Welcome to the archives of the British Studies Newsletter.
The Abbey: A "Royal
Peculiar" in Good Estate
[British Studies Newsletter II.6, February 1998]
Among the three million visitors to Westminster Abbey this year will be students from the University System of Georgia's British Studies Program. Unlike most tourists, however, British Studies students will venture beyond the choir to the heart of medieval Westminster--the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor behind the High Altar and the royal tombs that surround it. Within this chapel stands the graffiti-scarred Coronation Chair, and in that combination of relics and royalty, sacred and secular power, lies the whole meaning of the Abbey.
A church has stood on the current site of Westminster Abbey since Saxon times, but the Abbey itself was founded by Edward the Confessor in 1050 as a Benedictine monastery and made the crowning place of English sovereigns: since William the Conqueror all coronations except those of Edward V and Edward VIII have taken place here.
Numerous monarchs are interred in the Chapel of St. Edward, from Henry III to George II. Edward I had himself placed in an unsealed crypt in the chapel in case he was needed again to fight the Scots. Indeed, years later, his mummy was carried as a standard by the English army as it tried to conquer Scotland.
Visitors uninterested in the graves of English monarchs will find much else in the Abbey to occupy their attention: the medieval cloister and Chapter House; the 900-year-old College Garden; the Abbey Treasure Museum; the graves and plaques in Poets' Corner. Music lovers can hear Evensong at five p.m. on weekdays and three p.m. on weekends.
Recommended Reading: Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200-1400, by Paul Binski (Yale UP, 1995).
UPDATE 2000: The official Westminster Abbey web site is well worth a visit--and the Westminster choir is certainly worth a listen.
Britain
Calling
[British Studies Newsletter I.8, May 1997]
Britain Calling is a monthly newsletter published on the Internet by the British Tourist Authority. Among the highlights in this month's issue are reports on the opening of the Charles Darwin House near Biggin Hill, Kent; the summer season at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park (where the British Studies group will be seeing All's Well That Ends Well); the refurbished Ghost Tower at Warwick Castle (also on the British Studies itinerary);and the opening of the London Aquarium.
UPDATE 2000. The British Tourist Authority has expanded Britain Calling into an extensive web site targeted at visitors from the U.S.. Check out the new BTA site at http://www.bta.org.uk/frameset.htm.
The British Language
[British Studies Newsletter I.5, February 1997]
One of the many pleasures of living and studying in London for five weeks is the opportunity to learn first-hand some of the delightful differences between British and American English.
When the British call someone "mean," for instance, they mean stingy. "Calling" denotes a personal visit, and getting "knocked up" simply refers to an innocent wake-up call in the morning.
The term "theatre" refers only to the live stage; movie theatres are "cinemas," and the films themselves are "the pictures." A "bomb," which suggests a disaster in America, means a success in England.
Going shopping? Then you should know that undershirts are called "vests" and undershorts are "pants" to the English, while long pants are called "trousers" and their cuffs are "turn-ups." Panties are "knickers," and panty hose are "tights."
And what, you might ask, are "jumpers" and "nappies," "tins" and "digestives," "iced lollies" and "blood pudding" and "crisps" and "spotted dick"? Why, come to London this summer, and find out.
UPDATE 2000: For a comprehensive British-American English dictionary, visit BritSpeak online.
Cheers! 1999: A
Student's Guide to London
[British Studies Newsletter III.5, January 1999]
Published for the past 12 years in text form by students from Contra Costa Community College=s London Program, Cheers! has recently been launched on the World Wide Web.
This informal guide provides practical advice and information compiled by student travelers to the UK over the past few years. Topics include shopping; personal impressions; food; drink: thriving in London; music, clubs, and discos; and (of course) money.
A link to Cheers! (along with connections to many other London-related sites) appears at London Links, hosted by the British Studies Program at Armstrong Atlantic State University.
UPDATE 2000: If you discover other London travel sites that may be of interest to students participating in the Summer Study Abroad Program at Roehampton Institute in London, please send us an e-mail message.
Cities of the Dead
[British Studies Newsletter II.6, February 1998]
British Studies participants wishing to escape the madding crowds this summer might consider making a quiet visit to one of London's many cemeteries.
A number of small burial yards can still be found in the shadows of London's hundred-odd parish churches. Good examples can be seen at St. Olave's on Hart Street in the City and at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, just off the north end of Charing Cross Road. Many old graveyards survive as recreation areas, providing oases of open space in otherwise densely built-up areas. Examples can be found in Benjamin Street, Clerkenwall; Lambeth High Street; and "Postman's Park" by St. Botolph's in Aldersgate.
Bunhill Fields (originally Bonehill), opposite Wesley's chapel in the City Road, is the most famous sectarian burial ground in London. Used first as a repository for bones and later pressed into service during the Great Plague of 1665, Bunhill houses the remains of John Bunyan (author of Pilgrim's Progress), the novelist Daniel Defoe, the poet-engraver William Blake, and 120,000 others.
