Cirque du Soleil – Corteo!

Posted on 9 February 2025 by boryssnorc

In 1996, I came to Europe to do some work experience in corporate studio photography. I was working with a guy named, Jay Myrdal who had a lot of big clients (Boeing, Rolls Royce, Honda, all sorts) doing large format 8” x 10” creative advertising photography. It was quite the experience, I learned a lot, but I also had a lot of free time in London that winter.

One of the things that I did was go to the Royal Albert Hall to see Allegria with BluddyMary – it was the first Cirque du Soleil show that I ever went to and I fell madly in love with the format. The acrobatics and gymnastics, the athleticism combined with the artistry, whimsical and accomplished music and fabulously creative sets, make up and costumes. Loved it.

I swear I took a very similar picture with an Allegria truck parked outside this building 30 years ago! 🙂

Ever since, whenever we are travelling, I usually check to see if there are any of their travelling shows on – either static theatre shows or travelling under the Big Top in towns we are visiting. This is how I have come to see Amaluna in New York, Kurios in Vancouver, Varekai in Beaumont Texas, La Nouba in Orlando, Totem in Sydney, and a bunch of shows in Las Vegas. So, coming to London for a few weeks, I thought I’d have a look and see if anything was on – and yes, we were in luck! Cortéo is showing at the Royal Albert Hall! Kinda cool – back to where my love affair with the Cirque all started.

So Stephola and I had been plotting to do this before the cruise to New Zealand (a trip which is suspiciously missing from here because my site has been busted and I haven’t been able to write…hopefully I will get around to fixing some backlog if it doesn’t get forgotten entirely). We paid £120 each for what I would call rather pricey but very average seats. We had a decent view, but we were up in the Rausing Circle, which is the second very back row of the highest gallery in the Royal Albert Hall… oddly enough, only about two rows back from where I remember seeing it last time! 🙂 I didn’t mind though, I am just glad to be able to go and see the Cirque, and I was happy Stephola was keen to check it out too.

Visiting the Royal Albert Hall is in itself a bit of a treat if you are not used to seeing all sorts of shows here. The building is beautiful, and lovingly preserved. The hallways, staircases and bars are just lovely.

Cortéo literally means ‘cortège’ in Italian, and the story is based around a clown named Mauro who is reflecting back on his life and circus achievements and friends from his deathbed. I know, sounds a little dark, but it works. The production moves from one energetic and creative vignette to another tied together by Mauro’s bed moving in from scene to scene. It was excellent.

There were two little people in the cast, one of whom was suspended by these enormous balloons, and floated out over the crowd. It was delightful and the engagement with the audience was really effective.

As per usual with a Cirque production, the clowns were sophisticated and hilarious – they were speaking a LOT more than you usually see in a Cirque show, and in multiple languages… you could make out a smattering of French and Italian and quite a lot of English. They were really good and always make for a lovely interlude between acts or provide an excellent distraction while other cast members are setting up for the next performance.

The ceiling of the Royal Albert Hall: it has these amazing mushroom in it, which apparently improve the acoustics. I know nothing about sound engineering, but I know they look very funky when all lit up!

Another fabulous act were the gymnasts on the giant bars – there was 8 or maybe 10 strong guys all swinging on these bars at the same time; all in perfect synchronicity with complex choreography, flipping between bars and across each other. I wonder how many times they have smooshed into another gymnast during practice!

The absolute highlight were the aerialist pair that started on blue ribbons – they were spectacular! Oh my god, just so athletic, yet graceful and artistic. I didn’t take any photos of their act as they were just enthralling and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

All up 10 out of 10 – would go again!

Edit: So… I’m still in the UK, and exactly 9 days after seeing this, I got an email from the Cirque saying that Cortéo is coming to Australia later this year! 😀 I have a feeling I will be going again, now!

Help… I’m stuck in Transit Hell.

Posted on 8 February 2025 by boryssnorc

Jesus titty fucking Christ I have just had the worst transit since the Allah-Awful 40hour plus nightmare transit that was getting back from Islamabad to Brisbane in 2007…!

I woke up, it was a lovely morning, I had slept well, the sun was shining and it was looking like a good day. I was looking forward to my flights, and hopefully a comfortable and minimum fuss transit day. I left home at a reasonable at 0800 on Friday morning to leave via the Brisbane International Terminal. I realised the last few international flights I have taken have all gone out via Sydney, so it’s been a while since I checked in at BNE Intl. When I got to the Qantas counters, I saw all the usual premium check-in counters were gone. No premium check-in line, no ‘Platinum people go here’… just a Business and StatusWhores line that lead directly to a bank of SELF CHECK IN MACHINES! The horror!

