Dickinson College Humanities Program in Norwich

Image from http://www.reelmovienews.com/gallery/gandalf-glows/ and also from the audience of “The Habit of Art”

In our short time in London, I have gotten the opportunity to see a large sampling of what London’s theatres have to offer. From standing in Globe Theatre to watch “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (or, shudder, “Bedlam”) to leaning right over the actors of “All my Sons” from a box seat, I must say I have been quite impressed. The low cost of London’s theatres is particularly amazing. I have yet to pay more than fifteen pounds for a ticket, including seeing two shows on the West End. Given my love of ranking things, I am going to discuss each show from my least to most favorite. After that, I will briefly discuss my observations concerning the differences between American and British theatre.

Worst: “Bedlam”

Wow. Truly, astonishingly, bad. To begin with, I find the Globe to be sort of a touristy gimmick. When inside the theatre, I feel less like I’m in the era of Shakespeare and more like I’m at the Renaissance Fair in Pennsylvania. This being said, a good production, like “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” can still happen in a sub-par venue. However, a good production Bedlam is not. The actors seemed talented enough, but they clearly not invested in the show. No one was having a particularly good time on stage, and no one took their performance to the next level. Quite frankly I do not know if this would have been possible, as the script was terrible. You know something is bad when the entire audience groans at the climax of the play (On a side note, the audience seemed noticeably less touristy than the crowd at “Merry Wives of Windsor,” likely due to unfamiliarity of the show)

5: “Merry Wives of Windsor”

Now the quality of shows jumps up exponentially. “Merry Wives” is a sub-par Shakespeare comedy, but it was performed with enough conviction to make it quite an entertaining evening. The plot is quite convoluted, and the running length is far too great, but it was fun. I must ask, though: Why does the Globe insist on musical numbers between scenes? Are they trying to REALLY make it feel like the Renaissance Fair?

4: “The Habit of Art”

First of all, the National Theatre is an incredible venue. All three theatres were so meticulously thought out that there was not a bad seat anywhere. Unfortunately, “The Habit of Art” doesn’t belong on such a gargantuan stage as the one in the Lyttelton Theatre. I found the show to be a great two man drama hidden within a convoluted play-within-a-play series of gimmicks. While I appreciate Luke’s point in an earlier blog that the show at least tried to achieve greatness, and hit on a lot of themes in interesting ways, I still think that the show was far too flawed to be considered a success. The saving grace was that the audience was very receptive to the inside theatre jokes, as it seemed to be compromised of experienced theatre goers…and Sir Ian McKellen.

3: “The 39 Steps”

As Luke points out, and I think quite accurately, “The 39 Steps” excels at its rather un-lofty goals. The show is simply meant to be pleasant, and that’s what it delivers to a much more casual audience than the National Theatre. I still rank it above “The Habit of Art” because it appealed to a whole lot of my interests. As a huge Hitchcock fan, it was fun to see all of the clever references. I enjoyed all of the puns, clever staging, and impressive comedic acting. Yes, it was about as deep as a puddle, and it was not funniest show I had ever seen. However, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

2: “Les Miserables”

This is my favorite musical, and while it was not the best production of it I have ever seen, it was still solid. I wrote another blog about the only difference I saw between this and U.S. versions of the show. Other than that, it felt like a Broadway production in what might have been a slightly smaller theatre.

Best: “All My Sons”

The box seats might have helped. However, this show was incredibly powerful and moving. Once you got over a couple hiccups in the American accents, the acting in the show was impeccable, particularly by the lead actor David Sachet. The theatre itself was very similar to that of “Les Mis” and “39 Steps.” We were about twenty years younger than everyone else in the audience, but it did not matter in the least. Incredible writing, mesmerizing acting and solid directing made this the best show I’ve seen in London.

