Birth of a Cult...

The tube is great fun. I love the announcements they make. When the doors of the train open, this solemn deep voice admonishes you to "MIND THE GAP". It sounds almost like a mantra that some wacky cult would adopt. Three words to live your life by.

On my rambles I saw some amusing signs outside pubs. One said "I drink to make my friends seem more interesting" and another said "No football colour allowed inside". I guess just seeing the colours of the enemy team enrages the patrons!

What is with these touristy places and haunted houses? Stratford upon Avon has a haunted house of horses!! And there are 3 haunted houses in Salisbury! Wonder if any suckers actually go to check out the neighing horse ghosts.

Talking of Stratford, the house where the Bard was born is now a museum. And in the garden, there is a bust of Tagore presented to the museum by the Indian consulate or someone. One great writer in the garden of another great writer's house. Still a bit unexpected. And I doubt many non-Indians know about Tagore.

These guides in houses converted to museums are so strange. I went to Anne Hathaway's cottage and the guy talked of how they cleaned chimneys in the good old days. According to him (not sure I quite believe him) they would send a young boy to the roof and send a chicken on a string, down the chimney. The kid would lower and draw up the chicken till the chimney was cleaned. And the final time he would just drop the chicken down into the fireplace! Poor chicken!

Staying on Shakespearean topics, I decided to see Othello at the Globe Theatre in London. This is the third Globe to be built on the site of the original Globe. They have reconstructed it after much research on design and materials etc. Its been made to be as authentic as possible while keeping in mind modern health and safety laws. They even have standing tickets like in Elizabethan times. So, as befitting a poor unemployed ex-student, I bought the standing ticket and prayed that it would stop raining by the day of the play. My sackcloth and ashes routine was much appreciated for it was a nice and sunny on THE day. It was an evening performance for over 3 hours! I thoroughly enjoyed it though sometimes the details of the dialogue got away from me. I think Iago was my favourite. A very nicely done Iago- combination of smarmy bootlicker and evil dude plotting the downfall of ze moor. It was worth the killer cramps I got later that night!