Hullo blokes! Sorry for the delay in blog posts. My last two weeks in England and Egypt turned out to be rather hectic. However never fear! Although summer is almost over, you still have a few more posts coming up to entertain you at work or in class…
The first weekend of August my sister and I traveled to Stratford Upon Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. As I am taking a Shakespeare class this semester, it seemed like the perfect trip. To truly capture the English spirit, we stayed at a quaint bed and breakfast, the Moonraker Inn. For my fellow James Bond fans out there, yes, it is indeed named for the excellent installation in the 007 saga. Decorating the walls were two sketches, one of Pierce Brosnan and another of Sean Connery. The rooms of the Inn are named for characters from Shakespeare plays. Our room was the Oberon suite (Oberon being the Fairy King from A Midsummer Night’s Dream). How the proprietor decided upon a combination James Bond/Shakespeare bed and breakfast I have no idea, but I stamp the business with my seal of approval.
Over the course of the weekend we visited a number of sites associated with the Shakespeare Trust, starting with Shakespeare’s Birthplace. In 1564, Shakespeare was born in a moderately sized cottage in Stratford Upon Avon. Inside, the building is furnished with furniture from the time period. For instance, the beds were quite small, as Shakespeare was born into a family of midgets. Well, that is what they thought for a while, until they exhumed the graves and discovered average sized (by today’s standards) skeletons. Now historians believe that the 4 foot long beds meant that everyone slept sitting up for safety reasons. One of my favorite features of the house was the “wallpaper”: something like a cross between paper and a tapestry, it consists of linen that was hung and then painted by hand. Unlike modern wallpaper, it is not stuck on or mass produced in a factory. I guess that makes each one a collector’s item. (Even more so if it is from Shakespeare’s home.) Further along in the house was Shakespeare’s father’s workroom where he produced leather gloves and purses. Unfortunately my sister who is bound for Parson’s Fashion Design School in New York became overly excited and commandeered my camera to take pictures of every glove and purse in the room while babbling about purses on belts. “Let’s go to another house…” I said.
Next we ventured to New Place, appropriately named as it was where Shakespeare lived from 1597 until his demise in 1616. New Place featured many assorted period pieces in museum fashion, as well as a trivia section. One question asked: “Is Shakespeare the most translated author in the world?” Of course, I thought. Who else would it be? L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) apparently. I do not wish to know if this is accurate as I would rather pretend it is a disturbing piece of misinformation. In the courtyard of New Place there was an archeological dig taking place. Hey! I did one of those! I should talk to the excavators and show off my knowledge of archeology, I thought. So I wander up to some of the guys doing screen tests and sorting cultural materials and inquire which size screen they are using. “Um…I dunno, we’ve never done this before,” they respond. Maybe I could have gotten a job excavating Shakespeare’s homestead. Dang. Across the street from New Place was the church in which Shakespeare was buried and where he and his children were baptized.
Both Hall’s Croft and Anne Hathaway’s House featured lovely gardens. The Hall’s Croft was the home of a physician who Susanna Shakespeare (Shakespeare’s eldest daughter) married. On the dining table were vials of yellow bile, black bile, and blood. Usually I expect salad dressing, salt and pepper, olive oil, hot sauce…but I guess it was a different time. The back garden was filled with various medicinal plants used by Susanna’s husband to treat patients. Anne Hathaway, for those not familiar with the elusive life of William Shakespeare, was his beloved wife. Interestingly, Shakespeare impregnated Anne and the two were wed in what may have been a shotgun wedding, but without the shotgun as such technology did not exist at the time. Her home was nice, but the ceilings were a tad low. However the accompanying grounds and gardens made up for the lack of headroom. Here we wandered through the Shakespeare garden, complete with a maze and an orchard of every tree mentioned in a Shakespeare play along with a plaque featuring the quote in which said tree name was used. This really helped to explain the quotes, for instance “Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed” from “Love’s Labour Lost.” The osier leaves are long and thin and seem to bow to the onlooker. My sister got mad at me for taking pictures of all the trees and their respective plaques. “It’ll come in handy for my Shakespeare class,” I retorted.