In comparing London theatre to that of America, and in particular New York, I am reminded of Rick Fisher’s analogy of Hollywood(Broadway) versus Independent Theatre(West End). I don’t think the comparison truly works. In terms of on-Broadway shows versus the West End shows, both are almost entirely comprised of very commercial, un-risky ventures. The West End has “Wicked,” “Chicago,” and “The Lion King” like Broadway, and adds to it stage versions of Thriller and Queen songs. Certainly, there are more avant-garde and quirkier productions around London in the National Theatre and elsewhere, but those are directly comparable to the quirky productions you might find off-Broadway. In terms of the shows themselves, I personally don’t think there’s huge difference between London and NY. For the past twenty years, it seems as if the two cities have simply been swapping shows. Broadway will get “Les Mis” and “Billy Elliot” from the West End, and in exchange London will get “Wicked” and “Jersey Boys.” The difference is in the audience. Because tickets are so much cheaper in London, the shows are blessed with a much more theatre-literate audience. It raises the energy of the production and, from my experience, makes for a better show. In conclusion, cheap theatre tickets are awesome.

The museums of London seem to all fall around one dominant theme: imperialism. Seeing that this defined the British Empire for a majority of the last three centuries, it is no wonder that one can see its influence in each place one visits in London. Every museum either boasts the riches and plunders of the imperial era or makes some sort of comment on imperialism by what the curators chose and didn’t choose to include. As imperialism is, in my mind, the central idea around which all these museums exist, I’m going to take a look at each of the museums I have visited as reflections on the topic:

The British Museum: Many have already commented about the BM’s collection of artifacts and treasures from around the globe. It’s hard not to look at the mummies of ancient Egypt or the Elgin marbles without wondering just how exactly the BM got a hold of them. For its part, the museum seems to take delight in owning a collection that many would not consider rightfully theirs. On the “History of the World in 100 Objects,” I noted the quip the curator made about the “four languages” on the Rosetta Stone (as “Captured by the British Army” appears in English on the side of the artifact). While the BM could just ignore England’s imperial past, it seems to be content with making quips about where these objects came from. Essentially, the museum feels like a chance to show off the spoils of imperialism to rest of the world.

The Victoria and Albert Museum: This museum feels like a massive palace packed with valuables. In keeping with the British Museum, everything is thrown into areas based around vague “themes.” If you want to see jewelry, be prepared for a lot of rooms with a lot of randomly assorted riches. If you seek a certain historical artifact, you can probably find the right room based on the era and location of the piece, but after that you might have some problems as the rooms are randomly set up and gargantuan. Given the opulence of the collection, one cannot help but wonder how in the world the V&A wound up with all this stuff. The riches of imperialism are on full display at the V&A.

The Sir John Soane Museum: If the Victoria and Albert Museum feels like a massive palace packed with valuables obtained through imperialism, the Sir John Soane Museum IS a house packed with valuables obtained through imperialism. The place screams overkill, with walls of paintings that open up to more walls of paintings. I was particularly struck by the ivory chairs from India obtained during the eighteenth century: a very offsetting piece of the collection.

Natural History Museum: A few of us went through this museum after visiting the V&A, as the museum originated from the leftover collection at the V&A. While most of what one sees in the museum would not instantly recall British imperialism, some elements of the collection, like precious gems from South Africa, lead one to wonder just exactly how the museum got a hold of these pieces.

National Gallery: I really enjoyed this museum, but it is entirely Western European paintings. Given the Docklands Museum of London’s reference to the beauty of the arts in Africa before imperialism and slavery, why are none of these cultures, or those of the Middle East, represented?

National Portrait Gallery: I won’t go too much into this one, as several of my colleagues have already commented on the National Portrait Gallery’s imperialist nature. There is a stunning lack of racial or economic diversity in the collection, and I think a lot of that is a result of Britain’s imperialist past.

