled by his nature to desire her. So he tries to take her to a place where they can relate to each other. To his intellectual domain.


But once he is there, there will be others. He must struggle against giant lizards who will try to take her from him. He must shatter their mandibles and crack their skulls.

And how is he repaid for all of this? The pretty men will come and she will go with THEM. What can a giant gorilla do? He is captured, compelled to enter their world. A world that will humiliate and bind him. Where he will be subject to the gawking amusement of the masses.

He can break free. He can try and TAKE the woman. He can climb the Empire State Building... Surmounting civilization itself! But in the end, the pretty little man will take the girl...and the biplanes of social order will knock him down. And he will fall to his miserable death... alone, and without that which was his sole purpose in undertaking his burdens.

At least King Kong got to go ice skating with the girl! 0rz!

??/??/? The two Buffett Queens 0rz

********
Those in India:

Except that they are very pale in colour, the people there are very handsome. The men have thin beards with few hairs in them- hardly will fifty hairs be found on one beard. The hairs are few, scattered here and there like the beard of a leopard or a cat and very long. In that land there are the loveliest women of any land beyond the seas; some call that land Albany because the women are so white.

That is from the Chronicle of Sir John Mandeville written in the 14th century. He has made a mistake...this isn't India his is describing... it is??? And he is very right! True today as it was 700 years ago. Ok, I'll give a hint.. the cities he mentions are:

Latoryn and Cassay Of course the medieval names.


The chronicle itself is pretty interesting. It claims to be something of a travelogue of an English knight's trip first to the Holy Land and then to the court of the Great Khan..by way of the Indian Ocean. It is a pretty accurate example off the Western medieval view of the world. It is very inaccurate by modern standards of anthropology, history, and geography. Mandeville continues the historical tradition of Herodotus... mentioning the famous ants in India that mine gold and kill anyone who tries to take.. and the dog-headed men, and men with one giant foot, and men with their heads in their chest. (Some of these he gives real names like the Sumatrans!)

Some of it is very accurate though. The situation as he describes it in Constantinople (where he accurately relates Greek religious practice), the Holy Land, and the court of the Sultan of Egypt are all well researched and realistic.


It is speculated that he never left Europe and just amalgamated older European legends. This book is key to understanding Umberto Eco's novel "Baudelino"...

It was far and away the most influential "geography" in medieval Europe. It was the only geography in Leonard's library!

And it certainly makes for good storytelling... And brings with it a little longing that the world still contained that much mystery waiting to be discovered.

??.??.? An Amanda?? si. 0rz

******At the end of Bethnal Green Road, there is a Chinese noodle bar and a Korean deli where I intend to eat. However, on the way there is an Italian restaurant called E. Pellucci's. It is dirt cheap and smells like a Greek kitchen even from outside. I never manage to walk past it to the other two places without stopping to eat. Maybe there is a deeper message in that.

It is kind of funny... There are 3 guys and a girl working in there, all looking like they could be related to me. "Una Faccia, Una Razza" after all. But when they open their mouths, it is with the strongest cockney accent imaginable! You'd expect Fagin and Billy Sykes to come running out of the back room. Instead, after you place your order (I usually get pasta and a prosciutto sandwich...when they have prosciutto), the youngest waiter with the oiled hair and open shirt yells toward the kitchen.. "HEY MAMA, PASTA AL PESTO!" I've never seen the woman, but I picture her looking very much like my grandmother....

The place has been there about 100 years... same Italians? There is a very discolored framed handkerchief on the wall that proudly proclaims that Pellucci was the caterer in Bethnal Green for the Queen's coronation in 1953. I have no idea what that means.

There is a nice wooden nativity in the window...which reminds me of the good parts of Christmas...and only makes it all the more comfortable.

??/??/? Esas quien he olvidado. 0rz

****The British Museum is a staple of my experience in London. I visit it at least 3 times a week, and I never cease to find something new and captivating. They certainly left no stone unturned (or untaken) in their plundering.

The BM isn't just a repository of random stuff; it is in and of itself, a grand statement of the history of civilization. The layout and the items therein are all carefully constructed to tell the story of historical orthodoxy. History begins at Sumer and proceeds through Babylon to Crete to Greece to Rome to the Franks to France to England. End of story. Yeah, Egypt and Byzantium fit in there too... but the museum doesn't say how.

