Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day Four




Travel day mostly, getting from the Ramada at Leeds to the Novotel outside Edinburgh. Three stops only, the first two very brief: the border of England and Scotland where, yes, some fat fuck with a bagpipe stood next to a boulder with England painted on one side and Scotland on the other, a parking lot in Jedburgh to stand in the pouring rain and look at the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey from three hundred yards, then three hours in Melrose for lunch and the Melrose Abbey.






Best part of the trip so far. All photos in this post are of the Abbey, including the one below from the roof which can only be accessed by a long, tight winding staircase. Double-click the photos, yo. While I'm glad for the rain and mist for atmosphere's sake, it was raining too hard to risk the camera photographing all the heads of humans and animals and beasts carved high on the columns. We heard there's a pig playing a bagpipe but we couldn't find it. I would have shot that.






Gavin the Barker told us tales of intrigue and treachery and bravery, tales of human perserverance in the face of overwhelming odds and tales of human pettiness in the pursuit of power. Whole bunch of stuff about the greatest Scotchman ever, Timmy the Ralph, or something like that. Aren't we glad, he asked us, we live in an age where war is not considered the rational solution to all problems? Gavin is either the greatest actor of his generation or hasn't an irony bone in his body.






I find I'm incapable of ignoring the world while on vacation. Maybe it's because I'm traveling through America in ten years, twenty years, an empire selling tickets to its relics. Without thinking about it, I compiled a list of links YOU MUST READ! and then deleted them (but not before c/ping to an email). Scroll through the past two days of updated blogrolls Because Left and Because Right and find them. You don't need me to do it for you, though I suspect I will be blogwhoring sooner than I think.






Fuck it, its either bleggalgaze after literally just finishing rereading Ishiguro's Remains of the Day (you must read Ishiguro; do it) while on vacation in the UK - and I've three notebook pages of bleggalgazing I'm not typing, at least now - or this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this. You're welcome.



6 comments:

  1. Great photos. Enjoying the travelogue.

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  2. Huh, and I thought I had forbidden my blog to be read on the Isles. Thanks for the link.

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  3. Very cool. Swear that's where Corman filmed parts of Tomb of Ligeia.

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  4. How's that Kindle working for you?

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  5. I see a bunch of arches, but no Golden Arches?

    Where's the burgers?
    ~

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  6. The kindle is great, though it doesn't hold format always - I downloaded Middlemarch and started to read it, but it paragraphs run into each other and it is hard to read. Current books, that is to say, books I had to pay for, are fine, but truly, you get what you pay for with the free classics.

    Rereading Wright's *Amalgamation Polka* now. Format is perfect. $11.99.

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