The Imperial War Museum: For a museum with the word “imperial” in the title, this museum actually had some of the least evidence of Britain’s imperial past of any of the places we visited. Only part of one wall was dedicated to all of the events surrounding the colonization of Africa, and I cannot recall any of the exhibits examining the struggles and fights for independence in any other former part of the British Empire. It is almost as if the curators wanted to sweep the entire history of British imperialism under the rug to focus on the glories of WWI and WWII. Based on the exhibits, one could easily come to conclusion that the Britain is embarrassed of its complete history. It was a cool museum, and I loved the section on British espionage (Who can’t love an exhibit that begins with James Bond clips?), but I found the museum incomplete because it ignored England’s imperial past.

The Cabinet War Rooms/Churchill Museum: My personal vote as the coolest museum in London, the Cabinet War Rooms show Britain near the end of the era of imperialism. Given the museum’s narrow focus, looking just at Churchill’s life and the struggle of the War Cabinet during the WWII Blitz, there was not much focus given to imperialism. One section of the Churchill Museum commented on the prime minister’s stance, early in his political career, in opposition to Indian independence. The part of the exhibit took a very apologetic tone, acknowledging Churchill’s mistake in taking such a position. Considering this museum is run in conjunction with the Imperial Museum, this part of the exhibit may provide an insight into the mind of the curators at that museum. Clearly, there is some sense of remorse on the part of the curators, evidenced by the Churchill Museum, for the British Empire’s actions, which could explain the lack of information about such events in the Imperial War Museum. Perhaps the curators are too ashamed to even broach the subject of British Imperialism.

Based on my observations, every museum I’ve seen in London is either indebted to imperialism due its bountiful collection of artifacts, or it tries to comment on the British Empire’s imperial past, typically by covering it up. Fifty years after the fall of imperialism, which is not that long ago, we still see its effects on the city of London.

It’s not often that I dislike a play.  I can often look past mediocre writing or questionable acting to see the good side of a show.  As someone who worked in community theatre throughout high school, I know how much work goes into a show, so when I go to see a show, I try to appreciate how hard everyone involved worked to put it on.  Last night, however, at The Habit of Art I found it hard to appreciate much of anything.  I could very easily nitpick about how the entire show was lit almost entirely with florescent lights (which look horrible) or something like that, because technical theatre is my thing, but I’ll stick with bigger themes instead.  First of all, the entire premise of the show is the rehearsal of a show, creating a show within a show, which is an effect that can be done tastefully, but isn’t in Habit.  It begins with the actors showing up for rehearsal for a (poorly-written) show that most of them hate, which leads to a lot of interruptions of the rehearsal, including a lot of conflict with the “writer” of said poorly-written show about interpretations and such.  This really prevented me from getting into either part of the show, because the “outside” play wasn’t present enough to really make a difference, but it was there just enough to be really annoying.  Meanwhile, the play within the play (the “inside” play) actually got to be good at bits, but these bits were always interrupted by the “writer,” the “stage manager,” and the “lead actor” yelling at each other.  Adding to this was that the whole premise of the “inside” play was very strange.  To sum it up in a few sentences, W.H. Auden and Benjamin Britten (a famous poet and a famous pianist/composer, respectively) are both in Oxford towards the end of their lives, having been good friends since they were young men (which is a fine plot of a play, and would be one I could enjoy).  At the time the action is happening, however, they’re grumpy, old, sex-craved, homosexual pedophiles.  Auden regularly pees in his sink, while Britten plays music with young boys to replace another kind of playing that he’d rather do with them.  Auden hires “rent-boys” to give him blowjobs, which it seems was a normal thing for Oxford professors to do at the time, because the rent-boy in the inside play talks of several of his more intellectual “clients.”  I’ll stop there, because I’m sure you get the idea.  I seem to remember there being more of a plot to the play, but it was overshadowed so much by it making two of England’s greatest intellectuals look really, really bad, that I simply can’t remember anything else.  Previously, I have had some experience with the music of Britten, which is beautiful, but have had no experience with Auden.  While my opinion of Britten really didn’t change much with this play (mostly because it was clear Britten in the play was trying to restrain himself), I’m not sure that I could ever take Auden seriously now, if I ever got up the nerve to read his poems, which is a shame because he’s one of the best poets the world has ever known.  Even though the play is supposedly based on true stories, I feel that the characters were exaggerated under the false idea that this would make them more suitable for the theatre.