That said, the reason I can spend hours and hours in there is because the relation between the civilizations, expressed merely through their artifacts, is amazingly compelling. I can walk from Akkad to Greece, from Rome to Francia, from Crete to Etruscan Italy, and all the pieces fit together. Animals become gods, gods become angels, Greek letters become Latin! The only curious part is how Egypt doesn't quite fit. I mean, Egypt seems to be an outlier without obvious effects on later civilizations... Maybe the idea of the ka being weighed against one's soul to determine salvation... but the rest is very curious.


Egypt isn't the only peculiarity in the story told by the BM. From walking around, you'd think that Western Civ was the only human civilization that survived. Oddly enough, Western Civ is represented by some (almost campy) Western decorative arts. Does Roccoco really represent our cultural superiority?

The entirety of Islamic civilization is an easily overlooked appendage to the narrative. While one could argue that Islam is the true inheritor of the Semitic civilization of Mesopotamia (Hamurabbi's Code is much more like Sharia than it is like Napoleonic Code), the Islamic display is literally off to the side and separate from the rest.

Of course even that is better than Africa which has an even more paltry display in the basement. (Though admittedly Coptic Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia(Sudan) have a section upstairs in the Late Antique area of Egypt). Most of the Africa display seems to focus on symbolic crosses in Ashante artwork that led the early Portuguese explorers to think they had found Prester John (The semi-legendary Christian king who was supposedly going to help Western Christendom fight Islam). There is no answer though. What ARE these crosses???

The most impressive African artifacts are a series of bronze plaques from Benin that compare very favorably, in my opinion, with the plaques of the baptistery in Florence by Ghiberti. I'll leave this up to you:







Finally, there is Asian civilization. This is granted it's own area with large open spaces separating it from the other displays. There are no connections to other forms of civilization... India, China, Japan, and Korea exist on their own. For example, the role that Greeks played in the spread off Buddhism and their influence on Buddhist art is ignored. By separating Asia from "civilization" it is implied to be an interesting curiosity, but ultimately irrelevant to the future of humanity... the future that lies on the path of the grand narrative.

Regardless of what one thinks about what the museum it self says, its value as a repository is boundless, and with a critical mind and open eyes, one can draw their own conclusions as to how our ancestors made us who we are.

??.??.? punjabi tangiers 0rz

Nothing interesting or even substantive to say. Mind is totally vacuous.

14.08.8 Anya 0rz

Places to ice skate in London:


Somerset house











Natural History Museum

























Naval College in Greenwich
















14.??.? Stephanie 0rz

London is a pretty romantic place around Christmas time. It makes me sick, may it rot and burn in hell.

I'm not sure if anywhere compares with Chicago this time of year... with the window decorations in Marshal Field's in the Loop or the abundance of decorations on Michigan Avenue. London comes close though.

Regent Street, lined with Georgian buildings to begin with, now has blue lights and giant snowflakes strung between them. The big "Ice Age" placards are a bit gaudy though, so negative points for that. Oxford Street looks pretty nice though... the architecture is a bit less impressive, but the lights are more pleasing. There is a massive Christmas tree in Tralfalgar square and at times there are carolers singing in front of it (I can only imagine how much my mom would like to see that!).

What really gives London a boost are the ice rinks. There is one in the courtyard of Somerset House, a huge Georgian mansion. Another is near the neo-Gothic Museum of Natural History. Finally, there is one in the Naval College in Greenwhich. Fucking ice skating.

Three rather important people died recently:

Gene McCarthy was a traditional Catholic voice of liberalism in America; something we could very much use now. I can't see kids (those self-indulgent little bastards) taking out their lip piercings and "coming clean for Gene" in today's day in age though.

My parents wouldn't let me watch Richard Pryor when I was young, but he was pretty funny.

Finally who would have guess that a German-Jewish woman would be one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. But Elisabeth Behr-Sigel certainly was. I don't know if it's not a bit depressing though, that all the brilliant minds... Berdiaev, Bulgakov, Soloviev, and her, among others failed to have a much greater impact on the Western society in which they lived at large. If people of their intellect can't do much... can anyone stem the tide at all?

