London entertainments

As I've mentioned before, most of my time last week was spent catching up with work (and blogging). But I did have time for some very London-like entertainment breaks.

On Saturday my guests and I attended a performance of Spamalot, which I've been wanting to see ever since I first read about it several years ago. Although our seats gave new meaning to the term nose-bleed (I have never sat in such steeply pitched seats!) we thoroughly enjoyed the show. I didn't realize I would remember so much from the movie, so it was a pleasant surprise to find myself anticipating the bits coming up so eagerly. What a hoot!

It was especially welcome to indulge in such silliness because we'd spent a rather heavy whole afternoon in the Imperial War Museum. Yes, I went back there again, and still haven't seen it all. I spent most of my time this visit finishing up the Holocaust exhibit and wanted to listen to all of the video survivor accounts. I was very pleased that my guests found the museum as a whole as rewarding as I have and that they wanted to stay there that long.

The next time I go back, I want to concentrate on the World War I galleries. There have been a lot of fascinating documentaries on BBC Four (my new favorite channel in the whole world—I surely will miss it) dealing with the Great War since the upcoming Remembrance Day (November 11) will be the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. It still infuriates me no end that the war was fought at all, but it really is a fascinating subject and I want to spend some more time seeing what the IWM can teach me about it.

Backtracking a bit, I have to tell you about the other English cultural experience we had, namely, a football match. Unfortunately, it was held on probably the coldest night of our visit, but still was great fun. Another somewhat unfortunate factor is that it was between a couple of bottom-dwelling teams, Fulham and Wigan, but although it seemed not a very even contest to me (Fulham won, 2-0) the level of play was still quite pleasing for American audiences and my students and I all enjoyed ourselves enormously. The stands were full of enthusiastic Fulham fans—even though our tickets were marked as being in a "neutral" area (they have to keep the two teams' fans separated to avoid bloodshed!) and we all got into cheering for the home team.

The trip to and from the grounds was part of the cultural experience as the tube was absolutely packed, especially on the way over there, and our short walk through Bishop's Park was in the company of hundreds of Fulham fans. No chance of getting lost!

It was pretty hard to take pictures with my little camera that showed any of the action, or even the crowd, properly, but in the shot below I can point out an England luminary. The second gentleman from the right, in the blue stripes of Wigan, is Emile Heskey, who's played on the English national team for several years. He didn't have much joy this night, though, as his mates couldn't seem to get him the ball. But that was all the better for Fulham, who might just avoid relegation again this year.


Another important highlight from the match: Fulham's lone American player, Clint Dempsey, came into the game with about 20 minutes to go and acquitted himself admirably, although at that point they were playing pretty defensively, being up 2-0, and he's an attacking player. But we all cheered him enthusiastically, which had the added advantage of helping us keep warm!