Month: March 2005

But there are two blogs about Terri Schiavo and the media/cultural uproar surrounding it that made me giggle hilariously.

From the pull the plug if they can’t take a joke dept….

Paul Wolfowitz was just elected — unanimously — World Bank President. This can’t be good. More commentary later as I’m distracted.

There is a write up of the Marillion Weekend 2005 in The Independent. Just sayin’.

It’s really slow at work tonight, which just gives me more time to understand how sleepy I am. My body thinks it’s about 2:30am right now, and I still have 2-3 hours of work left on a 12 hour shift. A few more days will clearly be required for me to reacclimate my system. I seem to be having much more difficulty with jetlag after the return than I did adapting the the UK. The fact that I’m staring at a computer screen for 12 hours today and tomorrow doesn’t help either. Ah well. It’s my reality, and I’m sticking to it.

Not sure what else to say about the trip. Everyone keeps asking me what my favorite part of it was. I’d be hard-pressed to choose from among 4 elements: 1) the Marillion weekend, 2) Glastonbury, 3) Inverness/Loch Ness, and 4) hanging out in Cornwall with the Beowulfs. After I thought about this list I was surprised that London wasn’t included it in; not that I have anything against London (on the contrary; it’s a remarkable city), I think this just is a reflection of the fact that in general I don’t much care for large cities. But it was great to see everything in London, and to meet Massimo and his family.

The worst part was simple: flying. I hate flying, not because of anything inherent in actually flying, but because the seats for the unwealthy are designed for anorexic barbie-dolls, actual size. Every time I sit in a plane seat, I feel like a sardine. There just isn’t enough space on the Airbus planes designed to accomodate 600 passengers. But it’s not that big of a deal; I can simply endure 7 hours of physical discomfort in order to experience another country. Definitely worth it.

I have been thinking about the differences between the US and the UK. I never felt like I was in danger in the UK. Of course, there aren’t any guns in the UK (or at least not like there are here), but I think the difference is bigger than that. I strongly think it’s related to what Michael Moore reported as the “culture of fear” in America in his film Bowling for Columbine. That doesn’t seem to exist over there. Even in London, I felt safe. There isn’t the same kind of poverty in the UK that we have here, not that there isn’t poverty but the government programs over there are far superior to what we have in the states. For example, I was talking to one single mother there who gets 800 pounds per month in child support; that’s equivalent to about $1500/month, which if you stretch it is enough to live on, albeit without luxury. But this person also worked fulltime with a salary, which did not disqualify her from the benefits as it would in the states. So people have an underlying sense of security, I think, that they will be taken care of no matter how bad things get, a sense that is missing the US which so prides itself on its “rugged individualism” and “social Darwinism” that is so deeply ingrained in US culture.

Going through customs/immigration in both countries was very telling. When we arrived in the UK, the immigration officer was polite, pleasant, dressed in a simple uniform, and asked us basic questions about how long we planned to stay in the UK and what our business was there (“we’re just on holiday”). We chatted for a bit, and he stamped our passports, smiled, and told us to have a wonderful time in his country.

When we got to the US, we were confronted with a huge line, the workers behind each customs station peering out from behind thick bulletproof glass, everyone in a uniform heavily armed with guns, stuck sheepishly holding out the paperwork we were required to fill out. They wanted to know everything we were bringing back into the country and its cash value. Certain things are prohibited, innocuous things like fresh food items, and if you are caught with them you will be fined on the spot and denied entry until you pay the fine.

A culture of fear, indeed…

All in all, it was a fantastic trip on so many levels. I got to see things I’d wanted to see for many years (ie, Glastonbury, Scotland, a European Marillion audience), got to meet some great people, and we did it all within our budget. I literally arrived home with a pound or two of UK change left out of all our travel money. So we didn’t have to tap in to our credit cards, which is of course wonderful.

I played some music last night with Freakwitch, and I was of course rusty. And exhausted. But it fed the fires again; I’m really eager to dive back in to the recordings and to develop a solid live show. It looks like our bassist is considering relocating south, which would be good news in terms of his accessibility to the band. Either way, forward momentum….

The UK trip photos are uploading. I’ll be tweaking them over the next few days. I spend most of last night and a good chunk of this morning putting in comments for each of the 304 pictures, but for some reason the comments don’t seem to be uploading in the web photo album. That’s OK, I should be able to fix that. In addition, there are too many columns, you have to scroll horizontally on the index pages to see them all. But that’s OK, I’ll fix that too.

