You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me...inflamed me.

So it's been a while, but I have plenty to show for it.

On October 7th, I found myself in Chelsea, the really rich part of London. I was there to check out a vintage clothing fair, but I noticed on the map that it was near Tite Street, where Oscar Wilde once lived. So I stopped by to take a picture of the Blue Plaque:



It was a really quiet street in a really quiet neighborhood, and I had a hard time imagining Oscar living there. Which might partly explain why he spent a good deal of the 1890s living in hotels. I meant to stop by the hotel where he was arrested, which was also nearby, but I had a hard enough time finding Tite Street.

The next weekend, BC had planned a trip to Rye and Hastings, two historical port towns in Sussex. So I got to hang out with Jenny and Jeanne while we toured two castles, one in each town.

Bodiam Castle, near Rye:





Hastings Castle, stronghold of William the Conqueror:




Also there was a fire festival in Hastings Saturday night. I asked the tour guide, and apparently these are very common all over Britain this time of year. They're not really tied to any historical event or holiday, but she said they are probably rooted in pre-Christian autumn equinox/Halloween celebrations. Today they are celebrated by a procession of various bonfire societies, who dress up and carry torches through town, collecting money for charity. Afterwards, they all throw their torches on to a massive, three-story woodpile:



It looks like this:



(also, there are fireworks):



I got some video of some firedancers:



This past week, Heather came to visit from Italy. I had class a lot of the time, but we managed to visit Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross station together, as we had planned to since forever:





Which combined with the fact that Heather had reread Deathly Hallows on the plane, and the recent news about Dumbledore (which, frankly, should not have come as a huge shock to anyone who read Deathly Hallows carefully), meant that we spent basically her entire trip discussing Harry Potter. It was like 8th grade again, except now we have the full story, much of which makes us cry.

She left on Friday, and after I saw her off at the train station to go to the airport, I went straight to Bishopsgate Institute, where I had tickets to a very rare reading by none other than Alan Moore, the notoriously reclusive comic book writer, Magus of Northampton, and Greatest Living Englishman (among his other fake titles). He was there with Michael Moorcock and Iain Sinclair, who were all reading from a prose anthology about London. It was a fairly free-form event with free wine and the opportunity to speak with him personally before the event started. So naturally I got a picture with him:



Yes, he does look a little scary (you should see him when his hair is down), but he is in fact very pleasant and patient with quivering fangirls. I get the sense that he would go out and mingle with fans more (like most comic writers do), but that he doesn't want the distraction from his writing. Now that he's semi-retired, I suspect he'll be making more public appearances as time goes by.

Also, a few days before, my Facebook buddy Stephen Fry (who is currently in New England filming a documentary), asked me to pass on his "very best wishes" to Alan. Alan responded that he was very pleased to hear them, that he doesn't blame Stephen for the V for Vendetta film (which Stephen was in) and that he is a big fan of Stephen's, and that he and Melinda Gebbie (his wife) watch QI every week. I sent Stephen a message, but he hasn't logged into Facebook for at least a week, so who knows when he'll get it.

I managed to grab a seat in the front row, right in front of him! I recorded Alan's reading, which combined with his hypnotic voice, was absolutely wonderful.



Afterwards, everyone hung around for autographs, and I got,
The Ballad of Halo Jones (his 'feminist space opera'):



Watchmen:



From Hell (about Jack the Ripper):



The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (vols. 1 & 2):



By the end of the night, he must have been tired of seeing me, so I resisted the urge to hang around and just watch him, so instead I went back to my dorm and called my home comics shop to brag a bit (only for five minutes, Mom and Dad).

Anyway, that's it for now. I'm going to the National Gallery on Wednesday, so I'll have pictures from that soon.

(Today's subject quote is from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Dumbledore is talking about the love of his life, I'm talking about Alan Moore.)

I saw a film today, oh boy...

So, after finally getting all of my classes in order (a much more difficult task than back in the States), I've been able to enjoy being in London a bit more. This past Tuesday, after class, I dashed off to University College of London where they were hosting an author event, in which Neil Gaiman interviewed Susanna Clarke on stage in order to promote the paperback release of her short story collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Having spent the summer reading (and adoring) her novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I was thrilled when I heard that I'd have the chance to see both her and Neil Gaiman at the same time. My excitement was further compounded by the fact that my friend Jenny from BC is spending the year at UCL and she came along.



The event got off to a good start, when the fire alarm went off. It turned out not to be a fire, but some glitch over in the nanotechnology lab next door (Perhaps the nanobots were making a break for freedom and the "clumsy one" accidentally tripped the alarm. Now, none of the other nanobots are speaking to him) Anyway, this resulted in me and Jenny spending 45 minutes out in the chilly London evening air, standing three feet from Neil and Susanna trying to eavesdrop. Near the end of this, apparently someone had brought a tray of coffee for them and the hosts, and there was an extra one. Neil offered it to anyone within shouting distance, and that person ended up being me!