What (and I cannot stress this enough), the actual fuck is going on here? I am flying for the first time with the P1 fanciness under my belt and I’m expecting a friendly crew member welcoming me and doing all the things while checking on my upgrade requests. Instead there was about 8 machines, six people standing around and two confused looking staff dealing with some guys checking in a bunch of oversized ski equipment bags. I could see no option but to use the self check-in machine, so I did. It printed me a bag tag and some boarding passes, which I then had to put on my luggage myself (I hate those fucking stupid sticker things; if I don’t get them on crooked, I invariably end up with an annoying paper cut), and no bright orange Priority Luggage tag on it, which was sad-making all of itself. We then had to take them over to self-drop bag check-in off area, where predictably, the luggage drop scanner couldn’t read my bag tag. I stood there stupidly for about five minutes trying to flag down one of the three staff who walked past me all saying, ‘Just a moment, I’ll be right with you.’

Eventually, someone came to see why the machine wasn’t working, and said ‘Oh it hasn’t read your boarding passes…’ but it had. Fucking twice – it was only working now because I had been jostling the suitcase around trying to get the scanner to see it while waiting from someone to come sort it.

I go downstairs to get ready to go through security and through border control, only to realise that my lack of greeting also meant I didn’t have a security express pass. I’ve marched up to the express pass lane anyway – because that’s where we go, and the staff member there stopped me and asked me for my pass… I said, probably somewhat curtly, that there is no staff up there anymore and no one gave me one. I showed her my boarding pass and she sent me straight through – I gotta wonder why they are asking for them, if Qantas has stopped issuing them. I go down the queue and the express lane got funnelled into a special assistance queue full of non-frequent travellers who had wheelchair and crutches, and a woman with an arsenal of liquids holding up the queue. So standing around way longer than necessary. My mood was now thoroughly nonplussed and heading to annoyed.

I get to the Business Lounge and was finally greeted by a lovely lady named Maria, she was the first interaction I had with any airline staff. She had the misfortune to ask how my morning was going. I responded by asking her what was going on at the check-in counters… and her “Oh, I know! Everyone is appalled.”, reaction told me everything I needed to know. Too much cost cutting, and new staff dealing with the new check-in counters. I said, ‘We fly a lot, we fly Qantas for a predictable experience, but this has been absolute rubbish. What’s the point in having airline status if you can’t reduce your aggravation points during checkin processes?’ Maria encouraged me to write a letter… but noticeably, she did not give me an email address to send it to.

The Lounge was quiet-ish, but overall, I’m just not feeling the love today. Flying is a shitty experience in general and the more you do it, the less ‘fun’ it becomes. Ticket prices are higher than ever, Qantas has posting record quarter on quarter profits, and yet, the customer experience is declining rapidly… even for people like us at the top of their loyalty program. So what the fuck?

I found myself thinking about the check-in BS the whole time I was sitting there: I got no, ‘welcome’ at all, no priority luggage tag, no express security pass and WOW if this is how their highest level loyalty customers are going to get treated now, they can get fucked. ALL the touch points imaginable and no personalised anything… so why be brand loyal if all the perks are disappearing?

We are eventually boarding and thankfully everything there at least went smoothly. Normally I get a “Welcome back Ms Borys” when I load onto the plane, and I didn’t even get that – weird. Once we were loaded and ready to go, we had 40 mins waiting at the gate before pushing back late due to undefined ‘technical issues’. That ol’ chestnut! Eventually we get out on the tarmac and thankfully weren’t pushed too deep into the take off pattern and were in the air about 45 mins late in total. Unexpected bonus on the plane – it was an Airbus A330 and we had wifi that would hold as long as we were over Australia… though the boys were probably wishing I didn’t have connection as I spent the time lamenting the poor airport experience. Pic for Yale who is flying cattle to Las Vegas next week!

Just after we got past Darwin, as we were heading out over the sea, an announcement came over the PA asking if there were any medical professionals on the flight. Oh dear lord, I’ve been here before and last time it resulted in being rerouted to Bahrain and a 19 hour delay in getting where we were going.

Thankfully whatever doctors came and assessed the situation must have decided it was safe to continue our flight, but advised the Captain to get there as quickly as possible. Pilot put the hammer down and we had a very bumpy flight and we arrived in Singapore a full hour and an bit early after leaving nearly an hour late.

Predisposed to being critical – I had a very ordinary meal on the way here. The dessert choices always suck, so it’s cheese or cheese.

We disembarked in Singapore, and I had a slow walk through the terminal. I know Changi is supposed to be the best airport in the world, but if you can’t get enthused for high end shopping, and don’t feel like exploring a humid butterfly garden or something, what’s the point?
Sorry Mr K, no Tumi surprises for you this trip.

I pretty much ended up heading to the Qantas First Class Lounge to find somewhere comfortable to settle in for what was now going to be a 6 hour layover thanks to the early arrival. The lounge was PACKED. There were loads of people in there on Fiji Air boarding passes and Cathay and lord knows what. This place needs to be twice this size given that there are so many affiliates using the facility.

The lounge was also a bit weird… there were staff members wandering around offering people drinks and menus, but for some reason when found a comfy spot, and settled in, I waited about 10 mins and no one had come to offer me a drink – could have been resting bitch face by this point, but I gave up waiting for a server and went and helped myself to a fridge. Thankfully, there are also nice clean and well appointed showers so at least we can freshen up and feel more human before hitting the connections.

