Romantic Antihero™

OK, so my numbering system was off. “Day 1” was a Sunday, so that should help keep things straight. “Day 12” Thursday, the day we went to London to visit the Old Bailey.

So, right, Day 12. Today we went to visit the Old Bailey. But before that we toured the Templar Church and the Inn of the Middle Temple. This all has summat to do with the Knights Templar, and I will explain as best and briefly as I can. The Knights Templar built this church/temple thing:

At some point the Knights Templar were run out and the land seized by the Crown, and after that the site evolved into a social club/guild hall/school for lawyers thing. The temple theme was maintained, I guess, and two of the “inns” were named after it. We were hosted this day by the Society of the Middle Temple Inn, but more on that in a bit. First, the church:

This was our tour guide, and behind him are some mounted police, apparently special to the complex. According to the guide, this area is not part of London even though it’s surrounded by it. Our guide was pretty casual, exhibiting the curious demeanor I’ve noticed in other “working class” British in positions of authority. Sort of “belligerently friendly”, if that makes any sense. The first thing he did was to tell us how put out he was with Americans bothering him about “Da Vinci Code” tourism and what a bunch of nonsense the whole book was (this site was a location in the book and film).

That slit-window up on the wall there, we were told, originally went to an oubliette, where the Templars apparently stuck some Irish bishop who said nasty things about them. Those are some hard folk who can listen to a man screaming for mercy or in despair while they slowly starve him to death for three months, in their church while they pray several times a day.

Ringed round the inside of the round part of the church were gargoyles. This one is “the Devil”, and the others are all sorts of grotesque. Here are a couple more examples:

Here is the old style pulpit in the church:

And here is the organ, which was a lot more impressive than turned out in the picture:

Here we are standing in front of the main gate into the Inn of the Middle Temple, who hosted us today:

Guess who forgot to pack his suit jacket?

Anyway, our tour guide took us through the Middle Temple Inn and showed us all kinds of neat stuff I wasn’t allowed to photograph. Such as a table made from a piece of wood from the Golden Hind, which I wanted to touch but was too afraid to, along with an enormous table made from three pieces all hewn from the same enormous oak tree that was constructed in the dining hall and has never left in hundreds of years. It sits as the high table, and all sorts of monarchs and famous people have sat at it, including Elizabeth I, William Shakespeare, the afore-referenced Sir Francis Drake, and some of the current royals. I did touch that. They were originally going to have us eat our lunch at the head table, but the University of San Diego had a larger party, so we were at a different one.

But before that, we found ourselves in a parlor in the Inn talking with a woman of some rank in the Inn that was telling us more about the institution. I said earlier how the inns were “social club/guild hall/school for lawyers”, and that’s a fair assessment, I think. Lawyers in training are sort of apprentices here, and they mingle with the practicing elite here, chiefly through a series of obligatory social events. A lot of reputation is built and maintained or defended here, and it’s very much an “insiders” type of thing.

Oh yes, during the discussion of all this we were shown an example of the strange wigs that the lawyers and judges wear for criminal court sessions:

They don’t wear them for every court thing anymore, but they do still wear all that stuff for criminal and serious court. They do also wear a particular uniform for court appearances, even when not wearing the wigs and other fancy stuff.

After we ate lunch at the Inn of the Middle Temple we walked down to the Old Bailey. The Old Bailey is the oldest court in England, and is used for serious criminal cases from London and other jurisdictions who feel a centralized trial would be better. Everyone had to turn off their cell phones and hand over cameras before entering so, again, no photographs. Both places where we weren’t allowed to photograph were very, very neat. You’ll just have to trust me on that.

So we met a judge, Judge Brian Barker, who was a direct-exchange student to KU back in the 1960s. Among other things he showed us the Jayhawk statue he keeps in his office! But he took us to his courtroom and talked to us about how the modern British trial system works then opened the floor for questions. I asked him if he had any critiques, either positive or negative, of the US criminal system compared to his own. His answer was self consciously political, gently avoiding a clear answer, though he did make brief reference to a couple of things. He was a very nice fellow, easy to talk to, and who answered every other query or comment straightforward and amicably. Afterward he gave us a personal tour of the building, taking us into areas where the general public are not allowed, including an area that is more or less “a temple to the concept of justice”. He also showed us a piece of glass embedded into the wall that came from the first IRA car-bomb to be set off in England, that they left there as a sort of reminder.