14.12.6 :( Zetti 0rz

Today is the last day for the Roadmasters... those are the traditional double deckers that are open in the rear. They are nice because the bus never leaves you behind if you're willing to sprint a bit and push. Now there are only drunkards laughing in your face as the doors slam shut before you can jam your arm in... The new ones are boxy too.

And how did England end up with a cream puff group and the US get Italy and Czech Rep?

14.??.? 0rz Krista

Despite the fact that one of my friends claims to have been rundown by a car Road Warrior style, Bethnal Green is perhaps not as bad as I've portrayed it. For one thing, there is York Hall right around the block.

Then there is Brick Lane... it's about a mile away, but a pretty cool place. Initially, it was famous as being full of Bengali restaurants and stores (Bengali food being synonymous with "Indian food" here in the UK). Those are still there. Some of them are pretty good. Those are full. The others send "touters" into the street to try and lure you in. A few pretty good bakeries too. More surprising is that the north end of the road is still Jewish. There are two 24 hour bagel (beigel) stores there. There are also multiple trendy clothes stores and a store that sells vespas (do I even need to state how trendy that is?). There there is some sort of warehouse that houses multiple clubs. They are so cool as compared to me that I can't even find the entrance.

If I walk the OTHER direction from my flat...down Roman Road instead of Bethnal Green Road (for yet another mile), there is a pretty cool Caribbean restaurant where the cook has thick dreadlocks and upon hearing your reply to his queries regarding the quality of the food (it's good) responds, "Yah Mon!". Then there is a victorian era pie shop where one can get mystery meat pie and jellied eels (haven't tried that out yet). And lest I forget, a really trendy Italian coffee shop with hot Serbian waitresses... and good proscuitto i formaggi sandwiches (and even better desserts).

Too bad this is all such a long walk away... and in between are a only a dozen crappy chinese take outs (with names like Suey Hong) and Halal Fried Chicken (which may or may not be a chain or just stating that their chicken is halal). Interestingly enough...both types of restaurants decorate for the season. The HFC has Christmas lights in its window and Suey Hong even has a Christmas tree!

14.11.00 googly eyed stoned chick 0rz

I think I'm going to go to a book signing this weekend to see Ray Harryhausen. And in lieu of a regular post, I'm going to post the top whatever living people I'd like to meet. (Stereotypical blog post)

Harryhausen- I loved "Clash of the Titans" as a kid and he is truly an artist of vision (I don't care about CGI, his effects likewise brought the fantastic to life).

Alexander Solzhenitsyn - If I could emulate one person, in terms of fortitude and ideology, it would be him.

Mel Gibson - He's Mad Max, and in my opinion, he created the most artistically significant work in the past 30 years. If there is ever another George Whitefield in America, people will realize this.

Arnold Schwarzenegger - He's Conan, and while I think he is a prick, he is certainly a self-made man... I would like to discern how. (well other than lots of protein)

Augusto Pinochet - How to take power.

Fidel Castro - See above.

Henry Kissenger - How to be powerful and invisible.

Kim Jong Il - Just to see if he is that crazy.

Francis Collins - How to be a Christian and successful as a scientist.

Mark Cuban - How DOES one become so successful in business.

Tom Brokaw - History of the 20th century over a few beers.

Vladimir Putin - My favorite world leader.

Zhang Ziyi - To teach me shao li fu. ;)

I'm sure I've forgotten lots of obvious people but I'm tired.

14.11.02 0rz Juliana

As the years go by, Christmas moves farther and farther away from my idealized conception of what it should be. I don't mean socially, but personally. I have certain expectations for Christmas time, and I am unable to meet them. So Christmas can be pretty miserable. I'd certainly like to be drinking eggnog and rum with "someone" in my basement by the fireplace and then go skiing...and I'd certainly rather be talking to my family (and particularly family friends that come around at this time of the year) about my recent publications or my JD summa cum laude, than answering unanswerable questions.

I'd like to just celebrate it on the 8th as a religious holiday.

But Christmas isn't just about oneself. So no matter how far it is from what we would like it to be, we have a responsibility to make it as nice as possible for our families. After all how often do most people's families get together? If Christmas has ANY shred of meaning left, it should be the casting off of one's own self-absorption for a little bit...