Wasn’t there long before being told that QF1 from SYD was going to be delayed. Oh joy! It was about 1800 local when I was told this, and it was due at 2150, but expected now at 2250. Our originally scheduled departure was supposed to be 2305, so that was never going to happen and we were bound to be a solid 60-90 mins late. I was correct and they told us we would be leaving around 0030.

Edit:
I don’t know wtf is going in with this flight.
Original ETD: 2305 and arriving 0615.
First delayed to ETD: 0030 arriving 0740.
Now it’s saying ETD of 0100 arriving 0640…?
How does that work?

We all dutifully left the lounge and went down to the gate for 0000 as told for a 0030 departure, only to be told we had another 30 min delay due to that famous scapegoat, ‘technical issues’ once more. None of us embarked until around 0110-ish. No greetings and things on boarding – I know they must be a little harried, but I’ve been on way delayed flights before and the staff are usually so friendly. Things were looking good and then nope! Apparently we had an ‘engineering issue’ this time so that delayed us another 30mins. Our 2305 flight was eventually pushing back at 0140, only now we had lost all places in the runway queue so we took the scenic route out to a different runway where we waited another waited another 20 mins for clearance.

After about 35 mins of that wait, we had the Captain coming on apologetically explaining that we had lost radio comms, and had to go back to the gate to fix it. He sounded as exasperated as I felt. At this point it is now 0225 and I’m 1hr 15mins into a cheerful WWII movie, and I am utterly exhausted. Been awake forever. We take the scenic route back to the gate… taxing back and forth around Changi wasn’t how I was hoping to spend the wee hours of this morning at all! I was just sitting there with fingers crossed hoping we weren’t all deplaned and sent to a hotel to wait for new aircraft! Half of the business cabin has their jammies on and are into our second or third glass of champagne. The crew are going to run out of nuts at this rate! Not even the view of the Scoot Pokemon planes are not making this incessant waiting more fun.

We get back to the gat at 0235 – and ‘lo and behold, there is no one there to operate the aerobridge to let the comms engineers on. FFS… my <6 hour layover is now pushing well into a 9 hours layover due to arriving early and now leaving with all these delays. It currently 0445 Saturday AM Brisbane, a full 24 hours since I last slept.

The fun it never ends… This is the plane that won’t take off!
0330 update – comms engineers have fixed the radios and it will be 15 mins until we can try to leave again. Wonder how long we will wait on the tarmac for a place in the runway queues this time. So much for a 2305 departure, huh?

Pushback take two finally occurred around 0340, and after another shorter wait (thank fuck!) on the tarmac, our flight just left after 0410. Now all we want is to go to sleep, but of course the crew have all only been awake for a couple of hours, and they’re about to run their food service because that is what they do – regardless of schedule. A late ‘dinner’ that would have been served at midnight is now being offered at fucking 5am. I wasn’t hungry at all, but thought I’d have the mid-flight sandwich to tide me over as dinner was 8 hours ago, and breakfast was definitely 13 to 14 hours away.

Big mistake, I should have skipped it and kept everyone away from me. 0455 – I’ve been awake for over 24 hours now and a FA smashes a glass on top on the side table. Tiny shards of glass go everywhere; all over me, my electronics, the little blanket, my seat and the floor. She doesn’t apologise or say anything and goes away. I start collecting the larger pieces of glass before trying to find all the little splinters (some of which I found with my fingers) and she eventually comes back with a dustpan and brush to sweep up the mess.

I’m so done with this fucking transit… I ate half my sandwich (which turned out to be served on such stodgy, two-inch thick focaccia that I couldn’t even get my mouth around it), popped a Valium and tried to go to sleep and forget the whole fucking mess. After I woke up some four hours later, the Cabin Manager came over and introduced herself and thanked me for being a loyal customer – all very business as usual until my dead pan face and monosyllabic responses seemed to prompt a, ‘We are so sorry for all the delays.’

At some point people start opening the windows, it looks lovely out there – I’m sure it won’t stay that way seeing we are heading to London. In February.

I didn’t know what to say other than most of my long haul flights last year were with Emirates or Cathay and I’m kinda wishing I was on an Emirates flight right now. She apologised again and left me alone for the rest of the flight.

We somehow magically touched down in London at 0920 – not too bad all things considered, only three hours late. Thank fuck it was a Saturday and I wasn’t working today! I picked a splinter of glass out of my hand as we taxied to the air bridge and I deplaned with that delightful feeling of mal d’ebarquement, coupled with a sleep deprived sensation that people around me were talking underwater.

I walked away from the whole nightmare as fast as my overtired little body would carry me. FARK!

Further edit: Oh Qaint-arse… are you guys gonna regret sending me this!