Apart from the homesteads, we also saw three plays in three days. The first was in London on the way to Stratford, Kevin Spacey’s Richard III at the Old Vic. I had never thought of Kevin Spacey as a Shakespearean actor, however he absolutely nailed the performance. It was a revised version of the original set in an ambiguous but generally modern time period. The script was largely unchanged, but the settings were altered. The opening scene was Richard sitting in a chair watching the news on a flat screen TV. Whenever the “general public” was featured, they were all holding onto the ceiling-mounted hand rails in the Underground and reading newspapers. Spacey’s performance, going from passive to manic in seconds, and the entire re-envisioning of the play were phenomenal. The next day we say the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Macbeth. Again, there were some interesting changes made. Gone were the famous witches and the “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” lines, replaced by creepy small children lowered in on nooses, eerily calling out “Macbeth! Macbeth!” Macbeth by RSC and Spacey’s Richard III were definitely the most fantastic plays I have ever seen, ranking up there with the Globe Theatre productions I saw earlier this year. Finally, we saw a very campy production of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Neither my sister nor I had read the novel or seen a play or movie of the work. I was thus very surprised about the drug overtones regarding the potion which Dr. Jekyll takes. Furthermore, I did not expect such a heavy influence of prostitution in the story. That is all I will give away for the sake of those readers who may want to check out this classic piece of literature in some form. Although not as highbrow as the previous plays we had seen that weekend, it was a nice break to see a campy production in a small venue.
Also in at the Royal Shakespeare Company theater was a few fun exhibits. One featured various art pieces such as a page of PDFs titled after Shakespeare’s plays, a vibrant multi-colored creation with caricatures of Johnny Rotten and Richard III saying “Same Thing,” and a picture of the Globe Theater as if it is being constructed of popsicle sticks. A different room in the theater complex is currently being covered in icing creations to commemorate the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th birthday. This display was pretty sweet. Get it?
Tune in soon for more adventures including the conclusion of my Cambridge program, more plays, and Egypt…until then have a wonderful last week or so of vacation, and stay classy.

What a week it has been! Middle Eastern Film festivals and garden parties and bears oh my! As part of our class, we took a field trip to hear some Cambridge students present their dissertations in environmental science. One chap proposed the idea to cut down on power usage in sub-Saharan African countries in order to shave off power consumption during peak hours and thus present the cost as lower and more favorable to investors. Then multiple off-grid power plants could be created to help reach the rural areas which don’t currently have power. “Hmmm…let’s reevaluate this,” I thought. So after the presentations, I went up to said student and told him what I had picked up in Sierra Leone last summer. A more favorable solution, especially considering the already minimal power usage in sub-Saharan Africa, would be to work to build the aforementioned off-grid power plants and extend cell phone connectivity in rural areas. Couple this with government incentives to incite the younger generations to move back into the rural areas where they now have phone reception and power, and they can boost the economy by revitalizing the dying agriculture sector. This would also help to alleviate overpopulation, homelessness and joblessness in metropolitan areas. And to boot, it would drive down power consumption in the cities. Therefore, there would be no need for having rolling blackouts, or other restrictions on power usage. This student then gave me his email address. Didn’t know that SL would come in handy at Cambridge, but I guess so!
On Thursday I went to a formal hall at Trinity college. For a small sum of 9 pounds I received a three course meal with wine, port, apple juice and coffee. The table was set with four knives, three forks, three spoons, three glasses, a mug, and four plates. I was not sure what to do with some utensils so I just used them all even if not needed. This way when the servers picked them off the table I at least appeared to know what I was doing with the silverware. Also on Thursday, my sister and I went to Anglesey Abbey. For those who don’t know what Anglesey Abbey is, it is basically a museum that the 1st Baron Fairhaven lived in. A country house just outside of Cambridge, the homestead sits amidst a lovely grounds with rose gardens, scattered statues, and other such luxuries. Inside the house there are about 40 some odd clocks. Unlike me, the Baron liked to keep track of time. Apparently the Baron’s father was in business with Rockefeller in the States and married rich, leaving his son a sum of 28 million pounds. I think with that sum in mind, we should move on. Friday night I saw the last installment of the Harry Potter saga, which was quite good. I dressed up as Harry and my sister went as Dobby. In an act of kindness, I gave her a sock and she became a free elf! Then tragically she was stabbed by Bellatrix and died. Alas, I was clean out of dittany potion, and Madame Pomfrey was nowhere to be found as technically we were on the run and proclaimed fugitives.