After that the group broke up and everyone set off for their “long weekend” destinations. I had an anytime return ticket to Cambridge, so I walked around with a couple of my classmates for another couple of hours. We walked down to the Tower of London and the pier there, so I took some pictures:

Saint Paul’s Cathedral

Statue of Queen Anne, surrounded by goddesses I could not identify, along with some tourists who I did not know.

Statue of Wellington

Bank of London

All Hallows Church

Tower of London

London Bridge (I was told) as seen from the pier near the Tower.

From here the three of us who were still wandering around together made our way to the nearest tube station. Two of us found ourselves back at King’s Cross where we retrieved the things we had checked there (his bag and my pocket knife) and from there I found an express train back to Cambridge. I was thinking I might go take a picture of “Platform 9 ¾” of Harry Potter fame, but I was just too tired to go find it. I’m not a big Harry Potter fan anyway. And I had been walking all over London in dress shoes and just wanted to get on the train so I could sit down.

One more thing, though. Outside the train station in Cambridge there is this:

Bicycles. Bicycles everywhere. They’re rather expensive here, with the fancy fold-up commuter bicycles going for £700 (that’s over $1000), though you can get cheap Chinese mountain bikes at the mall for £50.

From there I simply walked back to Trinity Hall with a brief stop at a Subway for a sandwich, and called it a night with an early bed time.

Reviresco!

My numbering system might be off, but I’m too tired to think about it right now. If it is I’ll fix it later. Also, no pictures today.

This morning our law class met early and took our first test. We have two law professors for this excursion, one teaching the first two weeks and the other teaching the next. Our first class was “Comparative Criminal Justice”, which basically took us through the judicial process from “what is a crime?” to “theories of punishment”. We started with the premise that we were legal advisors for a new country, and as we learned about each step we had to hash out our recommendations amongst each other. There weren’t any right or wrong answers in said recommendations, only that we knew what we were talking about and could justify our stance properly in our arguments. Very different from what I’m used to, but I have to say it was a lot of fun. The two hour/two question test wasn’t even bad at all.

This afternoon I tried to book a one day bus tour to Bath and Stonehenge, but was told that the last spots were being reserved until 1400hrs when a group was supposed to come in and pay for them, but I could come back after that and see if they had bothered to show. I had to be about fifteen minutes away not long after then, so I went to that off-site lecture first.

The off-site lecture was at a place called the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, which is in a modest building sort of tucked on a nondescript side street. According to our host lecturer, the treaty between Israel and Jordan was hashed out over breakfast in their kitchen, if that gives you any idea of what sort of place it is. It was a terribly interesting talk and there was an informative Q&A session afterward. After that we retired to another room with the fellow who hosted us, whose name I regrettably do not remember, and had orange juice and cookies and talked about rugby.

After that I dashed back to the tourist center and enquired about the bus tour to Bath and Stonehenge. “Very sorry, but they did come in and buy the tickets. Would you like to book the next tour on the 31st?” Of course the next one isn’t the next weekend, but the one after that, the day I’ll be in Kansas…

But still, here is still very cool, so there is that. I need to just hang out and do some reading and maybe a little writing anyway. Cambridge isn’t where I thought it would be, the trains are more expensive than I thought they’d be and the buses are unreasonably confusing to schedule and don’t seem to go to the places I really want to visit. The easy places to visit all cost boatload of US dollars to visit. Stupid exchange rate.

So I walked around city center for a while and then met up with a couple friends coming back to the Hall. The three of us explored some of the parts of the college we hadn’t been yet, and found our way into the student bar. Of course the bar isn’t staffed right now, but there is a lounge there so we sat down and started playing “Chinese checkers”. Before the game could be finished, however, a porter knocked on the outside door and told us we weren’t supposed to be in there. Which is totally why the door was open and the light was on, I guess, but whatever.

So we’re going to London tomorrow, the big class field trip. We’re taking the train into London and getting an all day “Zone 1 & 2” tube pass. Our destination is The Old Bailey, where we will meet with a judge and then witness a criminal trial. It should be very fascinating and all that, but we are also being released for our “long weekend” immediately following, and most of the class is dispersing throughout the Britain and the continent for some tourism and fun. A couple of us are either staying at the Hall or only taking limited excursion. Due to lack of foresight and money I am staying at the Hall, as previously mentioned. What I hope to visit tomorrow is the British Museum, and maybe find my mysterious bridge, which I will explain more later. Maybe.