Verulamium and St Albans Cathedral

Posted on 8 July 2022 by boryssnorc

Went to visit the Verulamium Museum in St Albans today to check out some Roman mosaics and such. St Albans is situation on top of what used to be the third largest town in Roman Britain. Huge areas of the Romany city are not yet excavated being parklands and agricultural lands, so I imagine it’d be the sort of place you could keep coming back to and find they’ve continued to find new objects.Most of exhibits are pretty much self explanatory given all the artefacts here are from around 50AD when Verulamium was granted municipium status.Grave goods found buried with wealthy citizens. Interesting loom weights. Little model replica of a kiln:

Funerary urns and grave goods.Infant grave – apparently if a baby didn’t make it to 40 weeks, it would not receive a burial.Some extant fresco panels which have been reconstructed to show what they would have looked like.Samian pottery originated in parts of Gaul (modern France and Rhineland) and was made in vast quantities. It was the most common fine tableware in was made in Roman Britain imported from 50AD to around 225AD. The high glossy finish stems from minerals in the local clays where it was made. It took very particularly skilled potters to fire it to this lovely red colour. Most of it was thrown, but the heavily decorated bowls are done by mould. Ivy leaves were applied to some bowls using a bag and nozzle, (like icing cakes).

Pottery oil lamps – these are much smaller than ones I have seen in Italy – about the size of a bar of soap.Coppersmiths’ work:Blacksmiths’ work:This place is well worth a stop for the mosaics alone. They’re truly stunning – I can’t imagine what else lays around the countryside buried in fields.

After the museum I went a few miles up the road to visit St Alban’s Cathedral, which is a ‘must see’ in this area. Most of the cathedral dates from Norman times. It was dissolved as an Abbey in the 16th C and became a cathedral in 1877, and while it is technically a cathedral, it is also a Parish church unlike most other cathedrals in England. It has a dean who is the rector with the same responsibilities and authority as any other parish church.

The nave is bloody enormous being about 85m long – from the information plaques, this is the longest nave in England.

Medieval tiles…Ceilings…Of course a cathedral isn’t a cathedral without a rose window…The shrine to St Alban – Britain’s oldest saint. On a random column close to the Shrine of St Alaban is this random remaining piece of fresco – the figurative style has the typical elongated hands and 3/4 face that was typical of people being depicted in painting and other decorative arts in the 12thC. Posh people’s seating…

Some modern artworks honouring St Alban’s – also done in the 12th style. Fancy trunk with no information connected to it.

After wandering around St Albans I head back to Whitchurch to figure out dinner and have an early night. Transit day tomorrow, which should be interesting.

Cute high speed landscape pic of fields near Whitchurch as the sun goes down…

West Wycombe and Hellfire Caves

Posted on 7 July 2022 by boryssnorc

During the late 1740s, after a series of failed harvest seasons, some wealthy plonker by the name of Sir Francis Dashwood (11th Baron le Despencer) commissioned an ambitious project to dig a series of caves into the mountain side to keep the local farm workers employed. At one shilling a day (enough to support a family) these farm labourers were put to work digging deep into the chalk mountain to create what is effectively a secret playground for the rich and possibly sadistic.

The caves are near the village of West Wycombe and extend 260m underground to be directly beneath the St Lawrence’s church and the Dashwood family mausoleum, which are located high on the hill above. Said to have been constructed to represent, ‘heaven’ with the church above and ‘hell’ with the caves directly below; the caves came by their name, “Hellfire Caves” as this is where the original Hellfire Club is said to have met and carried out many pagan rituals, orgies, bacchanalian feasts and who knows what? There is plenty of speculation of what went on in these caves, but not a lot of solid evidence seems to have survived. The caves are well made and easy to navigate, the tunnels veer off and return to each other in such a way that you can not get lost – if you want to go deeper into the caves, you just go down the sloping pathway, if you wish to return to the surface, make sure you’re taking a path (any path) upwards. Towards the very deepest part of the cave is a man made underground river called the River Styx (of course it is), which is just outside the inner chamber where guests are said to have held their ‘parties’. The meetings were said to be notorious, pagan, full of debauchery and occult rituals where copious amounts of alcohol were consumed.The Hellfire Club is known to have been founded by Sir Francis Dashwood and unsurprisingly, included many various politically and socially important 18th-century people. Mostly men, such as William Hogarth, John Wilkes, Thomas Potter, John Montagu (Earl of Sandwich) and while there’s nothing definitive around to say he was a member – Benjamin Franklin (yes, that one…) was a close friend of Sir Francis Dashwood and was known to have visited the caves several times. His letters and connection to the group and Lord Dashwood figure quite prominently on the information plaques throughout.

The men at these gatherings referred to themselves as ‘monks’ and they did have female guests who were said to have dressed up as ‘nuns’ – mostly prostitutes, local girls, wives, sisters, and even some ladies of society would join them. They were rumoured to have dabbled with the occult and performed black magic, but I dare say they largely just behaved very drunkenly and lewdly away from society’s prying eyes.