I guess I should talk a bit about the venue, because it is one of the reasons such a questionable show was allowed to be put on.  Habit is being performed at the National Theatre which, as its name suggests, is publicly funded.  Because it doesn’t need to worry about its bottom line, it’s free to host more experimental theatre, which I’m totally all for.  If not for places like this, where else could new theatre be tried out?  However, the downside to this is that every once in a while, a weird show slips through.  It comes with the territory.  And as I look at it, you have to see a bad show sometimes to make you truly understand what a good show is.

For the sake of comparison, let’s examine the other two straight plays (in the non-musical sense, not heterosexual sense) we’ve seen and compare and contrast their quality and their venues.  Merry Wives of Windsor was a very high-quality play and by far the best performance of Shakespeare that I’ve ever seen.  It was put on at the Globe, which is a privately-funded, for-profit theatre.  Because of this (and the history of the Globe with Shakespeare, which is definitely the biggest factor) the Globe can’t put on that many “new” plays.  The notable exception is Bedlam, the first play written by a woman to be performed at the Globe, the world premiere of which I saw a few weeks ago.  It wasn’t a great show, but it’s hard to write a show for the Globe in this day in age.  It was quite enjoyable, though it was not nearly the best I’ve seen.  Even so, it was clear that it was good enough to make money, which is really all that matters to the theatre in the long run.

The other play we’ve seen is The 39 Steps, a farce of the old Hitchcock film by the same name.  It was very good, in my opinion, which isn’t surprising because it is performed at the Criterion Theatre.  A West End theatre, and therefore a for-profit theatre, it only shows shows that can make money.  The one downside to a theatre like the Criterion, however, is that they only show one show at a time, as opposed to the National, which can be showing 8 in its three theatres at the same time, or the Globe which can have many shows in its repertoire at the same time because of its sparse sets and flexible space.

Looking back, I’ve noticed something interesting about the plays we have seen as a class (and I’m sure that this was intentional), because they were each held in a different kind of venue.  Merry Wives was held in the iconic Globe, with its standing room on the ground (The Groundling seats), raised galleries, and wooden stage, while 39 Steps is in a traditional, for-profit, proscenium arch theatre, and Habit of Art is in a huge, publicly-funded theatre complex.  I feel that, despite my disappointment with Habit of Art, we’ve had a very well-rounded theatre experience whilst in London, one I hope to supplement with a few more shows before we leave.

As Kate Fox says in Watching the English, there is nothing the English dislike more than “making a fuss.” We see evidence of this in the English propensity for dirty looks and harrumphing in incidences of queue jumping, rather than directly confronting the social deviant, and apologizing incessantly when asking anyone in the service industry for the tiniest bit of service, among other things. Why, just moments ago, as I was asking Pat a question about the unfortunate current state of the blog site in a very hushed whisper, I was given the disgruntled throat clear by the elderly man sitting a couple seats to my left here in the Humanities Reading Room in the British Library.

