Oxford etc

Yesterday Kristen and I went to Oxford. For those who are not familiar with the town, it's about an hour and a half by bus North West of London and is well known for its historic university (comprised of 38 colleges) and the various literary figures who sprung forth from there. Here's a picture to give you a general idea:



Oxford is a town of ancient buildings and students. Notice all the bikes in the picture above? It seems to be the major method of transport there. Walking down the streets of such a town, it's hard not to be overcome by the surroundings. It's hard to imagine anyone studying in these ancient and hallowed halls. Not only that, but the ancient stone buildings house a fair number of students.

I hope that explains fully enough our reasons for wanting to go to such a place. It's actually very easy to get there; in fact, the train I take to go to work in Maidenhead ends up there if you stay on it to the end. However, our plans were quickly doused by the fact that the trip costs about £50 each way for one person on the train. Then we found the Oxford Tube, which is a bus service that passes through Shepherd's Bush and costs £16 each for a day return.

We left at about 10am and arrived shortly after 11am where we were dropped off on one of the main roads, High St. It may not look very cold, but believe me it was freezing. Perhaps a bit too cold to sightsee in comfort, so we ducked in and out of shops for warmth where possible. The first one we went into was a sweet shop named Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shop. This is one of those old style sweet shops you always wished existed just down the road when you were little. A library of traditional sweets, if you will. They didn't mind us taking pictures, after Kristen discovered and bought some 'rose creams'.

From there we went in search of Broad St, so wandered up a randomly chosen lane to get there. I'll let this picture say what I literally have no words to say:



It's the kind of scene that makes me lose my shit after just stepping off a bus into a new place. Every twist and turn of the narrow streets throws up a new vista and that's the excitement of a new place. I had no idea what was going to leap out at me around every corner.

Now, the reason for going to Broad St is that there is located Blackwell's Bookshop, which has the largest single room of books for sale in Europe. That would be the basement floor, though aside from that there are other floors with even more books. As an aside, today I saw what must be the largest single room of comic books in Europe at Forbidden Planet (in London), which is perhaps the most amazing cult culture shop in the world.

Anyway, by this time we were a little peckish and went off in search of a pub, namely the Eagle and Child. This is just another one of your quaint old English pubs, only this time with a difference. That being, this was the pub frequented by the 'Inklings'; the social group of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis to name a couple of them. The food was good, but consisted of one of those homogenised set menus that seems to be taking over pubs here. For example, you can get the exact same menu at another pub down the road. I'm not complaining, it's all good food - but it does take the mystery out of it a little.

So after lunch, we took to the streets again and found the local castle, which we opted not to go into as (being brutally honest) we've seen better. We've become some kind of castle snobs. Still, the castle is right by the Thames, that old friend of ours from London. It's a bit thinner up here and the houses that line it are striking and beautiful.

There's also a shop dedicated to Alice in Wonderland there, which was a little overrun by tourists. The author, Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) wrote the books in Oxford, which is probably why the image I have in my head of England is woven through with threads of what makes Oxford so Oxford-y. Every book of fiction I've read from England seems to have come out of this place, or else that romanticised Southern half of England that's hard to qualify - it just is.

There's not too much more I have to say about Oxford, except that I intend to return and soak in its austere ancientness some more come spring. Perhaps I'll find myself reclining under a tree in the English morning sun, reading a book by Wilde. Perhaps I'll even fall down a rabbit hole.

I've moved my blog over to wordpress.com because it's that little bit better, I think.

From now on, I'll only be updating here.

http://avoidperil.wordpress.com

It's Monday and I'm doing my first late shift at work after a tiring weekend. Last week had me working pretty hard and I needed the weekend to recharge my batteries, but there is no rest for the wicked.

We got up at 5am on Saturday morning in order to make our 7am coach to Brighton with Sarah (who stayed over the night on our couch). Of course, the Central line was closed for the weekend due to maintenance work (bastards) which made it nearly impossible to get to Victoria Coach Station, so we missed our bus. Note, these buses leave hourly and are never full, so why they can't just do an open day return ticket by default makes no sense to me.