The club motto was Fais ce que tu voudras (“Do what thou wilt”)… which certainly does make you fearful for the young women and clueless maids that no doubt found themselves encouraged into these tunnels with rich and powerful men :/ There is a couple of mentions of a young local barmaid named Sukie (for Susan) who was accidentally killed in the caves when some local lads sent her a letter pretending to be from an aristocratic beau, that told her to come to the caves dressed in white (so as to be like a wedding gown). When she arrived, the local lads teased her, and she threw rocks at them, one threw a rock back that struck her head and she died from this injury. She is now said to haunt the caves dressed in white – because of course she does.

The only thing that spoiled this slightly spooky visit into the Hellfire Caves was their propensity for lacklustre mannequins placed in variously carved out niches… made the experience somewhat Madame Tussaud’s tacky rather than being eerily quiet and still and cold…

After wandering down through the caves, I headed up the top of the hill to ‘heaven’ to see St Lawrence’s Church. Unfortunately the church was locked up and I was unable to visit inside, but the location of this church is stunning – the views across West Wycombe Village and the Park are gorgeous.

The golden ball atop the church’s tower is a familiar symbol of West Wycombe village. It is constructed from timber and was covered in gold leaf. Apparently you used to be able to go into it (it’s about 8 foot in diameter) and it has what must be super cosy seating for up to six people. Sir Francis Dashwood and his friends were rumoured to have met there (probably to smoke opium and get high and close toheaven!) but the public is no longer allowed in because of vandalism.

The nearby Dashwood Mausoleum is another notable West Wycombe fixture… it’s a huge hexagonal building containing the remains of Dashwoods and people connected to them, going back for centuries.

It’s enormous and a very impressive monument that stands out quite strikingly atop the hill. After a wander around the church, the old cemetery and the mausoleum I made my way over to West Wycombe Park to see the house and the estate. The house is only open from 2-4pm in the summer, so I was in luck and took (what was supposed to be) a little 40minute tour through the house. There is so much to be said about this place, that I’m not even going to try… click here for more info on West Wycombe Park If you want to know who built it and how.

The TL;DR is that a wealthy spoiled tradesman’s son took the Grand Tour to polish of his education and came back enamoured with all things Italian, Roman, Ottoman and Byzantine. He brought back some exceptional fresco artists in the form of Giuseppe Mattia Borgnis and his son who painted copies of many famous frescos from villas in Rome and Venice that the young Lord Dashwood so admired. Every ceiling and many walls in the staircases are covered in their works.

Northside of the building looks out over the grounds and the man made lake. Turns out this property has featured in Downton Abbey several times as Lady Rosamund’s London home and several other outdoor scenes. Most of the artworks were themed around Bacchus, Venus, Cupid, and other gods and myths, as was the fashion of the time. Drunken Bacchus with his grapes and laurel coronet feature throughout the house along with the occasional bawdy or lascivious scene which is probably why several of the artworks were covered over (possibly by the straight laced Victorians who followed) and have since been restored.

There was no photography allowed on my 40 minute tour (which turned into a 1hr 20 mins of standing way too long and being told the same thing over and over about whether the marble was genuine or a clever fabrication to look like marble – yes, we got it after the first two rooms, the fireplaces are real marble, most everything else that looks like marble, is not), and they did not have a book to purchase at the end. So I have unapologetically borrowed some images from their website and tbh if you’re not gonna flog the tourists a book, they’re lucky these pics aren’t hot-linked!

The entrance is an impressive hall which has frescoed ceilings copied from a Roman villa somewhere. Many of the busts were brought back from Europe whilst the young Lord Dashwood was on Tour, and some are weird copies made of long dead family members. The columned are not real marble, but rather a timber centre with a reconstituted highly polished crushed stone method of construction.

The Palmyra Dining Room, which if memory serves the guide, is based on a palace ‘somewhere in modern Syria’. Again the columns are not real marble, but the fireplace to the right is genuine marble. The Rococo mirrors are some of the finest to be found… Apparently. The dining suite however, not so authentic, Sir Francis Dashwood (the one who died in 2000 not the one who built the house) saw it in a movie set and picked it up when they were refurbishing. The aptly named ‘Yellow Drawing Room’ Has one of the largest and oldest Axminster carpets still in use and has lovey views down over the lake. More Rococo mirrors, and ‘What else can I tell you about this room? Oh yes, the fireplace is genuine marble but the elaborate doorway and the plinths that hold up statues of the Four Seasons are made with the same faux techniques from the Entrance Hall.’The Tapestry Room – where I nearly had a heart attack was lined with genuine 18thC Flemish tapestries that were a gift from the Earl of Westmorland. These genuine Flemish tapestries covered in delightful pastoral scenes have been cut and hacked to fit around the doorways, windows and fireplace in a way that made my heart just sink. With little or no regard for them, they were ruined to fit into a room that is way too tiny to hold them. ‘Oh and what else can I tell you about this room? The fireplace is genuine marble, but the decorative archway around the door is not.’You guessed it: The Red Drawing Room which is beautifully appointed and has a fabulous cabinet in the corner and an amazing 17thC travelling trunk which we weren’t allowed to photograph. ‘Oh and what else can I tell you about this room? The fireplaces are marble, but the doorway and….’ Fuck it. You get the idea.