14.??.? Margaret 0rz

Here in England rock stars never seem to go out of style. Deep Purple and Simply Red can still sell out the biggest stadiums (at ridiculous prices no less). So this guy, Gary Glitter, is all over the news here. You probably haven't heard of him (I hadn't), but you've probably heard his song "Rock and Roll pt II". It's played at practically every NBA game. Du nah nah, nah, HEY, Du nah nah nah. Ok, that's not very effective, but it has lots of "heys", and I know everyone knows it.

In any event, the guy was recently arrested in Vietnam for having sex with multiple young girls, aged 11-23. He faces death by firing squad if convicted, and of course all the liberals are up in arms about that here. While against the death penalty in principle, I have to admit that I hope Charlie pops his head like a zit. This guy was already convicted in the UK for possessing child porn, and driven out of Cambodia for having sex with underage girls.

Whatever I might have written yesterday about women and their biological control of sex, this is no way to even the score. In fact, I think that the most pressing issue facing humanity is not the conflict between science and metaphysics (let alone cosmogony) but the conflict between science and morality. The epistemological basis of religion will always be secure, pure and applied science occupy different domains (as cliche as that is...it's true), and human societies must determine the basis for collective morality.

And that is why we should be a bit more careful about who is up on stage. Focusing on music in particular, people seem to get so "into" it. Post-modern society has made it possible even to be a religious nihilist. Punks, hippies, goths, piercings, tattoos... these things are more about belonging to a group than being in any way rebellious. They are more the result of the failures of traditional society and the vacuum caused by its collapse.

Rock can be vapid fun. It can criticize society in a valid way. But all of a sudden, Gary Glitter prancing around in a gold macramé Roman centurion costume with plucked eyebrows and a pompadour doesn't seem like self-aware irony anymore. He was probably always a pathetic little man doing whatever he could to get attention. And we have corporations willing to promote whatever any jackass is selling. Creating a market and profiting handsomely.


14.08.06 0rz Maggie

Went to the Rubens exhibition at the National Gallery rather than study yesterday. Not too smart... but needed a bit of a break after finishing my paper. I certainly have a newfound respect for him. His paintings far from being just about fat chicks are quite cerebral. There was an extensive collection of he preparatory sketches on view. Amazing how he was able to integrate ancient sculptures into Christian themed paintings. Likewise, his ability to utilize the works of Michelangelo and Caravaggio. His St. George and the Dragon is the best I've seen. It really captures the romance of the episode, as well as being an excellent portrayal of violent action.

I went to a Harley Street doctor a few weeks ago. I have this eczema that drives me fuckin nuts. Harley Street is famous for some of the most famous doctors in the world. I was encouraged by all the ultra-wealthy Cromwell Road Arabs in his office. It was a bit entertaining to see a bunch of men (their sons?) stepping and fetching for totally veiled women. Of course, they must have been rather demanding, as I was in the waiting room for an hour (I was actually on time!) past my scheduled time before he saw me. This is something one expects from the National Health Service, not a private doctor in the UK.

Un carretero alegre paso. Es la verdad!

Well, I finally got in to see him. And I showed him the utterly ineffective lotion the doctor from the NHS gave me, and he told me.....

Jack shit. "Keep using it" Then he said, "Do you have a lot of stress in your life? This tends to be brough on by stress." Let me tell you what stresses me out, when my fucking skin cracks apart and then disintegrates blood seeps all over. I'm glad he charged me 140 quid to tell me that if I could calm the fuck down, I'd be fine. Snake oil salesman in a 2,000 dollar suit!

I at least would have felt better had I gone to the chinese medicine shop that claims to have been founded in 1669 in Peking and consumed some herb pulled out off an oil topped glass cylinder. Granted it would have probably been a weed out of their backyard, but at least I would have felt like I was getting some therapy for my money. That, or gone to a swami for an Indian head massage. My substantial head needs special care anyway.

My train of thought to posting Wendi Deng in my last entry: Working on my paper, I was writing about Pope Nicholas. I like him despite the fact that he tried to depose St. Photius and told the Byzantine Emperor: "You ceased to be called 'Emperor of the Romans', since the Romans whom you claim to be Emperor of, are in fact according to you barbarians." ouch

In his ideas regarding morality, he was quite like a modern pope though. He was a staunch defender of the institution of marriage. At considerable political risk to himself, he REFUSED to let Lothair (the king of Germany) divorce Theutberga and marry his mistress Waldrada.

