London: Day Six

Yesterday's post never got posted, because of Blogger weirdness, so I just published it again, so you can check that out. I'm back at school, as of about two and a half hours ago. 11 hours door-to-door from my friend's dorm in London to my apartment here. Felt like no more than 7 or 8. :) I saw "De-Lovely" on the plane, the Cole Porter bio-pic. I don't know that I'd call it De-Lightful, but it was at least De-Cent. It kept me interested. But I may be more inclined to like bio-pics about songwriters than the average bloke. The American customs line in the Boston airport was longer than the foreigners' line. No fair. But no big deal. Good trip. I had fun.

The play I saw yesterday was "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett. I liked it but didn't love it. Apparently, as I browse some reviews and articles now that I'm home, it seems that it may end up in New York on Broadway, and most of the reviews, although not all, are very, very positive. My issue with it was that I liked 80% of it -- the main plot was about 8 seniors at a British prep school, hoping to get into Oxford or Cambridge, and the battle between one of their teachers, who wanted them to learn for the sake of the learning, and the new teacher brought in to help them prepare for the Oxford and Cambridge exams -- and thus saw learning as a means to an end. This was all really interesting, well-done, thought-provoking stuff. But the main subplot was that the learn-for-the-sake-of-learning teacher offers the boys rides home and fondles them. And then the headmaster finds out and wants to get rid of the teacher, and the emotional content of the play is such that it seems like we're supposed to feel like he should keep teaching in spite of this, and he's the hero, and it just didn't make all that much sense, and I didn't see what the point was. He had a nice, interesting play, and then mucked it all up with some weird message about how education is erotically charged and teachers fondling their students is kind of romantic and good. Or something like that. So that was sort of icky. But the show was witty and clever and funny and engaging. So I don't know how to necessarily reconcile all of that. You can check out reviews here and here if you're curious for more.

I had Indian food last night for the second time of the trip. The Indian food I had in England -- and bear in mind very small sample size here, and I'm generalizing -- was more intensely flavored than in America, but I'm not sure in a good way. The Tikka Masala was sweet. Like tomatoes, cream, and sugar. Very rich. But too sweet. It was like eating candy-coated lamb, a bit. And there was lots of cinnamon and other spices that made it really flavorful, but it was kind of sickly sweet. So I appreciated that it was well-made, but it didn't really do it for me.

In the airport today, I had a bacon and brie baguette that was delicious though. And I had a couple of Cornish pasties (think Hot Pockets, but better) during the week that were quite good.

Also, you can check out Walkers for all the cool flavors of crackers and potato chips they had over there. Click on the "Sensations" line for some of the coolest flavors, like the oriental crackers and pappadoms.

I'll have a wrapup post tomorrow, and then it's back to law stuff. I have some ideas for some interesting posts. So if you've been bored by the London stuff -- and my site stats indicate you might well be -- don't leave. Interesting stuff soon.