The Music Room which was used to host parties and balls. The frescos are full of Bacchanalian iconography and symbolism. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and her sister were entertained here with a small circus as children, complete with ponies in the house… and of course the fireplaces are genuine marble but the plinths and doorways are not.

I know not everyone who comes through these sorts of places has a degree in Art History and/or Visual Arts, but I swear (minus the family history bits, with which I was not familiar) I could have given a better reading of the visual in that house completely cold and unprepared. Never mind, I got to see some beautiful things – the guide was just too slow and repetitive for words. By the end of it, several of us were obviously over-done from being on our feet too long and unlike every other country house in the entire United Kingdom… this one does not have a tearoom or cafe. That being the case, I felt a short stroll through the gardens on the way back to the car park was in order.

“Have you ever seen a place so happily situated, sister?”

Drove back to Whitchurch – can I say how much I love the roundabouts that keep the traffic moving on the A roads? I know lots of people driving in the UK hate them, but seeing as how I am driving on the proper (left) side of the road and we do use roundabouts in Australia, I find them easy to navigate and saves so much time on stopping constantly for lights.

Once back at Whitchurch, we spent the evening with a few quiet G&Ts, while Stephola’s Beloved chased the ‘chippie van’ (yes, that is like an ice cream truck but it dispenses fish and chips on the side of the road when it rings a bell to draw in hungry people who don’t feel like cooking)… and as entertainment for the night, we got to slowly watch as Boris Johnson tries to desperately hold onto government by a thread as 43 members of his parliament resigned citing no confidence in the wanker!

Fucking good wholesome fun all round. 🙂

Wee Bus Trip to Oxford

Posted on 4 July 2022 by boryssnorc

Wasn’t really feeling the tourist vibe today and would have happily taken a day off but when there is so much to see, I always feel really slack if I take a ‘sea day’ when I’m travelling. So it was about 0900 when I got motivated to see when I could jump on a bus to go to Oxford for the day. Checked the timetable, X60 bus was at 0917. Right, up and at ‘em – I can make that. Quickly dressed, grabbed sunscreen, hat etc and went to the bus stop which is about 1 min from Stephola’s front door. How unexpected? The bus was late… but anyway, got on the bus and admired the landscape and scowled at the unmasked, all the way to Buckingham Tesco where I had to change to the X5 to Oxford.

At the interchange, things didn’t improve, the bus which should have been 4 mins, failed to materialised and the following one which was 23 mins behind it was running late. So I stood around for a good 39 mins. Yay. Onto bus two… and now feeling like I needed lube: £21.40 for the round trip. Ultimately ended up in Oxford; what should have been a 1hr 20min trip was closer to 2 hours, but c’est la vie – what can you do?

Decided to wander around to the Bodleian Library via the Covered Markets (much of which was closed, because Monday!), to have a look about only to find that you can no longer go into the library without a tour guide. Hmmm… things have changed. And again, being a Monday, tours were limited and therefore all sold out for the day.

Oh well – I wasn’t too disappointed as I have been here before and I still got to admire the beautiful architecture which is so unlike anything we have back home. The Radcliffe Camera is also closed to everyone except Readers, unless you’ve booked on a special tour that takes you in when the library isn’t in use. This is certainly sounding like tourists had become too disruptive over the years and they’re desperately trying to keep the libraries useful for the students. Unsurprising really… before the pandemic, *I* was finding the sheer bulk of rude, ignorant and noisy tourists fucking annoying (and I am one!), so I can’t imagine what it must be trying to maintain a quiet contemplative library environment when truckloads of selfie-taking tourist are flocking through the book stacks.

Right next door is the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, which is one of the oldest working churches with a place on worship having been on that site since the 11thC and parts of the existing church build in the 13thC. Absolutely stunning… though there was a rather weird exhibit inside which I am still uncertain as to its purpose. There was an enormous balloon/orb with a projection of the earth on it, and audio track which appeared to be of early astronauts talking to each other – it seemed rather out of place being in the old church, and I had no idea what they were selling/promoting, but felt obligated to take photos of Australia when it spun towards me! *shrug*. She says she doesn’t know!

On the way out I realised I hadn’t had breakfast and that it being now midday, I should probably stop and have something to eat and more importantly drink. I saw the Vaults and Garden Cafe (which is no doubt why entry to the church is free) and saw a lady having a scone and a cuppa in the garden and thought that looked terribly civilised and followed her lead. Popped in ordered a pot of tea and a plain scone, complete with homemade strawberry jam and clotted cream and found a table outside, which turned out to be in the middle of an medieval cemetery, and promptly remembered why I hadn’t had a clotted cream tea since I was St Ives with BigSal and BluddyMary in 1995… it’s soooo bloody sweet! Tea was lovely though, and I did manage about half my scone.

