Random London bits

So we saw many of the Big Sights while there: British Museum, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, the Tower.

But that's what everyone sees. Also worth reporting:

British IQ Test: The toilets. The ones at Heathrow are user-friendly enough. They have sensors on them that you might mistake for the automatic American variety, except for the icon of a hand waving. Wave you hand in front of the sensor, and the toilet flushes. Easy.

There were three other main sorts: pull chain, press lever, and push button. Some, you had to actuate slowly and hold for a moment to get the water closet to flush. Others, you had to push or pull briskly and release immediately. Guess wrong, and you create a weak flushing action that doesn't actually clear the toilet, but removes enough water from the tank that you have to wait for five minutes for another try.

Storks: Storks are big birds. Very, very big. With very, very long bills.

Quote of the Vacation: An exchange between Sheila, our Scots bus tour guide, and Another Passenger:

Sheila: And what did you do last night?
AP: Went to the clubs.
Sheila: Oh? Where?
AP: Soho (a neighborhood in London).
Sheila (dismissively): Oh, I never go to Soho. It's all strip clubs.
AP (suddenly desparate): Strip clubs? I didn't see any strip clubs!

Smart Bird?: Upon my lifting up my camera, one of the Tower Ravens purposefully walked over to me and turned sideways to present his "good side" for a photo op.

End of an Era: The angry man who repeatedly reminded me to "Mind the Gap" on the Underground in 2000 is mostly gone. We only heard him at a few stations, and he only issued his dire warning a few times before falling silent.

Chalk Horse: We saw a chalk horse cut into a hill on our bus tour. It was not the more famous Uffington horse, but rather the Westbury White Horse. Quite cool.

Weirdness Missed: Thursday was supposed to encompass an eccentric collector of antiquities, Templars, and Hospitallers. If we'd had lunch at Covent Garden's Lamb and Flag Pub, also known as the Buckets of Blood because of the bare-knuckled fights that used to be held there, it would have been a day uncannily like our Sunday game.

And two other random bits

Other Quote of the Vacation: "For The Oracle, take Junction 11." - A sign on the M4 highway into London. Yes, The Oracle, capitalized.

A Mystery of telerib's Life Solved: On airplanes, in their little bathrooms, there is always a sign to the effect of "Please wipe down basin for next passenger."

Once, I did follow that direction and used my paper towel to swab out the sink. Why on earth the next passenger should care about some water droplets in the sink basin was beyond me, but... whatever. It always puzzled me why this should be important.

The BA flight home featured, along with this little sign, a little icon of a person bent over the commode with a rag in hand.

Oh. That basin.

Documentation

We had a baronial investiture yesterday. I had written a poem for the outgoing baron and baroness and, on a whim, placed a copy on display at the A&S table.

A&S feedback is generally a mixed bag, and this was no real exception. The major point made was "No documentation." Each judge, on the same piece of paper, felt compelled to point this out. While it was true, it was not especially helpful after the first time. If you only have time to write two or three words of constructive criticism (because you are judging an entire table full of entries in a short amount of time - not finding fault with that), why replicate the same point made by the other judges?

A score of 0/5 from one judge on "Authenticity" was annoying, but I will assume it proceeds from the lack of documentation and utter unfamiliarity of that judge with Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Without documentation, someone whose entire exposure to A-S poetry was a translation of "Beowulf" twenty years ago in high school really has no idea how authentic or not the poem is. (And that's not a poke at the judge; they pull in all kinds of really skilled artisans as judges, and a jeweler or an embroiderer has absolutely no reason to know anything about A-S poetry.)

Anyway. It occurs to me that documenting a verse form that I like to write in might be a Good Thing. Because it would be eminently re-useable. It's not like the basic structure changes between poems. Sections on different themes used in period could be added as I wrote poems on those themes. This large document could sit proudly upon the A&S table, mostly unread, as proof of documentation. For each poem, I could then do a briefer index card or one-page summary that people could read, and reference the growing report.

Because, as a PhD, I am pretty much utterly incapable of doing this sort of thing half-way. If I'm going to document early English poetry, then by God, I will go to the library and check out a translation of the 1883 Sievers book on it, as well as more recent and modern commentaries, and I will write a damn piece of documentation, with footnotes.