While this is very interesting, my main problem was that a famous papal historian believes that in this same source (in an earlier entry for pope Zacharias), the use of the word respublica means that the popes considered Rome independent from Constantinople. This was a problem for me since it contradicts the thesis of my supposedly publishable paper (which hopefully has fewer typos than my blog). In any event, aside from encyclopedic knowledge of medieval history, this guy has EXTENSIVE knowledge of Latin, and probably knows 1,000 instances of the use of the word, and can come up with some arcane reason why this particular declension suggests independence. (The word itself is also used earlier when it was clearly a Byzantine province).

So what to do? Stop working and look in Wikipedia at Pope Nicholas, and then read about marriage, then controversy regarding marriage, then FOX tv, then Rupert Murdoch, then his wife, Wendi Deng. And damn, she IS a bitch.

Can you imagine being a 30 year old woman looking at Murdoch's crusty face everyday? One of their kids is certainly going to be the antichrist.
That just confirms my theory: Any woman will take a re-deal if she thinks she can get a better/more powerful man. Just like one learns in evolutionary theory: Females control evolution in any species by regulating ultimate access to sex. Men have come up with every kind of social structure to circumvent this, but all unsuccessful (ok, maybe the Arabs and Turks come the closest). A female will always choose the most evolutionarily appropriate partner for sex. That means that if a woman cheats on her husband, the new guy is better in some way. A man will cheat based on much broader criteria. And if a woman won't leave her mate, then the suitor is inferior. I could expound at length but I suppose I'll let it drop.

What I learned today: A hat that doesn't cover one's ears can still significantly contribute to overall warmth. And according to a book "39 Things the Government Doesn't Want You to Know," smoking causes colorectal polyps.

I'll send a postcard to anyone who can tell me the Καθαρέβουσα word for πουτάνα. I there has to be something better than an Italian word. It might not exist since Greek women are so wonderful. The ancient Greek is πόρνη ης ἡ. That's not very satisfying either.

14.11.4 orz

Two weeks and no post! Well, essays and exams. I think I finally have the 8th and 9th century popes on lockdown though. I still have an exam coming up, so posting may continue to be spotty.

My brother and father visited last week. We ate Japanese food on Thanksgiving... that is just the type of "quirky" thing people write in blogs, thinking that other people will find it interesting, but no one gives a fuck. Anyway, it was nice just to be with some family. I would have rather have been full of turkey, yemisi, and wine in Muncie with the whole family together though.

They went to Brussels for a few days... I'm sure waffles and chocolate were consumed in abundance. I would have liked to have joined them...the trappists aren't all available here. I did go with them to St. Albans. It is a surprisingly nice town. Only a 15 min train ride out of town and it feels like rural Surrey. I bet property is sky high. I made my poor dad walk about two miles from the station to the Roman sites. It was really cold... There are some nice excavations though; particularly of an old coliseum/theater. There is also a pretty nice Roman museum dedicated to Verulamium (As the city was known).

It became St. Albans when a guy named Alban allowed a priest to say in his home, and was beheaded for trying to shield him from the authorities. The story goes that he traded clothes with the priest... but didn't everyone wear cassocks then? Anyway, the site became a major site of pilgrimage. A cathedral was built to house the shrine that housed the relics. The venerable Bede reports that miracles were still occuring among those who came to venerate the saint. Of course, Henry VIII had the shrine smashed. I was temporarily duped because the shrine has been rebuilt...though minus the relics which were lost. Maybe that is why my eczema wasn't healed. That aside, it is nice to follow in the footsteps of thousands of ones spiritual forebears.

The modern cathedral is pretty impressive architecturally. There is a central tower built by the Normans out of the bricks from the Roman wall. It also contains some 800 year-old painted wood ceilings. Overall, the Norman and gothic styles blend together rather well...

There is also an 800 year old pub there that has pretty good meat pies... Ye Olde Fighting Cocks...

I was sad to see my dad and brother go....

...I learned this week, that if you do something nice for someone, you might end up the victim of a hate crime....


...isn't this about the most evil bitch you've ever seen in your life? I mean there are gold diggers, but she has to be the prime example of evolution providing females with sex as the ultimate weapon.