Highgate Cemetery (tube: Archway on the Northern Line), with its maze of narrow footpaths cutting through a forest of vine-covered tombstones, is a remarkable monument to the Victorian fascination with death. The Eastern Cemetery contains the somber tombs of Karl Marx, novelist George Eliot, and social Darwinist (and one of George Eliot's lovers) Herbert Spencer. The Western Cemetery, complete with eerie catacombs on Egyptian Avenue, houses the remains of scientist Michael Faraday, poet Christina Rossetti, and bare-knuckle prize-fighter Tom Sayers, whose tomb is guarded by a sculpture of a lion. Waterlow Park, forming the northern border of Highgate, is one of the only parks in the city where you will encounter some formidable hills.
London's most unusual cemetery lies in a garden behind Victoria Lodge in the northeast corner of Kensington Gardens. In 1880 the Duke of Cambridge's pet dog was run over in the road nearby and buried here. Since then over 200 other pets have joined it.
UPDATE 2000: Distinctive views of Highgate Cemetery and the little-known Nunhead Cemetery can be found online.
Curious London
[British Studies Newsletter III.2, October 1998]
Through Robin Cross's Curious London: A Guide to Some of the More Unusual Delights of the Capital, learn about the mummified body in the west tower of St.James Garlickhythe, the bomb-proof shelter beneath Haverstock Hill, the Freud Museum in Finchley, the smallest house in the City (just over a yard wide), the pet cemetery in Hyde Park.
Hanging the Bun in Bow
A strange little ceremony takes place every Good Friday at the Widow's Son pub in Bow (75
Devon Road). A sailor arrives to add a Hot Cross bun to the moldering, shrunken and
shriveled collection of ancient and desiccated baked goods hanging over the bar.
A sad tale lies behind this cheerful ritual. One Easter about 200 years ago, a poor widow was waiting for her son's return from sea. To welcome him home she had baked a Hot Cross bun. But he never came; nor did any news of his fate. Every year thereafter she baked a bun in his memory, keeping the buns from past years as melancholy, if increasingly musty, tributes to his memory. In 1848 her humble home became a public house called The Widow's Son. Ever since, a Hot Cross bun has been hung from the ceiling every Good Friday. Tube: Bromley by Bow.
Jimmy Garlick
High up in the ringing room of the west tower of St. James Garlickhythe (an
exceptionally beautiful Wren church on Garlick Hill in the City), is a heavy cabinet
containing the desiccated corpse of a young man.
His head rests on a dark, tasseled cushion. Time has hunched his broad shoulders and made talons of his finely manicured hands. His upper lip is drawn back over a good set of teeth. It seems as if he is drawing a deep breath, hundreds of years long, before levering himself up to greet you.
He was discovered in 1855 during the clearing of the Vicar's vault. To generations of parishioners he has been affectionately known as Jimmy Garlick. The British Museum is of the opinion that the corpse is that of a late adolescent who died about 300 years ago. He is now awaiting a high-tech wash and brush up by the Victoria & Albert Museum before going back on public display. His handsome new casket, which cost more to make in 1993 than the rebuilding of the entire church after the Great Fire, displays a salutary message: "Stop Stranger Stop As You Pass By. As You Are Now So Once Was I. As I Am Now So Shall You Be. So Pray Prepare to Follow Me." Tube: St.Paul's, Mansion House, Bank.
Davenport's Magic Shop
Tucked away in a corner of the underground concourse at Charing Cross station is
Davenport's, the finest magic shop in the world. It was founded in 1898 by Lewis
Davenport, a celebrated magician whose specialty was the lightning-fast manipulation of
solid billiard balls. The shop remains in family hands, and a fifth generation of
Davenports continues to ply the founder's magical arts.
Over the years Davenport's has assembled an intriguing collection of magic items and literature, including a very early book on the subject, The Discovery of Witchcraft, which was published in 1584 and describes tricks thousands of years old. The assistants at Davenports oblige customers by demonstrating, but never explaining, the shop's range of tricks. Davenport's is at No.7 Charing Cross Underground Shopping Arcade, the Strand, WC2. Tube: Charing Cross. Tel: 0171 836 0408.
Curious London: A Guide to Some of the More Unusual Delights of the Capital, by Robin Cross (London: Pan Books, 1996), 4.99.
UPDATE 2000: Curious London may be specially ordered from Amazon for $12.95.
Julian Barnes (Leicester-born author of Flaubert's Parrot and A History of the World in 102 Chapters) has distilled this spirit into one of the oddest novels of the year--described by the Guardian's reviewer as "a romp written in anger."
In the central satire of the book, a tycoon takes over the Isle of Wight and converts it into a giant theme park of English history: fake Parliament, peasants, fake London fog, Di's grave, Stonehenge, and so on. It is "everything you imagined England to be, but more convenient, cleaner, friendlier, and more efficient." It is also much more popular.
Barnes"s deep theme is the search for authenticity. What is real? Is it what we think we know of history, what we think we remember? A world of mimicry and theme-park falsity threatens life itself, Barnes argues, because it erodes our capacity for seriousness. This is indeed an odd and engaging book--a cartoonish romp whose real concern is seriousness.
UPDATE 2000: England, England by Julian Barnes has been published in the U.S. by Knopf and is available online from Amazon.