After breaking my fast thusly, I decided to head to the Oxford Natural History Museum to see the dodo, which I do not recall doing last time I was here. Now, back in proper tourist mode, I googled to check they were open on a Monday and happily found they were. Not only are they open, but entrance is free. The building itself is spectacular and the first things that greet you on entrance are enormous dinosaur skeletons, one of which is an enthralling T-Rex skeleton that just dominates the enormous space even in such a huge building, along with other massive whalebone on display and huge elephants skeletons etc. I wandered around for quite a while up and down the various levels looking at all sorts of interesting object and thinking ‘where is this famous dodo?’ Only to look it up and find out that it’s right beside the T-Rex! If I had been a normal tourist and turned my back on the T-Rex for a selfie, I probably would have seen it immediately but instead I was just so taken by the enormous skeleton, I walked right past the modestly proportioned dodo. 😛

There were many other animal specimens in here, all stuffed to the gills with sand, but of course the only other one that captured my attention and gave me a good giggle, is this stuffed platypus. It is the second late 19thC taxidermied platypus that I’ve seen and you can tell quite readily it’s been prepared by someone who has NEVER seen a live platypus… the last one I saw which BigSal and I have been laughing about for years was at Blair Castle in Scotland – he was so stuffed he looked like a blowfish and his little feet didn’t even touch the ground. God bless those weird little 19thC aristocratic gentleman naturalists, and their cotton socks!

Right behind the Natural History Museum is the Pitt Rivers Collection which is a crazy arse collection of STUFF from all over the world that belonged to some altogether too-monied and too-bored aristocrat named August Pitt Rivers. He had some 20,000 weird anthropological and archeological objects that he had collected over his lifetime and he bequeathed them to the museum on the proviso that they appoint a Head lecturer in Anthropology. This collection is full of weird and interesting stuff – but the arrangement by ‘Object Type’ did my head in. The cabinets are named ‘Body Forms in art’ or ‘Tribal Face Masks’ or ‘Pottery Objects’ or ‘Bows and Arrows’ or ‘Opium Pipes and Equipment’ and you’ll look in the cabinet and for example see ‘Tribal Face masks’ from twenty different cultures across several hundred years! So if you’re interested in say, Anglo Saxon objects you might see one object here, another two over there, and maybe three more somewhere else. It’s really quite disconcerting when most of us are more accustomed to going through a museum that will have objects sorted by period and culture, eg: ‘Japanese Edo Period Gallery’, an ‘Aegean Artefacts Gallery’ or ‘Ancient Egyptian Gallery’. So much so, that I found it thoroughly impossible to take in. It was overwhelming given there are now some 500,000 objects on display from Inuit totem poles to bark textiles to flensing knives! It kinda broke my little brain and I knew I’d need about five weeks to comb through to make sense of it so gave it a unfortunately cursory once over knowing I couldn’t take it all in.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is also very famous for having a ‘shrunken heads’ collection which they very respectfully no longer have on display. They also have som information placards about which make it clear they are working with many different stakeholders regarding repatriation and/or sensitive display of tribal objects that were just rampantly taken from various places and cultures around the world over the last several hundred years. I hope it’s not just lip-service and that they are doing serious consultation.

After the weird and kinda curious mindfuck of the Pitt Rivers, I made my way over the the Ashmolean Museum, which I left for the late afternoon because I knew once I got in there I wouldn’t want to leave. This place is a wonderful museum full of all those beautiful things the British are famous for pilfering since pampered rich men first needed something to fill their under-employed days with. Egyptian sarcophagi,

Albarello (drug jar/s) lustred, Italian, c.1450-1500

Testa di cazzi, Francesco Urbini, Casteldurante, c.1536, Maiolica plate.Lustred dish with Cupid Workshop of Maestro Giorgio Gubbio c.1525-1535

14. Frankish Bottle, wheel-throne ceramic c.500-650. Marchelepot, France.
15. Biconical jar, hand-thrown, Frankish or Anglo Saxon, c.450-600. Waben France.
16. Cup, hand thrown ceramic. c.500-700 ceramic form of German palm cup.
17. Bell beaker, glass c.500-700. Palmero Sicily.
18. Globular jar, wheel-thrown ceramic, Late Gallo-Roman c,450-550. Waben France.
19. Globular jar, wheel-thrown ceramic, c.500-650. Beuvais, France.
20. Squat jar glass, c.450-600. Amiens, France.
21. Biconical jar, wheel-thrown ceramic, c.450-600. Cologne, Germany.
22. Cylindrical beaker, glass, c.500-600. Andernach, Germany.
23. Carinated jar, wheel-thrown ceramic, c450-600. Cologne, Germany.Brooches from Andernach Germany
73. Disc brooch, c.500-600, copper alloy, silver and garnet
74-77 Two pairs of radiate headed brooches, silver gilt
78. Disc brooch, silver and gemstones c.600-700. Rhine Valley, Germany.
79. Appliqué (?) gold and gemstones. Rhine Valley, Germany.