Saturday my sister and I attended an all-day Middle Eastern film festival in London. They were short films made by Middle Eastern directors which ranged in subject matter from a movie about a former Italian futbol player who becomes a philosopher to an artsy piece about a woman who craves chocolate (I think it was a euphemism for some drug based on the context) to a film based on a true story about a group of boys who were killed playing futbol, thus prompting a three hour battle among the neighbors although the killers were never caught and not from the neighborhood. The headliners were “My Name is Osama,” and “Grandma, 1000 Times.” The first film was about several individuals in Canada named Osama right after the 9/11 attacks, following their daily lives and how people reacted to their being named Osama. The latter movie was about the director’s grandma living in Beirut and her life story. There were some wonderful scenes such as grandma buying potatoes in a bucket from her apartment balcony, grandma smoking shisha daily, and an impromptu scene of her grandson director reenacting her wedding march through the street. If you can procure copies of the films at all, or if they are playing near you (wherever you may be), definitely do so.
Sunday was an Alice in Wonderland themed garden party. My sister went as Alice, and I was Wonderland. The party featured free food, drinks and games such as badminton and croquet. Quite a classy affair. Then on Monday, continuing the classiness theme, my sister and I attended a performance of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.” I had heard that it was Shakespeare’s most bizarre work, and after seeing it I agree. I will not give any plot details away, as you should see it if you haven’t had the pleasure, but one stage direction is “exit stage left followed by a bear.” And yes, this actually happens. This weekend I will be seeing Kevin Spacey’s Richard III in London on Friday and then going to Stratford upon Avon on Saturday to attend more Shakespeare plays. Tune in next week for more antics and adventures!

Hullo From Cambridge

Blimey! I’m in Cambridge for the Summer (guess I just couldn’t stay in the US for more than two consecutive months…) So far I have been settling into the flat, exploring Cambridge, and hanging out with my adoring sister. There is so much to do as a Cantabrigian, which apparently is a term used to describe people in Cambridge. I just “can’t” seem to figure it out. Get it? Like CANT figure it out and CANT abrigian? Anyways…we kicked off the week with a 4th of July celebration in the yard behind our flat. For some odd reason the Brits forgot to have any festivities on the 4th of July. But there was a wonderful fair today, comparable to a small scale version of the State Fair. There was a man dressed as a Redcoat pulling a wooden cart with an enormous inflatable lobster, a French market with gigantic shrimp, and an Australian synth playing spaceman. The latter showed me his secret hand signal to be granted entrance into the inner sanctum. I apologize, but since it is secret I am treating it as classified material and refraining from posting it on this blog. The British-Indian musician Panjabi MC (he is famous for fusing hip-hop with bhangra) also performed, and there was a slew of assorted carnival rides there such as carousels, Ferris wheels, and pony rides.
On Thursday night my sister and I went to a play about Palestine called Al Nakba, or “The Catastrophe.” Although very disturbing and moving, it was extremely well done and I was really excited to catch one of the limited viewings in Cambridge. Three quarters of the actors are all Palestinians who came to the UK specifically for the performance. Again, lucky for me, there was a Q and A session after the show so we got to hear in-depth information on the actors’ lives and the inspiration for the play itself.
Currently our program is working (what a concept!) on reducing Cambridge’s Carbon Dioxide emissions as Cambridge is the test site for the whole of the UK. My part of the project right now is research into how residential buildings and businesses can lower their C02 production. The overarching task which we will all collaborate to complete is a web based tool to allow users to find solutions to lower their Carbon emissions. Speaking of classes, Cambridge posts everyone’s’ grades in public. I am glad UNC does not do so. In the math department at Cambridge the person with the highest grade stands at the front of the room and everyone else takes their hats off and throws them at said person with the highest score. Personally I think it sounds more rewarding to get a lower grade. Whatever the reasons, this happens to be where the expression “hats off to you” originated. Guess I’ll be throwing a hat…
However, despite this work I still have time for pleasure reading. Currently I am working on John Le Carre’s novel “The Honorable Schoolboy.” It is the second book in the Karla trilogy, preceded by “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” For those who haven’t read either one, I highly recommend delving into the series. “Tinker Tailor” also has a fantastic BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness. Later this year a theatrical version will be released with a cast including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, and Tom Hardy. I’m pretty psyched for it.
Well, that has been week one of Cambridge. Many more fun things to look forward to like tea and scones at Grantchester Meadows as featured in the Pink Floyd song from Uggamugga, the next Harry Potter movie, a Shakespeare festival, art galleries…stay tuned for more adventures!

For more info on the play, visit http://www.junction.co.uk/artist/3258