Englishness
[British Studies Newsletter III.3, November 1998]
The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes. --Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961)
The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner. --Margaret Halsey (1910-)
An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one. . . . On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good manners. --George Mikes (1912-)
Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love, it kills art. --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
There is in the Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything calculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth. --Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Exploring British Culture
What William the Conqueror built out of wood and sod (and what Henry II rebuilt in stone) has survived countless alterations to become today's Windsor Castle. The most recent restoration, completed last year, followed the fire in 1992 that damaged several rooms in the State Apartments.
The castle is divided into the Lower, Middle, and Upper Wards. The principal structure of the Lower Ward is the 15th-century St. George's Chapel, where many of England's kings and queens are buried. The Gallery in the Upper Ward hosts exhibitions from the Royal Collection, one of the finest art collections in the world. Nearby is Queen Mary's Dolls' House--an eight-by-five-foot marvel of miniature engineering with electric lights, running faucets, and functioning elevators.
The Cabinet War Rooms. At the southeastern corner of St. James's Park, where Birdcage Walk meets Horse Guards Road, a small sign points the way to the Cabinet War Rooms. Here in these dark brown bunkers, Winston Churchill and his ministers spent much of World War II.
Built to withstand the Nazi Blitzkrieg, the War Rooms now surrender themselves daily to armies of visitors who file past the small rooms and offices: the converted water closet from which Churchill telephoned Roosevelt, the Prime Minister's spartan office and bedroom, the Map Room, and the Cabinet Room itself. The tour ends on a lighter note with an exhibition of Sallon's caricatures of wartime figures. Tube: Westminster or Charing Cross.
The Imperial War Museum. War is often described as a kind of madness, so it's fitting that a museum dedicated to 20th-century conflicts should be housed in the former lunatic asylum known as Bedlam. Though the lofty entrance hall is dominated by the bulky hardware of modern warfare, the museum goes beyond the instruments of war to focus on people--both the perpetrators of conflict and the victims.
Historical documents on display include letters and manuscripts from World
War I poets, Neville Chamberlain's notorious "peace in our time" agreement of
1938, and, most chillingly, Adolf Hitler's fateful directive ordering the invasion of
Poland. The Blitz and Trench Experiences recreate every detail (even smells), while
displays dealing with P.O.W.'s in the Far East and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp are nothing less than distressing. On the second floor, "The
Secret War" exhibit recounts the exploits of British spies; and the top floor houses
the museum's extensive collection of 20th-century art.
Tube: Lambeth North, Elephant & Castle, Waterloo
The Houses of Parliament. Officially known as
the Palace of Westminster, the Houses of Parliament are (or is) actually one vast
complex, home to the chambers of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which meet
on opposite sides of the octagonal Central Lobby. Though largely a 19th-century
structure, the Palace incorporates medieval buildings (Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower,
the Undercroft Chapel and Cloisters) as well as recent renovations. The present Chamber of
the House of Commons was completed in 1950, its archway built partly of stone from the
original arch, which was destroyed by bombs during World War II. Westminster Clock Tower
is perhaps London's most familiar landmark, and the chimes of its hour bell, known as
"Big Ben," are recognized worldwide.
Tube: Westminster
Globe Theatre Re-Opens in
June . . . after 400-Year Intermission
[British Studies Newsletter I.6, March 1997]
The new Globe Theatre, an authentic re-creation of Shakespeare's playhouse on the south bank of the Thames, is scheduled to open on June 14, 1997--just in time for this summer's British Studies Program in London (June 22-July 27).
Faithful design and the use of traditional building materials and techniques have been key to the reconstruction of the Globe, which is located just 200 yards from the site of the original playhouse. The circular theatre is made up of twenty wooden bays, each of which is three stories high and thatched with Norfolk reed.
On either side of the stage, which is roofed and thatched, are huge oak pillars painted to look like marble. The elaborately carved back wall (frons scenae) rises to the heavens--actually, a painted canopy over the stage.
Plays scheduled to run this summer in the new "wooden O" are Henry V and The Winter's Tale. But you don't have to wait until then to visit the theatre.
British Studies participants who would like to take "a virtual reality walk" around the new Globe should check out the following Web site: http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/.
In addition to offering photographs of the reconstructed theatre, this Internet site provides information about Shakepeare's London and an introduction to the International Globe Centre.
UPDATE 2000: Other Internet sites providing views and reviews of the new Globe Theatre include Gaynor and Mike Duffy's "Well Furlong," Reading University's "Shakespeare's Globe," and C'Lock's "Globe Theatre."
Guide Books to London
Let's Go London '99 (St. Martin's Press, $15.99). Researched, written, and revised each year entirely by students, Let's Go London features up-to-date reports on the city's less costly (but no less interesting) pubs, restaurants, clubs, stores, sights, and theatres. Interestingly, British Studies students will be visiting at least five of what the authors consider "The Top Six Sights of All Time": the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, Westminster Abbey, Hampton Court Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Hampstead Heath.
Everybody's Historic London: A History and Guide, by Jonathan Keik (1996, £7.95 in London, $9.56 from Amazon.com). In this highly praised guide to London's past, the author combines hard fact with a lively style. Text includes more than 100 photographs and maps, as well as plans for 20 historical day-tours.
