Mental Hygiene the best thing you've done for your brain all day

london calling :) (thanks to scott or whoever cued that up as i was leaving last week.)

well, after a full day in london – and a half day yesterday after getting off the train in york – i’m ready to adopt an accent, start wearing funny clothes, and referring to fries as “chips” on a permanent basis.

yeah, i dig london, for all the same reasons i despise manchester. there’s the tube. real punks, too. chippies and curry shops everywhere, and not just where they know there are tourists.

went to the tate modern gallery this afternoon – it was mobbed. so i came back at 7, and it was perfectly sedate and quiet, and open until 10, so i had plenty of time to savor the warhol exhibit, as well as take in most of their 2002 collection. dang this is getting long.

anyhoo, tomorrow, easter service at st. pauls, if i can manage to get in, then windsor and/or buckingham. dunno how much royal i can take :)

aye! in edinburgh noo, can nee say mooch, ahm goin oot for a wee snack of ‘aggis!

(soon thereafter, i plan to get beaten up by scottish football hooligans for my poor attempt at an accent)

manchester, in short: avoid.

manchester is a pit. a hole. a steaming abcess in the pockmarked face of the english countryside. the most nasty, dingy, overwrought, self-important and unpretty city i’ve yet to encounter. and that includes newark.

off to the lake district now, for a bit of a breather….

in wales today, doing the grand castle tour – well, only two castles, but that’s enough for one day, anyway.

i wrote a bit more, and it’s in the newest rant, so you can write back if you feel like it.

today was castle day. i walked around conwy’s medieval town walls in the morning, after a “full” breakfast, so-called because you can’t eat all of it and not be full. then, to the castle, built in four years with the walls by king edward and a bunch of imported english labor, just to piss off the welsh.

then a bus to caernarfon, which is another castle with a town around it (or a town with a castle around it, i can’t decide). again, up the towers for sweeping landscape shots and sore calf muscles.

in all, i must have climbed 10 castle towers, walked about 10 miles of ancient walls, and seen about a dozen cheesy AV presentations about king edward and the welsh.

yeah, i dig wales.

so, off to the bus station for the late bus back to conwy and my b&b, then some dinner, then off to the pub for quiz night. tomorrow, i make up my mind whether to go on to keswick or take a jaunt over to manchester to meet up with the british soap star i had pints with last night in conwy.

all is well, a little bit of a headcold – comes with the travel and the weather – but otherwise fine. taking lots of pictures to bore you with when i get back :)

for those interested – i’m in ireland. more to come soon, i promise.