Anyway, enjoy the photos! Feel free to leave comments here or email me if you have questions about any of the shots.

Just a quick note to say that we’re home. We left the house in Cornwall at 5:30am, UK time. Note that this almost exactly 23 hours ago. I haven’t slept since. Needless to say, I’m exhausted and I’m off to bed.

Thanks to everyone involved with this trip on whatever level, from family who made this possible to friends we met while there.

I finished with 304 photographs that I will most likely post tomorrow. Watch this space.

Staying in Lostwithiel has been a delightful denouement to our trip. Getting to know the Beowulfs has been fantastic; I really feel that there is a very solid foundation for a good friendship to last well into the future. They are already thinking of a trip to the US (and of course Maine) next year. We’re finding very similar values across our (albeit subtle — this as after all England and not so very different from America) cultural differences. I’ve already promised to set my daughter up with her own email address so that she can correspond to the little Beowulfs who have become good friends in such a short time (a few blowups notwithstanding).

Yesterday Mrs. Beowulf and I went to Tintagel where I was able to see the magnificent north Cornish coastline. The rockiness of it is similar to Maine, except the stones are a bit different, flatter and more slate-like than what we see at home. Then today my family and Mrs. Beowulf along with the little Beowulfs (who were held out of school today — I was surprised to discover that taking your children out of school in England requires advance permission from the headmistress of the school) took a picnic lunch on an expedition to both The Hurlers stone circles and Restormel Castle. The energy at the stone circle was quite good; another one of those ancient sites that were (or have been) sacred ground for so long that it can be felt if you pay close enough attention. And the views from the top of the round Castle were stunning; you could see the beautiful rolling hills of the Cornish countryside for miles around. There were also old Cornish tin mines right up on the land; the shafts were all around, around 8′ across and filled with earth. Now they look like pits; you have to be careful not to step on them or you could fall through.

We’re definitely in winding-down mode for our trip; we have to get up at stupid o’clock tomorrow morning to catch the train from Cornwall back to Heathrow for our flight home to Boston, where we’ll be arriving late afternoon EST.

And Mr. Beowulf, if you’re reading this, the best Freakwitch recording online thus far is Too Bad For You, though it remains just an audience recording from a gig we did a year or two ago. You (like all of us) will just have to wait for the proper album. We’re working on it, slow but sure.

For the last time, at least on this trip, cheers from the UK!

We rode the train yesterday for 8 hours from Edinburgh to Lostwithiel, a beautiful town in Cornwall where some new friends and fellow Marillion Weekenders (Mr. and Mrs. Beowulf — or at least those are their screen names on the Marillion forum) live. I’m writing this from their beautiful and comfortable home. My daughter is thrilled, as there are two little Beowulfs running about who are almost exactly the same age as her, so really for the first time this trip she has found some children excited to play with her, and don’t just stare at her uncomfortably because she talks funny.

The train ride was split neatly in half; 4 hours from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross station, a short tube ride over to Paddington station, and then another 4 hour train ride out to Cornwall. As beautiful as Scotland was, it was riding west through Somerset just south of Glastonbury where I found the landscape the most beautiful. It called to me in a very primal way, the gentle rolling hills interspersed with crop fields, these lands have been trodden for who knows how many thousands of years. There is a peculiar spiritual resonance I feel for this place that words cannot express.

We’ll spend the remainder of our trip here in Cornwall until we take the train back to London to catch our flight out of Heathrow back to Boston. Over the next few days I hope to walk around Cornwall, and perhaps travel to places like Tintagel or the Hurlers stone circle.

I should have a chance to post more in the next few days, so I’ll sign off for now.

Inverness is stunning! Of course, it helped that every Scot we ran into said “it’s the best day we’ve had yet this year” weather-wise. It reminded me of Maine in May; sunny, warm in the sun and cool in the shadows, with the occasional breeze that makes you glad you have a jacket.

We arrived in Inverness via the train from Scotland, making several stops in the Scottish highlands, which look remarkably like the Appalachian mountains in the states. I later discovered from a tour guide that at one point in the distant past, when there was just one giant meta-continent on earth, what is now Scotland was connected with what is now Appalachia.