The Rough Guide to London, by Rob Humphreys (March 1999, $18.95). This insider's view of the city (by turns cynical and amusing) is one of the most thorough guides available. In addition to providing a detailed treatment of the basics (money, phones, food, and the like), Humphreys considers such specialty areas as classical music, opera, and dance; sport, festivals, and special events; lesbian and gay London; theatre, cabaret, and cinema; and an essential directory listing everything from lost luggage contact numbers to all-night dentists.
Atlas London A-Z (1998, $11.95). Not a guide book but a pocket-sized street atlas, covering every meandering mew, lane, highway, close, and glen in London. Includes a complete index as well as marks to tube stations, gardens, parks, and major points of interest. Essential for the adventurous traveler who looks forward to getting lost--but not hopelessly so--in London's serpentine streets.
Guide Books to London: Let's
Go
[British Studies Newsletter I.5, February 1997]
Of the many London guide books on the market, the favorite among students is Let's Go:
London ($13.99, from St. Martin's Press, 1997). And for good reason. The
book is researched, written, and revised each year entirely by students, who
"know first-hand how to see the world on the cheap."
In addition to the fairly conventional (and all-too-brief) accounts of the city's history and culture, the guide features up-to-date reports on London's less costly (but no less interesting) pubs, restaurants, nightclubs, stores, and theatres.
The lengthy chapter on "Sights" may be the most rewarding. Sights include not only the well known (from Poets' Corner to the Changing of the Guard) but also the off-beat (like the dank Charles Clore Pavilion at London Zoo, Coram's Fields children's park in Bloomsbury, and the terribly exclusive Wig & Pen Club on The Strand).
As well as providing accurate information and clear directions, the young writers offer straightforward advice on what you absolutely must see--and on what you might just as well avoid.
Consider, for instance, the Let's Go "Top six sights of all time": "Hampton Court Palace has kings and queens and scatological fun (p. 207); Kew Gardens is mudluscious and puddle-wonderful (205); Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens is prettier than yo' mama (155); Westminster Abbey is full of our favorite corpses (135); St. Paul's is where the Anglican God lives; it's so very that we can't bring ourselves to be crass about it (182); Windsor Castle is spectacular, too (209)."
UPDATE 2000: Let's Go: London is updated annually (the 1999 edition sells for $15.99). For more information, visit the Let's Go web site.
London, England (1998)
[British Studies Newsletter III.1, September 1998]
Take a hop-on hop-off ride into the heart of London: visit Soho discos and St.Paul's Cathedral. Float upriver, and mount the 311 steps of The Monument. Trail Jack the Ripper. Learn rhyming slang. Meet Nelson, Holmes, Cromwell, Bond, and Wren. Miss the Changing of the Guard. Get culture, go shopping, experience the Great Fire, and whistle "Wannabe."
Subtitled A Day-Tripper's Travelogue from the Coolest City in the World, Derek Hammond's London, England is a travel book with a sense of humor as well as a sense of history. Armed with his patented Londonometer and a pile of guidebooks, Hammond goes in search of the very Londonest scenes of the past and present.
For a taste of London, enjoy these excerpts from London, England:
On Westminster Abbey . . .
Westminster Abbey . . . is hardly a church at all--no jumble sales or early morning coffee
here--more royal mausoleum; royal weddings and coronations a specialty, with long term
parking space available for all the crowd from the National Portrait Gallery, a few years
further down the line. I know the Church of England only came about with Henry
VIII's opportunistic merger of Church and State, but the Abbey is really no great advert
for balance: poor old Jesus can hardly get a look in for the cluttered statues of
ghostly Great Britons. . . .
Westminster Abbey inspires precious few thoughts of Eternal Life, packed as it is with these desperate monuments to the very, very Dead. The Abbey does have a pageantry and power all of its own, but it is royal rather than spiritual, with the Nation neatly salted into the equations as an Englishman's shortcut to God.
On Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament . . .
The sheer enormity of Big Ben is always breathtaking--then your eyes refocus and you're
astonished again by the splendour of the Gothic detail lavished over every square foot of
its surface. Freshly buffed up and retouched last year, the Houses of Parliament--or
the "Palace of Westminster," as it's still called by those who didn't notice it
burning down in the 1830s--positively drip with curlicues and filigree, microscopic
chiselwork and vampirish possibilities. It's much more impressive in real life than
on the side of an HP sauce bottle. Unless you're about to tuck into a bacon
sandwich, in which case the sauce bottle wins every time.
If there's one place in London proportionally lacking in feelgood factor, it's the Houses of Parliament, where the Commons is on the verge of collapse under the combined weight of governmental corruption, deception, arrogance, and sleaze. "Business as usual," the culprits argue--and that's supposed to be their defense. In Parliament Square, Winston Churchill may be hunkered down in drizzle in his concrete overcoat, but he still looks stubborn and dependable. Likewise, the leather-clad Oliver Cromwell standing outside Parliament clutching his bible and his sword; but don't tell the Queen I said so--Cromwell took a cheap pop at royalty, and ended up being disinterred and gibbeted at Tyburn.
On Soho . . .