At the British Museum, which attracts a great deal of tourists, you would think the employees would be more accustomed to handling the directness of foreigners, but you would be wrong. I’ve been amassing quite a collection of postcards since I’ve been here in London, and in my opinion the British Museum gift shops offer some of the most attractive options. They are, however, rather pricey at 60p a pop, so I was delighted when I saw a significant amount of postcards available through the 10 for 1 pound deal. I was decidedly less delighted when I noticed that a few of the postcards I had paid full price for were included in the discounted selection. So I sifted through the postcards I had purchased and fished out the ones that were on sale, so that I could take them back to the counter to return them. The saleswoman I spoke to said they didn’t do returns, I then explained the issue to her and she said there was nothing she could do about it, with the faux-polite “so sorry” of course. Being a student on a budget, I was not about to resign to paying 60p for something being sold for 10p so I requested to speak to a manager. The look of complete befuddlement and horror that spread across her face when I didn’t simply sigh and walk away with my over-priced postcards was fantastically English. The manager did arrive, and he corrected the problem, but not without displaying that he was obviously annoyed with me, telling me how complicated of a process he was about to undertake. As other customers queued up behind me at the till, he would sigh and say to them, exasperated “There’s another till ‘round the corner, it is going to be quite awhile.” The whole scene was like something out of a bad sitcom.

This experience was the complete opposite of what would have happened in America, where quality customer service is something many businesses and institutions pride themselves on. The phrase “the customer is always right” is replaced here by something like “even if the customer is unhappy, they’re unlikely to say anything about it, so, all’s well then, carry on.”

Many blogs and class discussions have centered upon the use (and in some opinions, misuse) of public funds for the museums. No funds have been squandered quite as much as those used for the Sir John Soane museum. Outside the building there is a plaque proudly proclaiming that over 6 million pounds had been raised, primarily via the national lottery, to restore the illustrious home of the architect Sloan, most famous for designing the London Bank (I only found this out because it was one a small plaque inside).

taken from http://blog.londonconnection.com/?p=2799

Honestly, the museum is a huge waste of money. It is like colonial Williamsburg in the sense that it’s a preservation of an older house from a past time, except that it’s completely misrepresentative of early 19^th century architecture because it’s too well-designed. Soane’s house is architecturally impressive – many roofs feature intricate designs and the different rooms have many different magnificent qualities. However, there is nothing explaining the various architectural concepts (at least that are clear enough to museum-goers, or just me). There are only few plaques explaining, or even defining, pieces of art or sculptures, which are arranged in hodge-podge and haphazard fashion. Yes, the architecture is impressive. However, it is truly ridiculous to spend 6 million pounds, of public money, to preserve and restore a bit of tiny, though spectacular architecture.

The British Museum, though certainly more expensive, is far more educative than the Soane museum. It not only contains incredible items from world history – it organizes and explains them, giving them far greater meaning then random objects that look cool (or don’t). Because it serves a purpose, it is worth the public money required to fashion such an institution.

Clearly, the Soane Museum best exemplifies the reverse robin-hood syndrome (stealing from the poor, giving to the rich, a common criticism of the publicly-funded museums) because it’s so obscure and not educative that it really serves no purpose to the poor but does cater to rich architecture fanatics and people who already know enough about artifacts and art that they don’t necessarily need plaques explaining them.

There are simply too many better uses for 6 million pounds, the public sponsorship of the Soane museum is, in my opinion, un-sound. What do I make of this then? I think the preservation and sponsorship of the Soane museum highlights England’s obsession with its past, and more specifically, a superficial past. Just as the Imperial war museum champions Britain’s involvement in WW II and skirts over that whole Africa colonialism bit, the Soane museum makes late 19th and early 20th century Britain look classy, as this is a model house from that time. It also simply echoes what we’ve seen before: Britain loves its past, and making it look good.

As a class, we have seen three very different plays during our time here in London, and tonight, I was finally satiated with The Habit of Art.  Before starting another heated argument equal to me being the only student on the program that enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway, I would immediately agree with all the primary critiques.  The play was indulgent.  The play-within-a-play theme did not really do much at all for the work as a whole except insert a few quick laughs.  The first act really tested my patience with the playwright.  However, after intermission, things changed.  Ideas became more fully developed and more ideas were brought forth.  Alan Bennett seemed to gain more control over his thoughts and presented them more clearly to the audience.  And, perhaps the most essential thing that occurred in the play’s latter half, it started to make sense.  When the play ended, not all the Quallms mentioned above were resolved; but, I kept thinking about the second set of qualities to the play and I was thoroughly intrigued, even if I did not have many clear answers.