Eventually we got back inside and Susanna and Neil finished with the interview, reading, and Q & A, which was all very fun and enlightening. The only disappointing thing was that neither of them were doing a signing, Neil because it wasn't his event, and Susanna because she wasn't feeling well. However, Neil is having a signing this Tuesday in Piccadilly Circus in conjunction with the London premier of the film adapation of his novel Stardust, which more or less makes up for the fact that I lugged an 800-page hardcover novel 3000 miles for the purpose of getting it signed, but didn't. I'm getting him to sign the "Study in Emerald" poster I mentioned last post, as well as the hardcover illustrated Stardust.

On Thursday after class, I decided just to wander along the banks of the Thames (which campus is right on) and saw a few sights along the way. One thing that struck me was just how close everything is. I had just intended to see Cleopatra's Needle (a genuine Egyptian obelisk, flanked by two Sphinxes), which I did:




(The pock-marks in the base are from WWII bombing)


(The London Eye, which I have yet to ride)

But then I noticed that just around the bend was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, so I figured I'd just stroll over there and look around:





(there were protesters calling for sanctions on Myanmar (which they still call Burma in their British imperialist fashion)




And it turns out that Westminster Abbey is just across the street, so I strolled around there.




By that point, both building were closed to tourists, so I'll have to go back later for that. Anyway, I continued my stroll down Whitehall (the government district) to Trafalgar Square. On the way there there was this memorial to the women who contributed to the war effort in WWII:



Also, I think I saw some kid get busted for dealing, but he was across the street so I couldn't be sure. It looked like it might have been entrapment, which should have been obvious if the "customer" proposed meeting in Whitehall. If it wasn't entrapment, then both of them were stupid for dealing in Whitehall. That's like dealing in front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. You're just asking to be caught.

Anyway, I made it down to Trafalgar Square, which was very impressive and swarming with tourists.



I wanted to get a picture of me sitting on a lion, but I was hesitant to entrust a stranger with my camera. Eventually I settled on a group of four Polish girls about my age who were saddled with shopping bags and were very clearly tourists themselves.


(That's the Canadian embassy behind me)

That was it for Thursday. On Friday, there was a dinner in Covent Garden for all the BC students in London, and Jenny and I met early to see Across the Universe, which was exactly what I expected it to be: a love letter to the Beatles in the form of a cliché story of the 1960s with psychedelic puppets and a woman who sounds like Janis Joplin singing a riveting cover of "Helter Skelter". On a side note, going to a movie on the day it opens is not something one should do lightly in London: the tickets were £12.50, which means $25. So I am very glad that I am not the film buff I used to be. But it was the Beatles, so I had to. The movie finished two hours before the dinner, so we wandered around Leicester Square a bit (the cinema district) and found this statue of Charlie Chaplin:



Then I took Jenny to Trafalgar Square, and on the way we found the Oscar Wilde statue, which I had first heard about when I saw a picture of its unveiling with Stephen Fry (Hugh "Dr. House" Laurie's old comedy partner, star of the Wilde biopic, and one of my most favorite people in the world) and Lucian Holland, Wilde's great-grandson (who is devastatingly attractive, but denied my friend request on Facebook).



Here's me with the statue:





The dinner was delicious and free. And typical of BC students, my fellows were astounded that I could stretch one glass of red wine over an entire three course meal, while the rest of them imbibed half a bottle or more each. Of course, it wasn't particularly good wine either, but that rarely matters with your typical college student, I suppose.

The evening wound down around 9 o'clock, and so Jenny and I parted for our respective dorms, and I made it back in time for the new episode of QI, a fantastic show in which Stephen Fry lords over a panel of British--and the occasional American--comedians as they exchange useless trivia. For example, Thomas Edison once electrocuted an elephant (to be fair, the elephant had killed three people) in order to make a propaganda film against Westinghouse's AC electricity, because he believed that his DC electricity was safer. Which just goes to show that you don't have to know how anything works in order to invent things that use it. The film itself is now YouTube fodder:



And tonight (Saturday) there was a Stephen Fry marathon in celebration of his 50th birthday, despite the fact that it was a month ago (I know this because Stephen Fry did accept my Facebook friend request, and I saw it listed under "Upcoming Birthdays" back in August). I watched him go to Slovakia to his Jewish grandfather's hometown to track down information about his relatives that died in the Holocaust; my favorite episode of Blackadder Goes Forth which included Hugh Laurie in drag and Tony Robinson's terrible Charlie Chaplin impersonation (in which the role of his mustache is played by a dead slug); him listing his guilty pleasures, which include ABBA, swearing, and hitting Hugh Laurie; him listing the things he hates, like the way Australians say everything like it's a question, New Age crap, and the fact that there's a show dedicated to people listing the things they hate; and a rerun of Friday's QI. Tomorrow there's going to be a birthday tribute special, and on Tuesday is the first part of his documentary on HIV/AIDS. He did a similar documentary on bipolar disorder (which he has) last year. He doesn't have AIDS, but he is gay, and he lost a lot of friends in the early days of the disease. If it's anything like the bipolar documentary, it's going to be a fantastically personal story that serves as a springboard to address the wider social implications of the disease, including how the public perception has changed and the current crisis in Africa.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I'm living in the same area in which Charlie Chaplin grew up, and try to cobble together a list of pilgrimages. And then go to them. Hopefully my next update will be quicker this time.