If London promises all things to all people, then nowhere delivers like Soho. A
warped, selective history oozes from almost every brick in this tight-packed square
half-mile. It's impossible to have a drink without sitting in the fireside seat
still reserved for George Orwell or Dylan Thomas, or else blocking the light still
reserved for Canaletto or William Blake. This is where the teenage Paul Weller used
to come and tape London, to record the sounds of the streets on a portable cassette player
. . .. Teenagers were invented in Soho, along with striptease, television, and the
discotheque. Musicians who couldn't even play guitar--Wagner, Liszt, Mozart--still
jostle for attention along with the ghosts of the most celebrated London penpushers that
no one ever reads: Johnson and Boswell, Shelley, Marx. In Soho, a sense of Time and
Place is tangible. And, for those unaffected by the sheer density of historical,
nostalgic triggers, Soho also happens to be Britain's real life, modern day gay capital,
red-light and porn capital, restaurant and clubbing capital, media capital, and home to
our film and music industries.
On London Bridge . . .
London Bridge itself always comes as something of a letdown--it's just a plain concrete
plank thrown down lovelessly between the two banks. But if we're talking
disappointments, consider for one minute the good citizens of Lake Havasu City, Nevada,
USA, on whose behalf the fast-sinking, Georgian London Bridge was snapped up in the '60s
for a cool £2.4 million--on the assumption that they were getting Tower Bridge. You
mean there's, like, a difference?
Ever since Roman times a bridge has crossed the Thames at this point, the first stone-arched span of 1176 lasting a good deal longer than any of its wooden predecessors-right up until 1831 . . . . Rickety wooden shops, houses, and taverns grew up along the sides of the bridge, overhanging the stream at the rear, where they were supported by struts. After a couple of hundred years, successive extensions up and out from the buildings' original frontages virtually enclosed sections of the bridge. At the northern gate tower, severed heads from the Tower, first boiled and dipped in tar, were spiked as a deterrent against crime-and probably appetite, too.
London, England: A Day-Trippers Travelogue from the Coolest City in the World, by Derek Hammond (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1998) £7.99.
UPDATE 2000: Hammond's book is now available in a U.S.
paperback from Trafalgar Publishers-- $13.56 from Amazon.
Disarming News. A total ban on handguns went into effect last month in Britain. Police are convinced that the best way to keep firearms off the streets is by leaving their guns at the station. According to a survey by the police officers union, the Police Federation, four out of five British cops do not want to be armed. Today, 95 percent of officers in England and Wales never carry firearms, and on average police nationwide open fire on only half a dozen occasions a year. In the 30-year history of the Thames Valley Police, a southern England force with two million people in its district, not a single round has ever been fired at a human. (U.S. News & World Report, 9 Feb. 1998)
Britpop. The rock band Oasis remains a social phenomenon in England. After six years of existence, it has become the house band of the vestigial British Empire. Noel Gallagher, Oasis's songwriter and lead guitarist, endorsed Tony Blair in last year's election; Blair repaid the debt by inviting Noel to his victory celebration. Gallagher and his younger brother Liam have specialized in monumentally arrogant statements to the press, including Noel's reply to a question about whether Michael Jackson had a Messiah complex: "Who does he think he is? Me?" Oasis's Be Here Now and Radiohead's OK Computer were the two major British rock albums of 1997. However, to almost everyone's astonishment, the most popular group in England remains . . . the Spice Girls. (The New Yorker, 29 Sep.1997)
On Call. Westminster Council employs a special cleaning squad to remove
prostitutes' calling cards from London's telephone boxes. These cards, a colorful
phenomenon of the Nineties, can be found in almost all central London phone boxes.
Placed there by squads of young men who earn hundreds of pounds for the minimal risk that
they run, the cards advertise the services and phone numbers of the whole range of
call-girls (generally described as "new," "seventeen," and
"French"). Each week, over half-a-million cards are removed from 760
booths. Within a day or so, the cards are all back again.
(London Lines: The Capital by Underground, by Michael Kelly, Mainstream Publishing,
1996)
The Knowledge. A London cabbie is thoroughly immersed in his profession. He takes pride in it, knowing that nowhere else in the world does a taxi driver need to know so much in order to qualify for a license. Would-be drivers must register with the Public Carriage Office and then spend up to four years learning London in minute detail ("doing the Knowledge," as it's called). They do this by traveling the streets of the city on a bike, whatever the weather, working out a multitude of routes from a clipboard mounted on the handlebars. About 20,000 drivers work in London, of whom half own their own cabs--or Hackney Carriages, as they are officially known. (Insight Guides: London, Houghton Mifflin, 1997)
London Theatre News. Brief Lives by John Aubrey, adapted by Patrick Garland, will open at the Duchess Theatre on March 23. . . . Sweet Charity opens at the Victoria Palace Theatre on May 19. Not seen in London for more than 30 years, this new production contains the original Bob Fosse choreography. . . . Two acclaimed one-act comedies-The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard and Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer-open at the Comedy Theatre on April 22. Though both plays were written in the mid-1960s, this is the first time they have been paired together in a major West End production. . . . Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett opens on March 10 at the Picadilly Theatre. . . . The New Shakespeare Company has just announced its summer schedule at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park. British Studies participants are tentatively scheduled to attend a performance of Troilus and Cressida on a warm, cloudless evening in July. (London Theatre News (Online), 22 Feb. 1998)
Summer Weather. From April onwards in England, the days are long, and it stays light until 10 p.m. in July. Temperatures average from 64 to 79. Summer weather is never predictable: some years are full of rain, others can be downright cold. Never travel far without a sweater or an umbrella. (Culture Shock: Britain, by Terry Tan, 1994)
UPDATE 2000: Fans of Britpop may want to visit Wonderwall for links to British and Irish indie artists. The official Oasis home page is at http://www.oasisinet.com/; an unofficial Radiohead site is at http://www.xs4all.nl/~atease/LINKS.htm. In addition, The London Theatre Guide is now online. And if you're curious to know whether or not it's raining today in London, visit http://www.usatoday.com/weather/basemaps/nw037683.htm.