The Habit of Art differs greatly from the other plays in that it tries very hard to achieve very difficult and complex goals and, ultimately, it misses.  But, it does not miss by much, and its attempt is an admirable one.  In The Merry Wives of Windsor and The 39 Steps we see the opposite.  Simple and clever ideas performed to their maximum potential in skilled productions with experienced actors in their own rights.  However, given the choice between the contrasting types of plays, I invariably side with the former.  I heartily enjoyed Merry Wives and found 39 Steps to be adequate; but, I feel that after watching The Habit of Art, I walked home with more than chuckles.   I’ll explain my reasoning.

Merry Wives easily comes in as my number two, but there are several factors that prevented it from claiming my top spot.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Shakespeare (I’m practically majoring in Shakespeare), but let’s be honest, Merry Wives is not one of Bill’s best works.  Merry Wives was conceived by Shakespeare after Queen Elizabeth asked the poet himself to write another play featuring the most popular Shakespearean character of his time, Falstaff.  This explains why the knight, known for his hilarious appearances in Shakespeare’s medieval histories (Henry IV I& II), is present in a play about contemporary Elizabethan Windsor aristocracy, about two hundred years later.  (Also, in my opinion, the popularity of Falstaff also explains why Henry IV part II was written, after pretty much every event of consequence had already occurred in Part I).  Merry Wives was written as another opportunity for Elizabethan playgoers to see their favourite debauched knight get into more hilarious hijiniks.  The play is decidedly funny, but ultimately lacks the substance along with the laughs typical of Shakespeare’s comedies and later romances.  What seems to me to be an even greater marvel of Merry Wives is trying to gauge the ease in which Shakespeare churned out this comedy, a product of popular demand.  Its plots, characters and laughs are all fresh and full of comic zeal, even if lacking that extra bit more.  Merry Wives is more along the lines of Shakespeare’s earlier comedies (think Comedy of Errors), but what I was really looking for in the course was The Winter’s Tale.

39 Steps treads along slightly different lines than Merry Wives.  It is not so much an effortless product of a brilliant playwright, as it is one simple, very clever idea executed to perfection.  Just the sheer thought of it:  a famous Hitchcock film, performed by a cast of four and played for slapstick laughs is a masterstroke.  However, the West End has seen this all before.  Many productions prove the point that, on the West End, a clever idea can be turned into a long-running hit that makes a lot of money.  You know, it reminds me … there’s this quote about cleverness … but, I forget what it is.  39 Steps was very crisply performed and played for maximum laughs, but I think that slapstick comedy falls on deaf ears after awhile.  I would suspect if we went to a production of similar character the very next night, it would not only diminish our collective opinion of the latter, but of the former as well.  39 Steps was funny, enthusiastic, but formulaic.  In my opinion, John Buchan, the playwright of 39 Steps, did not so much succeed in matching witty dialogue to an idea with potential as he did just not mess up a funny premise with the potential to be converted into a West End mega cash cow.  For me, I was looking for a play with a bit more.

The Habit of Art gave me that extra bit more, even without ignoring its problematic elements.  What excited me about that production were simply the play’s ideas.  The Habit of Art was full of them.  Ideas about Auden, about Britten, about the two of them.  Ideas about history, about remembering the great artists and about the people close to them that were forgotten.  Allegories to the aforementioned themes of greatness in the arts and the theatre may have surfaced amidst a puddle of murky water; but, in the end, they were drawn clearly enough to identify and appreciate.  Alan Bennett has not written a flaw-free play by any stretch of imagination, but he has thought long and hard, and presented those ideas to us adequately.  This is why I praise Bennett’s play; it has substance.  When I left the theatre (among other people leaving the theatre was Sir Ian McKellan … just saying) I thought about Bennett’s various arguments, as a I do now, and that is really why I go to see plays.  I view the theatre as a forum for one playwright’s insight on human nature, not as a source of diversion similar to television and film.  It is in this sense where The Habit of Art exceeds the others.  But enough of my pretension.  Basically, I agree with the saying (and this quote I do know) “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.”  I feel that a play that nearly misses on something complex and intricate is more admirable (and in my opinion, more enjoyable) than a play that succeeds in its modest goals.  The Habit of Art (and Mrs. Dalloway) gave that to me and that is why I praise the production as my favourite among the trio and esteem it above the others.