Anyway, it’s late and I’m tired, and I’ve got a big day tomorrow with some very exciting stuff to do and see.

Reviresco!

First I’d like to start off with what I did yesterday evening after I posted the webcomic. There might be some people in the States who are still unaware that the world’s most popular sport had a cup final last night, so if any of them are my friends and family who read this, there’s my public service announcement: World Cup soccer! Netherlands versus Spain! A friend and I watched the final at a bar called The Fountain down on Regent Street. We packed into the bar and it was very crowded. For whatever reason, we had decided that we were supporting the Dutch. Of course Cambridge is crawling with Spaniards and the Dutch are thin on the ground, but that didn’t stop us. Between us, some local English and a small handful of actual Dutch, we had enough passion to drown out the mob of Spanish up front by the big screen every time they started to sing with our chanting. It was great fun, too bad the Netherlands lost.

Today we did our usual: up for breakfast, history class, break, law class, the rest of the afternoon for ourselves. It’s Monday, and the one museum we went to last week was closed on Monday. I didn’t want to walk all the way down to the Archaeological Museum to have it be closed. So I took a much needed (after staying out to watch the World Cup and all that) nap, then bounced out to the dining hall for dinner. After dinner we decided that we were going punting again, so we rounded up a small group. By virtue of having done it before I ended up being the one to check it out again. At first they told me I couldn’t, there was some confusion and all that, but then it worked out for us, and I was told I was “privileged”. I’ve felt privileged the entire time I’ve been here, this was just the first time anyone has commented on it. Anyway, this time I wasn’t afraid to bring my camera, so I have a bunch of pictures. I did the punting for the first half of the trip, then gave over to my classmates so I could just enjoy being on the river.

OK, I’m just going to dump a bunch of the pictures I took. I think they pretty well speak for themselves…

Except for this one. This is a picture of the bridge that almost knocked me off the punt last Friday.

I call this fellow, “Johnny Two-Punts”. He put us all to shame, because we struggled with one punt while he expertly poled along TWO by himself.

OK, picture dump over.

After this I grabbed my rugby ball and got a couple of the guys to go out with me to toss it around. I didn’t have any concrete idea for how it was supposed to go down, only that I wanted to go throw my new ball around. Standing there thinking about it on the lawn we started passing it, and the next thing I knew almost all of the KU contingent had emerged from their rooms and somehow we were kicking a soccer ball instead. A Bulgarian high school girl had been throwing the rugby ball with us, but by the time we were playing “men in the middle” with the soccer ball we had an Italian college guy with us instead. Sometime in there a match between KU and his Italian college was arranged, and I’m sure it won’t go well for us.

That’s when it all went pear shaped.

I may have mentioned that doing things on the grass was forbidden. Apparently it’s far beyond just a clever joke for me to have made. We were enjoying ourselves immensely when a porter came running out and started chewing us out for playing games inside the college. Members of the college don’t even do that, so you can imagine how horrifying it was for a bunch of Americans to be doing it. After a thorough lecture it was all worked out to a misunderstanding and you can be well sure that none of us will be making that mistake ever again. The fellow was quit serious, and communicated his displeasure thoroughly.

After that I retired by rugby ball back to my room, then watched the season finale of Doctor Who on a friend’s computer. I had wanted to take a walk around Cambridge after hours following that, but I stopped at the front door when the porter standing outside smoking gave me a funny look. Turns out the college closes and looks the doors, and if I left I’d just be outside the walls for the night. Which was disappointing, to say the least. So I sat on the river-wall watching the swans sleep for a bit, while bats flipped around and a group of Americans who I sincerely hope had permission made off with a punt from one of the local tour businesses in the dark of the night.

Aside from the dressing down over playing in the yard it was a good day.

Reviresco!

First of all, this is my 101st post! The website has been going for nearly a year now, updated regularly with what I believe is interesting content. “Monty Maxwell” as a subject is pretty obscure and limited to a dedicated few, I suppose, but what the hell, I think it’s a worthwhile project.

Moving right along: Today was my first real weekend experience in Cambridge. Last Saturday (I’ve been here a week!) I was working my way through airports, riding on trains and dragging a suitcase across a town I’d never been to before. Now I can get around happily with no consternation at all, and that’s what I did today.