On Being British & European
As a boy, I was entirely English. There was nothing else to be. . . .
Allegiance, to me, no longer has to be so exclusive. I still need it, as a psychic prop, a way of belonging. But the [European] threat to national identity now strikes me as bogus. We are all invaded by America. If cultural defenses are needed, it's against transatlantic domination. But do I hear a single soul, on either side of the Channel, contend that France is less French than it ever was because of the European Union? So it will be with Britain. This reality won't come easy. Decades of propaganda defining national identity in the language of scorn for other nations can't be wiped out at a stroke. --Hugo Young in The Guardian Weekly, 10 January 1999.
Scratching Fanny of Cock
Lane--and Other London Legends
[British Studies Newsletter I.1, October, 1996]
From the Ghost of Pond Square to the Field of the Forty Footsteps, the ancient city of London is home to many fascinating legends. Students participating in the Summer 1997 British Studies Program will have a number of opportunities to explore the places where miracles have occurred and where ghosts have assuredly appeared.
A series of short yet rewarding walks around the city will provide memorable glimpses into London's rich, dark, and highly imaginative past.
Stroll along the north side of Cheapside, past Milk Street and Gutter Lane, and you will soon find yourself at the Guildhall. There, perched high up on either side of the gallery at the western end of the Great Hall, the limewood giants Gog and Magog gaze down inscrutably on the assemblies below. These strange, stocky figures, looking aloof and rather puzzled, stand as reminders of the days when Britain was peopled by giants.
Behind St. Sepulchre's Church, visit the site of one of London's most famous ghost tales (one that was gleefully debunked by Dr. Johnson)--Scratching Fanny of Cock Lane.
At the bottom of Highgate Hill, the Earl of Arundel's house (now the site of the 17th-century Old Hall) was reputed to be haunted by another sort of ghost--that of a hen whose wings have been flapping dismally since the day it was killed and stuffed with snow by Sir Francis Bacon, who himself died a few days later of pneumonia.
In addition to spotting ghosts (at such diverse spots as Pond Square, Kensington Palace, and, of course, the Tower of London), students in the British Studies Program will have a chance to visit the church of St. Mary-le-Bow (whose bells Dick Whittington supposedly heard from Highgate Hill), the remains of the Charterhouse (where rebellious monks were murdered when the monasteries were dissolved by Reformation decree), the Blue Boar Inn (where gentlemanly prisoners were once permitted a glass of sherry on their way to the gallows), and the Church of St. Clement Danes (forever associated with both the nursery rhyme "'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St. Clement's" and the nearby Clement's Inn, about which Justice Shallow and Falstaff had so much to say).
As participants in next summer's British Studies Program will discover, the many legends of London live on.
Recommended reading: London Walks and Legends, by Mary Cathcart Boxer (1981).
UPDATE 2000: For more information about "the most haunted city in the world," read Dr. Hendrik Mangor's engaging article at http://www.virtual-london.co.uk/arrive/ghosts.html.
A Spot of English Tea
[British Studies Newsletter II.6, February 1998]
English "tea" refers to both a drink and a social ritual. A cup of tea is the preferred remedy for exhaustion, ennui, a quarrel with one's partner, a rainy morning, or a slow afternoon. English tea is always served hot, strong, and milky. If you want it any other way, be sure to say so.
The social ritual of tea centers around a meal. Afternoon high tea generally includes cooked meats, salad, sandwiches, and pastries. "Tea" in the north of England refers to the evening meal, usually served with a huge pot of tea. Cream tea, a specialty of Cornwall and Devon, includes toast, shortbread, crumpets, scones, and jam, accompanied by delicious clotted cream. Most Brits take short tea breaks each day, mornings ("elevenses") and afternoons (around four p.m.).
The tea experience in London is traditionally credited to the Ritz in Piccadilly. However, because reservations for the Ritz are required months in advance and a set tea there costs £18.50 (about $30), British Studies participants are likely to enjoy their tea experiences elsewhere. Located within a 10- to 15-minute walk of our hotel is the Orangery Tea Room in Kensington Palace. There, in a room built for Queen Anne in 1705, one can enjoy a pot of tea with fruit scones and cream for about £5.