I went souvenir shopping recently on Oxford Street. Just like the streets of other major cities I’ve been to, there were shops and shops selling similar merch

andise boasting London’s places of interest and culture. The classic I <3 [enter city’s name here] shirts lined the walls of these stores. There were hats and sweatshirts, along with underwear and key chains. The shelves were lined with little figurines of London’s attractions. I bought my girlfriend a snow-globe with the London Eye, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, a red double-decker bus, and a red telephone booth inside of it. As I was in bed the other night, I looked over at it and I started to think…

What would New York have in it’s snow-globe? What about Chicago? Even cities like Athens, what would these places put inside to represent themselves? I could only think of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building, and a yellow taxi for New York. Chicago would have the Sears Tower of course, and Athens would include the Acropolis. The fact is, London has many more recognizable places of interest and cultural emblems than any other city I can think of. This snow-globe I gave to my girlfriend could included only a few of the spots.

Because of its long history, London has been able to accumulate these over its existence. Just looking at the snow-globe, there are different eras of London’s history right inside of it. Big Ben, though there was a tower on the site since 1288, was raised in 1834. Tower Bridge was opened in 1894 to satisfy the increase in commerce in the East End. The red telephone booth, actually called a telephone box, was first introduced to the city in 1920 and the red bus has been a stable to the city since the early 1950s. And then there is the London Eye, which is extremely modern, in 1999, when it becoming the tallest ferris wheel in the world until 2006. Though the figures inside the glob are random, it shows how the city embraces all of its cultural icons. I’m sure that if the Roman walls were still standing, they would be included inside.

So, what would you put in your snow-globe? I would put the Tower of London, Westminster Abby, the Millennium Bridge, and I’d probably keep Big Ben in there too. I’d probably throw in a royal guard with that large black hat as well. London doesn’t make it easy to choose, but we all have our favorites.

Dave Chappelle has an old routine where he talks about President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky: “I always wondered what it would be like to be that famous. Monica has a book out now, which made me think that nobody has a pickup line that good: ‘Sleep with me, there’s a future in it!’” Likewise, there are many writers whose work remains immortal. But only one is that famous that his childhood home is simply referred to as “The Birthplace”: William Shakespeare. It was cool to visit the place where Shakespeare (or, as one of the worst lyrics in the history of music refer to him, the guy who “wrote a whole bunch of sonnets”) was born and is buried. Nobody calls it Stratford, though. It’s always, in hushed tones, “The Birthplace.”

After a mere twenty days here, I can’t pretend to have a great feel for the national psyche of the Brits. But it seems that they have a special place in their hearts and minds for heroes. Other than Shakespeare, I’ve obliquely encountered two more people with massive social status in Britain: Winston Churchill and Wayne Rooney. A large group of us visited the Churchill Museum, which contains the Cabinet War Rooms that housed the British war effort during the Blitz. Despite the fact that Churchill was voted out of office nearly the second the war ended, he is treated as a demigod, repeatedly referred to (and we’ve heard this in other places as well) as “Britain’s greatest war leader.” A bold statement for a country that has been in many, many wars in its two millennia of existence. And then there’s Mr. Rooney. Just as we arrived, he found himself in the throes of a prostitution scandal. It did not help his cause that he employed said prostitute the night before he was to marry his pregnant wife Coleen, nor that he reportedly texted Coleen once she found out that it was “no big deal.” It seems easy to compare this case to that of Tiger Woods, but the difference here is that the mainstream papers (and not just tabloids) have relentlessly covered the case. And that’s the problem with heroes, in England, in America, or anywhere: they’re human, and when you find out, it’s a disaster.