A lot of my classmates took off for London. Friday I believe it was just the three of us who went punting who stayed last night. I slept in very late today, having worn myself out over the last week, and enjoyed the feeling of just laying in bed for a while. I got wrong information about there being no breakfast on weekends, but it is true we don’t get dinner.

I headed out to the Games Workshop store to have a look at their Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition launch party. I was told it would be a big event with a huge, all day battle going on in-store. It was less than impressive. I stopped and chatted with one of the employees for a bit, and when he inquired into my DIY Chaos Marines warband I couldn’t really describe it, so I just showed them some pictures of my models on my phone. “Now I’ve seen everything” is how one employee put it, and that made me giggle. Other than that, it was pretty much a bust. The huge battle wasn’t all that huge and the crowd was nowhere near as large as expected and it was mostly children. None of the adults I saw the other day were about, so I guess I was too early or they didn’t care to attend the opening.

After that I went to Subway, because I wanted a regular sandwich. I’ve heard other people at KU talking about how happy they were to see American fast food joints. It’s not intimidating to me to eat local food at all. In fact it’s very good. The chip shops and roach coaches sling excellent burgers, the one nice restaurant I’ve been to had good food, and there is a decent grocery store just a short walk from where I live. What was a relief was that Subway was cheaper than most places. And I do like sandwiches. But on to what you really read this blog for:

I thought it was weird that they’d name a breakfast cereal “Force”. And you can’t read it in this smaller picture, but the gentleman on the box is wearing a hat with the moniker “Sunny Jim” on it. I must try some eventually, to see what Force tastes like. It doesn’t sound appetizing, but I’m willing to have an open mind about it.

One thing I love about England is that Reggae and Ska is not weird here. It’s absolutely normal. Normal enough to have a ketchup named after it, even.

I’m fairly certain that this door leads to Cambridge Below. Trinity Hall has been remodeled all kinds of times, and weird stuff like this pops out into my consciousness every now and again. Everything is so different here that I walk by strange stuff all the time and don’t notice it until the 100th time I pass it. Like today I noticed that the hand rail to the stair on the floor below me turns back and goes into the floor. The actual stairs down are further down the hall.

I’m normally looking at cool stuff like this☝. A series of sundials, I guess, on this tower you can see from Senate House Lane. Everything about this thing is cool.

Remember when I was going on about moats and whatnot? Here is what I mean ☝. These bars with the deadly spikes, albeit pointing in the wrong way, are in the nooks of the Senate House outer wall. I guess to keep people from climbing up to the ledge where the windows are. They build the ledges wide enough to walk around on, then decide they need to protect them, so they build you a ladder to ascend to them with?

This little bit of extra defense at least makes sense. What it implies to me is that the pointy iron bars were not actually enough, really, and some determined blokes must have actually been managing them. So you add some more spikes and a Garden Weasel to the top near the wall: Bam! You’ve got yourself some bloodied up peasants who will never be trying that again, thank you very much…

Here is a very cool Catholic Church I passed on the way back from Subway. I also went into the local shopping mall after this. It’s weird because it’s not a huge building surrounded by acres and acres of parking lot. In fact it blends in pretty seamlessly to the surrounding buildings, but it’s still a three (in some places four) story building that is maybe not as long as Oak Park or Metro North, but is still a sizable shopping mall. I got a couple of nice Lonsdale shirts for the equivalent of $10 a piece. Fred Perry and Ben Sherman clothing is both abundant here, but also more expensive than mail ordering it from the States for some reason.

Oh, and there’s this:

This is in a cupboard in the kitchenette on my floor. It looks like some kind of meter for something, but I’ve no idea what.

There was a wedding going on all afternoon here, so for the better part we made ourselves scarce, also doing some grocery shopping at Sainsbury’s. Eventually we did come out and sit on the river-wall, because our rooms are hot and boring. We sat there and talked while wedding guests took turns with the college punts and mingled on Latham Lawn. Then a friend of mine let me watch last week’s episode of Doctor Who on his laptop, and then I called it a night. It remains awesome, if you were wondering, but I do miss my family and friends. Right now I’m in my room with the windows open listening to drunken locals punting on the river singing obscene drinking songs…

Reviresco!