Anyway, we caught the 8am instead and paid an extra £30. I always think it's great when you have a problem and you're getting stressed and want to kill someone and then realise that you can just pay some money and the problem goes away. This was one of those situations where I was just so happy to get on the bus and get underway.

It's a 2 hour bus ride to Brighton and everyone seemed to just sleep through it, except for me who was wide awake and staring out the windows. Just so we're clear, I parked this blog entry and have just continued it on Wednesday night after a long shift at work, so sorry for the disjointedness.

Anyhow, we arrived at Brighton just after 10am and stepped out of the bus onto the small piece of tarmac that makes the coach station, with a clear view of the Brighton Pier. The intense, blustery wind immediately chilled us to the bone, but it was easy to ignore with so much to explore.

We started with the pier, which is probably the first thing people think of when they hear Brighton. I hope so anyway. It has a reputation for having sideshow attractions and arcades and it certainly didn't let us down on that front. It's a lot bigger than I imagined, with restaurants and a roller coaster finding space on it.

From the pier we next walked along the beach, which is rough and pebbly and not all that nice for walking and lounging; not on a day like that anyway. Still, the odd local was out walking their dogs and what have you. We soon turned inland in search of the fabled 'laines' - the jumble of character shops that make up the old part of town.

We found an out of the way street on the far side of town with some incredible junk stores. I don't quite know how so much amazing junk could possibly exist. I'd go so far to say that it's not actually junk, it's just assembled and displayed in such a way to make one think it is.

Then we had coffee. Londoners could learn a thing or two about café culture, civility and coffee making from their neighbours to the south. The café we went to doubled as a furniture store and seemed to be patronised by the local gay community. Or perhaps it's just that Brighton is the gay capital of the UK. Either way, I take it as a sign we were onto a good thing, which was proved when I tried the coffee and toasted sandwich. Both were very good and very familiar, but not something I'd expect so close to London.

We checked out the Royal Pavilion next, which is the next most iconic feature of the town, being a faux Indian palace erected by some King or other as a pleasure palace. It really is an absurd and majestic piece of work. We didn't go inside as it costs £10 a person, so we'll have to come back later.

From there we wandered through town and to the various shopping streets that make up the Lanes and the North Laine. The difference between the two is that the Lanes is an area of tightly packed small shops along little alleys and North Laine is more an area of street markets and shops and graffiti'd back streets all coming together to make my favourite shopping area in the world.

We had a beer at a local bar called the Dorset and recuperated before heading out in search of some fish and chips, which is a bit of a local cliche. We ended up at a place called the Fish Bowl which served us up a huge plate of different style haddock fillets. It was a bit much for the two of us to handle, but still some of the best we've had here.

By this time it was getting rather late, so we packed up and headed for the coach stop to catch our bus home, utterly exhausted and ready for bed.

Ok, it must be time for an update, though I'm not sure there's a whole lot to update on at the moment. I've just started my new job with Rank Interactive a week ago, so I'm still settling in there. In fact, it's very similar to the work I was doing back in Wellington, just a bit less stressful as the end users are nicer and there are less of them.

Life has basically slipped into a holding pattern for a while as I get my bearings and start earning some money. At the moment it doesn't much feel like I'm living almost 20,000km from my old home. There are people just looking to work and live out their lives no matter where you are in the world, even here in such an incredible place.

But I know that out there is the London I was dreaming of. There is excitement and art and people living in some hazy idealistic reality. I realise, perhaps a little late, that it's not the place you're living that dictates the way you live, but the people you live with.

To illustrate my point just a little, Kristen and I met up with Barney a couple of days ago in Brixton and for the first time saw a light shining. I don't want to speak for him too much, but he lives an artistic and hectic kind of life, or seems to. There was another flash, earlier on in my journey, on Brick Lane. Say what you will about those indie kids and faux-hemians or whatever you want to call them (and there's a different batch for every generation) - there's something about the way they live, idealistic and in touch with what it is to be young, that attracts me.

So here I am in limbo, because I can, because I have to have money to eat and live. Because it's what I do best and it gives me joy in some undefinable ways. Yet in the back of my mind I'm thinking of travel and art and excitement and all those things I came over here to find.