We did one of the few “touristy” things we’ve done on the trip; once in Inverness we booked a bus tour from Inverness down to Loch Ness. I hadn’t been aware that Loch Ness was so deep; apart from the obvious legends about Nessie, it’s an incredibly scenic place. The bus took us to the Loch Ness 2000 Exhibition, where we were ushered indoors to watch cheesy videos about Nessie. It was cool and informative, particularly the bits about the geologic formations of the area, but I’d have preferred time to get out and walk around Urquhart Castle.

After the Exhibition, we were then bussed to a small port, where we boarded a boat and sailed out onto Loch Ness. The boat ride was about an hour, it took us down to the Urquhart Castle ruins, where I madly snapped photographs the entire trip. I think a few of them have some nice potential; they along with the Glastonbury photos are the best ones I’ve taken thus far. I will of course post them all up when I return; watch this space.

After the guided tour, we went back to Inverness where I cooked a dinner for my family, relaxed and watched a bit of a BBC special on the history of Dr. Who, and we went to bed early.

This morning, we took the train from Inverness back to Edinburgh, this time a slightly different route that took us around the Firth of Forth (as opposed to across it on a bridge), and into the towns of Falkirk and Stirling. Once in Edinburgh, my wife and daughter went back to the hostel for some down time and to get some washing done (my daughter and I both have the sniffles a bit, she’s utterly plugged up and for me it’s settling in my chest); I took the opportunity to walk around Edinburgh. For those of you familiar with Edinburgh, I essentially walked in a giant spiral — widdershins — from the train station to Princes Street, down through the Princes Street Gardens (which used to be a lake, it was drained in the 18th century and turned into a giant garden), around Edinburgh Castle, and down the Royal Mile to Bridge St. Once on Bridge St, I went back to the train station to find out how to catch a bus to the hostel. Some woman at the info desk was incredibly helpful and I decided to forgo the bus and walk to the hostel, back up Princes St. to the Lothian Rd, and then up to the hostel. It was a nice 30 minute walk. I also picked up some more vegetables for tonight’s dinner, which I just finished cooking and eating with my family.

I’ve now taken over 200 photos, and still have room for another 100 or so. Tomorrow we get up early to take an early train to London and then to Cornwall. We’ll be on the train all day. Yay.

Cheers!

Edinburgh feels older than London. I’m not sure which is actually older, as they both started off as little more than camps on the water, but the architecture in this city has an older feel to it. We haven’t seen much of it just yet; we arrived at the train station and took a cab to the Bruntsfield Scottish Youth Hostel, which is where I am now.

Staying in London with Massimo, Dagmar, and little Leonardo was a delight. It was good to meet the face I’d been working with for a while online.

I had a chance to see the British Museum on my own yesterday, which was cool, but my underlying emotion or vibe from it was just how much has been utterly fucking stolen from cultures all around the world. I also went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art, where I was confronted by a security guard and told to put my camera away, as there are no cameras allowed anywhere in the gallery because these works are all newer and therefore are still under copyright. The guard was very polite, and could always retreat under the banner of “just doin’ me job” so I didn’t bother protesting or debating the intricacies of intellectual property and fair use laws. Besides, I’m not precisely sure what the fair use laws in the UK are.

We’re having a good time, though I miss talking to my friends and I really miss working on my music. Ah well. We’ll be home soon, and then I’ll wish we were still here.

Tomorrow we take another train up to Inverness, where we’ll spend the night at a place called (no, I’m not joking) the Ho-Ho-Hostel, and then we’ll be back at this hostel for another night in Edinburgh. After that, we’ll take the train back down to Cornwall, way on the other end of the UK, to stay with some new friends there for the remainder of our trip. Once in Cornwall, I hope to see Tintagel, and possibly some other spots there.

We did manage to see Glastonbury, which was very cool. There were three highlights to Glastonbury itself, the Tor, the Chalice Well, and the ruins of The Glastonbury Abbey, which up until its decommissioning in 1539 when Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church was the largest Abbey in Britain; indeed it was so large it was called the second Rome. This part of the trip was probably the closest I’ll get to a spiritual pilgrimage in this lifetime; there is so much history and legend there, and the energy in the place is quite extraordinary. I also get a kick out of the intersection between Christian and Pagan elements there; right across the main High street where the entrance to the ruins are are a half-dozen pagan/witchy shops. Lots of hippies/freaks there, for sure.

I’ve been taking loads of photographs while here, I should have well over 200 by the time I return. I’ll post them, of course, when I get back.

Cheers!