UPDATE 2000: When visiting London, serious tea-drinkers may want to visit the Bramah Tea & Coffee Museum near Tower Bridge.
Surrealism at the Tate
The suicide of a squirrel and a giant table-football game that can be played by 30 people at once are examples of the "new art" to be featured next summer at the Tate Gallery in London. The exhibition, titled "Abracadabra," will bring together "playful and surreal" works by 16 international artists.
"Exciting, poetic, disturbing, and extravagant, this new art aims to establish fresh lines of communication with its audience, and in many of the works the element of humor is used to support a more serious message," said a Tate spokeswoman.
At another major Tate exhibition, starting on February 24 next year, the public will get its first opportunity to see a collection of controversial sketches by the late Francis Bacon.
One of the most popular Tate showings of 1999 is expected to be the first big Jackson Pollock exhibition in England for 40 years. Pollock's influential splatter paintings will travel to Britain in March following a Museum of Modern Art exhibition in New York
And in May (more specifically, May 14-June 5, 1999), students enrolled in the British Studies Program will travel to London to visit the Tate Gallery--and to enjoy numerous other playful, surreal, and educational experiences. For more information, call 912/921 5626.
UPDATE 2000: Visit the Tate Gallery online.
"Sweet as Summer":
British Studies Redux
[British Studies Newsletter II.1, Summer 1997]
Jaffa Cakes and Old Peculiar. Wine gums, Night Nurse, and (of course) fish & chips. The view from the Greenwich Observatory--and from the library balcony at Westminster Abbey. Jetlagging with Judith on the East End trail of Jack the Ripper; sharing a downpour with Molly in Dickens' London; and sitting with Anne Murray in the tall grass of Hampstead Heath, mingling with the ghosts of Constable and Keats.
Even the soggiest June on record was unable to dampen the spirits of this year's participants in the British Studies Program in London. After a two-year hiatus, the program made a successful return this summer--and several of us have the snapshots, souvenirs, and rusted-out umbrellas to prove it.
Each weekday morning, after "toast" (as we came to describe our modest breakfast), we retired to our classroom--a comfortable, softly-lit lounge that opened onto the back garden of the Atlas Hotel. There, Dr. Roger Warlick ignited lively discussions about British culture, Dr. Keith Connelly spoke excitedly of the plays we were about to see, and Dr. Nordquist wistfully recalled the last few centuries of the literature of London.
After lunch (customarily a "triple" sandwich picked up at Sainsbury's), we grabbed our tube passes and umbrellas and headed for the streets of London--our true classroom. In just the first few days, we toured our own neighborhood of Kensington, with its Palace and Gardens, Leighton House, Holland Park (mind the peacocks!), the cathedral-like Natural History Museum, and the inexhaustible Victoria & Albert. We spent one day that first week at the British Museum--the manuscript salon, the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, the Mindenhall Treasure, the Portland Vase--in the company of a million howling school children.
And in the evening we headed for the elegant Haymarket Theatre to enjoy Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan.
We saw several other plays during our five weeks in London: a haunting, expressionistic version of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls at the Garrick; Shakepeare's All's Well That Ends Well at the Regents' Park Open Air Theatre (a blessedly rainless night under the stars, with coffee and lager to keep us warm) and A Winter's Tale at the reconstructed Globe on the South Bank (peering around the hefty marble-painted pillars from our wooden seats in the gallery, all of us struck by the inebriated Time's resemblance to the sober Inspector in Priestley's play); David Hare's touching and troubling Amy's View at the National Theatre; and, during our last week, the flat-out funny and sometimes painful view of friendship depicted in the play Art at Wyndham's.
In addition, we enjoyed a backstage tour of the National Theatre (seeing the set of Guys and Dolls was enough to spur many of us to attend an evening performance of this notably unBritish musical) and took a journey by coach to Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon.
Indeed, we visited a number of historic sites outside of London, including Windsor Castle (still undergoing major renovations following the fire in 1992 that destroyed six rooms and three towers) and Greenwich (by means of a delightful boat ride along the Thames), home to the Queen's House, the Old Royal Observatory, and the National Maritime Museum (which is already gearing up for millennium celebrations).
We all know now that in 1894 an anarchist blew himself up while trying to destroy the observatory--and that Joseph Conrad used the bizarre incident as the seed for his novel The Secret Agent. But some of us still haven't quite recovered from that long, winding walk up the hill to verify the accuracy of Greenwich Mean Time. Nor have we recovered from the spectacular view of London that we were rewarded with once we reached the top.
One day we traveled to Salisbury (where the final five lines of T. S. Eliot's Little Gidding are etched on a new glass pane in the Cathedral: "And all shall be well . . .") and from there to Stonehenge (more accessible than we had been led to believe--and more darkly moving than many of us had expected) and the ancient Roman city of Bath (immortalized, of course, by Fielding, Smollet, Austen, and Dickens--where we finally located the source of those delicious thin lemon biscuits that we had enjoyed at our orientation session back in May.
On the same day that we traveled to Stratford, we also paid visits to Oxford (crossing Folly Bridge to Christ Church--with only tourists occupying the quad in July) and Warwick Castle (an awesome edifice now somewhat trivialized, unfortunately, by its new owners, Madame Tussaud's).
