the accidental purist does the u.k

Published on May 30, 2004 By mignuna In Travel

i was 19 when i left australia for the first time, united kingdom bound. and i found i was a type of traveller i never knew i’d be.

i got immersed. lost. i was delirious. passionate. gawping !. i felt alien. aware. alive. and, oh yes, instantly addicted ...

to me, the united kingdom was like some huge walking history book.

history having been to me, until this point, something so boring and far away that the fact that it actually happened was astonishing !.

on the hmas “victory” in portsmouth, i amazed myself with my bloodlust over nelson dying in the battle of trafalgar. as the guide told his battle story in a well-practiced monotone, i was hanging off of one of the cannons outside in the freezing drizzle like a loonie trying to imagine it all and loving every moment of it.

at the approach into the (very originally named) city of bath, i was struck immediately by the horrible irony oh how damned dirty the place looks. it’s actually very clean, but the sandstone absorbs the water and mildews it all this horrible grey, and the baths themselves are a long-ruined mess of greeny-brown water long past any safe human bathing.

london was crazy. like a movie. a punk man on roller-skates gave me flowers and i got stuck in the underground in the dark with hundreds of close, smelly bodies. i remember hearing this woman saying “if the lights don’t come on soon, i’m gonna get upset”, and thinking “huh ... YOU will”. i was ready to claw the face off anyone that got between me and that door when it opened.

on the way to the fa cup final (come on, i was in england, i HAD to), a small car accident on a main approach road to the stadium triggered what seemed to be several thousand electronic traffic instructions that virtually stalled the rest of the traffic so that the football could go ahead. and nobody even minded. i can remember thinking that, had that happened in australia, they would have tipped over the team bus before they let it block the traffic. !

stonehenge. what can i say. it shouldn’t be there. i had imagined being shooed away from this relic by gun-toting guards, but there’s actually only a thin rope between you and the business !. astounding. it’s one of those places where nobody seems to talk, and despite it’s accessibility, the guard told me that vandalism is “not an issue at all”. i went away from there feeling very small and very, very young.

the museum of motor history in beaulieu (for goodness’ sake don’t say it aloud to a local), i drooled at the array of childhood icons on display. chitty chitty bang bang !. james bonds’ 1st car !. the land speed record blue demon !. there are funny little men working there everywhere who never get talk to girls and will let you sit in any car you want !. hah !. what a day.

and warwick castle. fabulous things, castles. full of all sorts of really nasty and sadistic stuff that makes everyone go “eww, how perfectly horrid” when they really mean “oh, yes please, who’s your daddy”. i mean, come on !. talk about erotically charged.

i think (i’m sure) the highlight of my sexual life to that point occurred as i laid in a dark dungeon with the guide demonstrating “the stretcher” on me for the rest of the group. i still don’t think i’m over it. and as for the rest of that “chamber” well, what can i say ... those kings really knew how to, err, party.

winchester cathedral floored me. the relative youth of colonized australia means that, to an australian, an “old” building is something like the state library in sydney, or one of those “victorian” *cough* terraces that councils keep slapping with heritage orders in nouveau riche suburbs called something-ville or somewhere-heights.

to see something built in the 14th century is almost unbearable. i found it too much to comprehend, and was not helped by the way i was overcome when i stepped inside. it’s hard to feel comfortable at first when you stand in the shadow of something truly beautiful ...

and they just let you walk around !.

i sat under a stained glass window streaming with winter sun in a building that had lived my lifetimes hundreds of times over, and a kindly old white haired man lit a candle for my soul and put it up on the altar. i spent the remaining afternoon in something very close to tears at a feeling i still don’t think i’ll ever be able to explain.

at stratford-upon-avon, in a modest little home down a cobbled lane, i threw myself in unbridled and quavering lust onto the bed of the king of lust himself !. shame he wasn’t in it. i refer of course, to mr william shakespeare, who had the very poor taste to die a long time before i could get my horny 19yo mitts on him. oh, willie !. (i had THE best dream that night. sigh. still, it didn’t beat “the stretcher”, though).

in that trip, i did, and said, and saw, more than that, yet 15 years down the track, those are the “things” that stick. so, for better or worse, those have become my “travels”.

Comments

Sir Peter Maxwell

on May 30, 2004

I'm glad you enjoyed our marvellous historic sights old boy. Jolly good article.

mignuna

on May 30, 2004

sir peter, despite my (attempted) humour about the united kingdom, you are absolutely right, i did enjoy your country very much.

your homeland is indeed wonderful. in fact, the sheer beauty and lushness was something a lifetime in australia left me quite unprepared for.

(plus, you have those dinky signs on the motorway that say "emergency wc'. such a civilised place.)

mig XX

Sir Peter Maxwell

on May 30, 2004

My homeland used to be wonderful old chap, I'm sad to say that it has been taken over by hooligans and criminals. It is a great shame.

I might buy a tropical island somewhere and live in isolation.

mignuna

on May 30, 2004

hooligans and criminals ... islands ... what a peculiar deja vu i am having ... oh, of course. those are my mental triggers for australia.

sir peter, to be frank, i advise against tropical islands as a whole. i have long suspected a link between coconuts and insanity.

i do hope your homeland is restored to it's former peace and beauty very soon.

could you not have the hooligans shot ?. it would be a start.

mig XX

Sir Peter Maxwell

on May 30, 2004

I have advocated having them shot for a long time but I am branded an extremist. England is not the cosy little place full of green fields and quaint little villages that some foreigners believe it to be, It is a place where criminals and street urchins run riot. We need Margaret Thatcher back in Downing Street to clamp down on the peasants.

dharmagrl

on May 30, 2004

You made me homesick, Mig. Every one of the places you spoke about I have been to...Warwick castle and Stratford were regulars on the 'day out' schedule. I particularly enjoyed the dungeon and torture chanber at Warwick..and the haunted tower. I remember taking the parents of an American friend up that tower..all the mother did was complain about the stairs and how they ought to install an elevator.

notsohighlyevolved

on May 30, 2004

You made it absolutely clear that islands can travel. A mind and its memories smuggling a nation and its history through customs, a companion under your pillow at night along with warm hands and dreams of "Mr Shakespeare".

Marco XX

mignuna

on May 31, 2004

We need Margaret Thatcher back in Downing Street to clamp down on the peasants.

sir peter, right on, old boy. those were the days. no namby-pambying around when old maggie was at the helm.

*sigh* what a woman.

(yet your description of the uk of "today" does bear a charming dickensonian ring with its' urchins and other assorted riff raff). athough, i suppose, this pales if one has to live there.

I particularly enjoyed the dungeon and torture chanber at Warwick

dharma hehe ... it is something, isn't it ? ... i'm glad to bring back some memories for you

marco, thankyou. protesting would be ingracious, although i do want to.

mig XX

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