I am not a city person at all–my hometown has maybe four stoplights, and I’m used to having to drive twenty minutes to get anywhere worth going. So the whole business of having to fight through a crush of humanity in order to get a sandwich is completely new to me (beyond standing in line for the wok up at Dickinson).  I enjoy walking, but having to stop every thirty seconds because someone has cut me off, or bumped into me, or stoppd short in front of me does not qualify as actually walking. It’s more of an exercise in agility. Not a fan. What really bothers me, however, is the fact that there seem to be no established traffic patterns for pedestrians here.

In my experience, pedestrians normally stick to the unspoken rules in the States–you walk on the right side of the sidewalk, you try not to walk through if someone is taking a photograph, and when hiking the people going up step off the path to let the people coming down through. So you would think, “Okay, people drive on the lefthand side of the road here, so they probably walk on the left, as well.” Well, you would be right about one-third of the time. The second third walks on the right hand side (where I tend to walk, out of habit), and the last third just books it down the middle of the walkway. According to Kate Fox, the English seem to love little rules and social regulations, so why haven’t they figured this out for walking in London? Maybe if everyone adhered to the same traffic patterns, people wouldn’t run into each other so much. But then we’d all lose the chance to say, “Sorry!” so often.

Since this has been bothering me for a while, I’ve been thinking about possible explanations and doing some experimenting. Whenever I’ve been out walking by myself, I’ve tried to walk like a Londoner. Sunglasses, iPod, staring straight ahead, long stride. . .and go. I’ve realized that if I just focus on a spot ahead of me and walk like I’m going somewhere, I have no problems. People actually move out of my way. I was walking to the British Library the other day, and someone actually stepped off the sidewalk to let me go through. So maybe Londoners themselves have this whole walking thing figured out, and it’s the tourists that causes all of these traffic fiascos. I still haven’t figured out whether or not there is a determined side that people walk on, but it seems that walking with purpose is enough to get from A to B without too many “sorries!” Maybe that’s the only way to get through the sea of tourists.

While visiting the Central Synagogue a few days ago, something that our tour guide said stuck with me.  “Here in England, we don’t have the separation of church and state that you have in America.”  This idea had never struck me before, but after thinking about it for a bit, I realized he was right.  While America has no official church or religion, England assigns the Church of England as its national religion.  However, it seems strangely paradoxical to me that, in America, a nation of no official religion, atheism is detested and atheists are looked upon as social deviants; whereas in England, despite its national church, the English seem remarkably apathetic toward religion.

After vacating the Prime Minister’s office, Tony Blair converted to Catholicism.  His reasons for doing so were not to gain some perspective after losing the Prime Ministry, but simply because his wife is Catholic.  This begs the question, however, why didn’t he convert earlier, before his political career was over?  As our tour guide explained, Blair waited until after he was out of office, because the English would think he was “a bit weird” and would feel uncomfortable with a Prime Minister with significant religious faith.

This notion is fascinating to me.  Blair’s political career would have come to a dead halt for converting to Catholicism; but, more importantly, simply being an ardently religious person is enough for one’s constituents to feel uneasy.  This is the completely the opposite case for America.  Politicians have to repeatedly assert their strong religious faiths; for, in not doing so, they would jeopardize their electoral chances, almost entirely.  It will be interesting over the course of this year to do some additional cultural research regarding the ideas of a national church that breeds atheism and religious apathy, while the separation of church and state breeds strong faith and a society that views atheism as some sort of social “other.”   As ambiguous as this connection seems, I believe it is vital in explaining the ways in which religion has developed so differently in these two nations.