Left to devise weekend itineraries on our own, the various members of the British Studies Program traveled widely and well: Caroline and Karey to Ireland; Ramona to Wales; Beth to Paris and Amsterdam; Dr. Nordquist to the English midlands; the Warlicks to Rochester and to Leeds Castle; and Grace, Shelly, Libby, and Andrea to the farthest reaches of Scotland.
Nonetheless, most of our time this summer was spent in London; indeed, most of our journeys were within Zone 1 of the London Transport map.
After stepping out of the tube station by Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament one Monday afternoon, we spent several hours touring Westminster Abbey (from our bird's eye view in the library, we could just make out the sliver of glass dedicated to Oscar Wilde in Poets' Corner--and we could hear the almost celestial sounds of the boys' choir). The next afternoon was spent at the Museum of London and the following day at the Tower of London (20 towers, to be exact, and yes, the wings of the ravens are clipped to keep them inside the grounds, and the queue at the Jewel House is a miracle of crowd-management).
And there was truly so much more. The still medieval world of the Inns of Court (where one of us came dangerously close to putting her knee through a priceless Chippendale chair), the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, the Keats Museum in Hampstead, the Tate Gallery, the Cabinet War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image and the London Transport Museum. And the adventures we sought out on our own--in Richmond, at the London Zoo, in Covent Garden, in Soho and Leicester Square, at Camden Town and Piccadilly Circus, in the parks (Hyde, Green, St. James) and the churches (St. Martin-in The Fields, St. Bartholomew The Great) and the pubs (best of all, perhaps, the friendly little bar in the Atlas Hotel).
Out of our travels, we've all gained new knowledge and fresh perspectives borne out of experiences (often intensely felt) that we won't easily forget. Again, in the words of T. S. Eliot in Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
UPDATE 2000: This article recounts the experiences of those who participated in what proved to be the final tour of the British Studies Program in London, an independent study-abroad program sponsored by Armstrong Atlantic State University from 1983 to 1998. However, similar experiences can now be enjoyed by students participating in the Summer Study Abroad Program at Roehampton Institute in London, sponsored by the European Council of the University System of Georgia.
The Tower
of London
[British Studies Newsletter I.6, March 1997]
One of the most intriguing historical sites that British Studies participants will visit this summer is the Tower of London, palace and prison of English monarchs for over 500 years. Home to the "Beefeaters" and the Crown Jewels, The Tower was founded by William the Conqueror in 1066 to provide protection for and from his subjects. The 20 towers standing behind its main walls are linked by massive gateways, disheartening fortifications even to today's visitors. The most infamous part of the Fortress is the Bloody Tower, which reputedly saw the murder of the Little Princes--the uncrowned King Edward V and his brother (aged 13 and 10)--by agents of Richard III. A block on the Tower Green marks the spot where the axe fell on such famous prisoners as Queen Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Anne Boleyn, and the Earl of Sussex (Queen Elizabeth's rejected suitor).
UPDATE 2000: For a virtual tour of the Tower of London, visit http://www.camelot-group.com/tower/.
And for something a bit different, learn about public executions in early modern England
at "Tyburn Tree."
Travelers in
London
[British Studies Newsletter I.7, April 1997]
Etymologically speaking, a tourist is someone who goes in circles; a traveler is one whose journey requires effort. No doubt about it: British Studies participants will be travelers. Consider the following observation from British novelist Robyn Davidson:
Travel is only useful if you go open to the possibility of surrendering parts of what had formed you in exchange for the new perspectives offered by difference. If you go out of curiosity--and with respect. If you can enter a place on its own terms. Tourism is travel with its heart ripped out, imposing. home environments on a foreign place.
UPDATE 2000: Take an online tour of London at http://www.wnet.org/archive/goingplaces1/london.html.
Tribute to Ted Hughes
British poet Ted Hughes, who died last month at the age of 68, was perhaps the most widely read serious poet of his time. Named Poet Laureate in 1984, Hughes possessed "a sense of nature," according to London novelist Charles Tomlinson, "a sense of that other England which the London-bound writer has forgotten about."
He will be remembered most particularly for the strength of his early work (Hawk in the Rain, 1957, and Crow, 1970) and for his final work, the best-selling Birthday Letters--a collection of 88 poems chronicling his stormy relationship with American poet Sylvia Plath.
Just two weeks before his death, Hughes was awarded the Order of Merit at Buckingham Palace.
UPDATE 2000: Several Internet sites are dedicated to Hughes and his poetry, including pages by Claas Kazzer and Ann Skea.
Dr. Richard Nordquist.
Armstrong Atlantic State University
Victor 1-10
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia 31419
NEW PHONE: 912 921 5991
e-mail: nordquist@mail.com 
05 July 2000
| AASU Home | Visitor Information AASU | Site Map | Applying to AASU |
| Faculty and Staff | Administration | Student Resources | Distance Learning |
| Colleges and Schools | Athletics | Alumni | Web Coursework | Financial Aid |
| Continuing Education | News and Information | Library |
All portions of these materials are copyright © 2000 Armstrong Atlantic State University.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Please contact us at Armstrong Atlantic
State University Web Team