40-42 and 44. Gotland Sweden, c.400-700
40. Open work disc brooch, copper alloy.
41. Disc on bow, gilt copper Lloyd and garnet.
42. Disc brooch, copper alloy.
44. Annular brooch, copper alloy.
34. Radiate-headed brooch, silver gilt and garnet, c.500-600. Italy
35-36. Radiate-headed brooches (park) silver gilt, c.500-550. Thennes, France.
37. Buckle, silver gilt and garnet, c.500-600. Belluno, Italy.
38. Buckle, copper alloy, c550-600. Kerch, Ukraine.

Huntsman Salt – gilt, and painted silver, and rock crystal, c.1400-1450, unprovenanced.
One of the most important survivals of medieval plate in England. It belonged to Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, who founded All Souls College, Oxford. In 1438, it may have been a gift to Chichele, who led a number of diplomatic missions to Rome (between 1406 and 1420). Equally plausible that it may have been made in London by a continental goldsmith.

12th C Ivory Mirror case

Rune stone, granite. 1100-1150 Andersta, Uppland, Sweden.
The runic inscription states that ‘Lidsmod had this stone carved in memory of Julbjorn (his) father’. The stone was presented to the Ashmolean from the Swedish King, King Karl XI in 1687.

Assyrian protective spirit front he Northwest Place, Nimrud, (modern northern Iraq).
c.875-860 BC. This supernatural spirit with a human body and the head and wings of an eagle is carved in relief on a huge slab of gypsum (approx 8’ tall). He was one of a pair of spirits that guarded a doorway into the royal throne room at Ninrud, capital of Assyria providing magical protection against evil and welcoming in good. The cone and bucket he carries were symbols of fertility and purification. Across the middle of the slab is a cuneiform (wedge-shaped) inscription naming King Ashurnasirpal II (c883-859 BC) and recounting his achievements. (Detail below)
I lost myself in the Ashmolean in the most delightful way possible, and next thing I knew I realised I had better try and navigate the buses (oh the sense of impending horror!) back to Whitchurch before my phone battery was completely dead – for without the aid of Google Maps I feared I would end up in Stratford or somewhere… not a bad outcome, but not the desired outcome (for today anyway).

On my way back to the bus stop I realised I had spent barely £15 going to the Natural History, Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean museums as they have free entry but they do provide a ‘tap and wave’ £5 Donation pay point, which I happily waved my credit card at in each location. It’s clever, hardly anyone is carrying cash since Covid and the perspex donation boxes looked mostly empty. I hope most visitors do drop them a Fiver so they don’t have to start implementing structured entrance fees for upkeep.

Completely OT: I’ve noticed that many of the red phone boxes around the place now have defibrillators in them and a ‘Call 999 to get access’ sign on them, which seems like a great use for these iconic phone boxes seeing no one uses public phones anymore…

Right! Back on the buses and I managed to find the correct X5 bus that was heading to the exciting transfer point of the Buckingham Tesco Bus Stop B. Again with the lack of masks on the bus, even though every ticket has a request for patrons to wear one,, *rolls eyes*. And found myself being ferried along with a driver who was driving like he fucking stole it! I swear this guy was doing close 120kph on these windy two lane country highways. I was constantly bracing myself for when he was braking for the huge roundabouts that break up these routes. Mad bastard… and so stress inducing. There are no seats near the driver except the one priority seat and I had no idea where my stop was or what it would look like as we got near to press the bell – and there was now way I could steady myself (I’m still only six weeks post carpal tunnel surgery) enough to walk up a speeding bus that felt like it was hurtling through the countryside, trying to break the fucking sound barrier! Eventually I asked some lovelies on the bus if knew when the the Tesco was coming up and one of them hit the bell for me immediately or I would have missed it!. So much fun. Then the wait for the connection… there is a handy sign that counted down the minutes until the X60 turned up, and I was watching it counting down from 12 to 4 mins and then just stay on 4 mins for a while. Eventually a man who was also waiting for the X60 got up and ran off down behind the bus stop. I thought, ‘maybe he’s got an alternative route home’? Nope. Guy had run off to a nearby bottlo to grab a couple of tallies and then settled himself back in for the wait. He said one day last week he waited nearly two hours for buses that just never came. 😐 and I thought BCC buses were bad.

After about 40 mins of waiting for a bus that was 4 mins, 4 mins, 4 mins away… Stephola called and said she was in the car from the train and she decided to meet me in Buckingham for dinner. So it was with glee that I abandoned the bus stop and found a bar serving cold ciders. It was ridiculously hilarious but only because Steph magically provided an out! Dinner was had in a strange chain steakhouse (whose namesake BBQ sauce had weird hints of curry flavour!) and then back to Whitchurch where we had a few civilised G&Ts. I am ‘Le tired’… and likely tomorrow I won’t feel so compelled to ‘make the most’ of the day!