Fun, Fear and Fandom

Day 2 (Sunday)

The day began slowly. With Floris still snoozing heavily at 9:30 I decided to go for a run first; only outside did I discover that it was actually raining steadily out of a very grey and overcast sky - quite unYorkish in my own analysis. I felt I was playing Atlantis again: paths that were turning into water as I ran along them. No urgency in getting going, in other words. Fortunately it did clear up soon afterwards, so at 12:00 I started Floris' day as well, with another ham-and-eggs.

8 out of 70 different tastes

It was still hard to raise any enthousiasm for activities involving much physical exercise, but in the end we did make a small bike trip out to my office building on Heslington East, then over my favourite bicycle paths - the ones that allow you to pretend you're a train - to the supermarket and the old abandoned Rowntree chocolate factory. One of the BM players we talked to on Saturday (Theo, the same guy who told us that the Theatre Royal panto was the best in the world) had said that there was still activity at the factory - Oompa Loompas maybe? When we were there we could see one corner of the enormous grounds where something might be happening on a week day, but for the larger part it still looked, and no doubt is, truly abandoned.

Why the supermarket, you ask? It turned out Floris had been given a shopping order by his friends back home: get some jelly beans, preferable Jelly Bellies. I had never heard of those but it seemed reasonable to start the quest at the supermarket. When they turned out to have jelly beans but not of the right denomination, we finally had a true purpose for our visit to Medieval York. After a very brief glimpse into the Minster for form's sake, we proceeded to the York Sweet Shop, from which we were directed to its American competitor, the Candy Hero. This turned out to stock eveything one could ever want to try out in the domain of garishly coloured sweets, jelly bellies featuring prominently among them.

That done, out of the options: (i) a walk on the walls, (ii) a ride to the railway museum, or (iii) down into the York Dungeons, without much delay the choice fell on (iii). It is an establishment that I had seen in passing and thought to be some kind of museum also, like the Tower in London, with mock-up cells and ancient instruments of torture. Well, the last two items were there in abundance, but a museum it is most definitely not. At the camping on Terschelling which we have frequented in the past, there is always one night of full moon dedicated to what they call the "vampire parade", in which groups of campers dress up and play out preferably frightening scenes of any kind in a very dark piece of forest, for the benefit of the other vacationers who get to walk around there for an hour or so. Great fun. Well, this is the style of things at the York Dungeon, except that it is done very professionally and inspired by past events that really took place (or are really rumoured to have taken place) in the city during the last twelve centuries: Viking invasions, the plague, wars, witch burning, and much more. So, we were in for a very different treat than we thought, but in its kind it was high-quality stuff, going under the title "Fear is a Funny Thing".

The 1331 Beef Burger

In the second half of the afternoon we went to a movie: American Hustle, well worth a visit. In fact there were enough twists so that I want to see it again, preferably with subtitles in fact. But it is also a very long movie: well over two hours. This meant that it was now dinner time. I tried to get Floris to an Indian restaurant, which he likes in principle; maybe I should have insisted so he could experience the difference between the Netherlands and England when it comes to Indian cuisine. However, since it was really his weekend, I didn't insist. After wandering along several wine bars and the like we ended up in 1331, showing once more that I am neither very imaginative nor very adventurous when it comes down to taking people out for dinner. On the other hand, it's a really nice place and the food is good.

Not wanting to make it too late a night (given the plans for Monday) we agreed to go back to the appartment after this. The real monuments of Medieval York will have to wait until Floris is at an age where he decides to take an interest. No matter, we had a very entertaining day as it was. Topped off, inevitably, by two more Dr. Who episodes.

Day 3 (Monday)

Change of plan! Renting a car was voted down. Rather, Floris' new-found interest combined with an old interest of myself brought us to Liverpool today. Not a place I thought to visit during my stay in England, but go with the flow has been my motto this weekend, and so: why not?

The old interest of mine will be guessed immediately by anyone who has every shared it. The picture on the right should be sufficient but not necessary. To me, the name Liverpool means one thing only: home of the Beatles. Time was when I typed out song texts on a mechanical type writer, marked every occurrence of the work love in red and gave this to a girl in my school class that I fancied. This did not have the desired effect; but for a time I think I knew every song by heart.

So, when Floris declared that if there was a Dr. Who fan shop anywhere near he would really like to throw away some money there, and a brief search on the web revealed that for this we had to go either to Newcastle or to Liverpool, realisation dawned upon me that this might actually be an unlooked-for chance to revive this almost forgotten piece of personal history. Not to mention that the fan shop itself was the Forbidden Planet, about which I also have a story to tell.

Top two: GBP 59,30 for Floris. Bottom two: GBP 49,40 for myself.

Liverpool is said to lie close to Manchester, close enough to engender football-related rivalry that makes Ajax-Feijenoord pale in comparison; but it is not really close in terms of travelling. To get there with time to do anything at all before catching the scheduled 17:25 flight out of Manchester required a much faster morning ritual than the previous days. However, need is the mother of speed and without mishap we got to York station and dropped the rented bike off. Making the man at the counter understand our complex train ticket requirements was no mean job. At the end we came away with the tickets we needed; but closer inspection revealed that I had paid more for Floris, to get to Liverpool and then the airport, than for myself, who would in addition return to York. The mysteries of British rail ticket pricing are not intended for mere humans to understand.

The Forbidden Planet! In my first days as a research assistant, I worked in a project with partners in Reading, England; and this allowed me to fly to London a number of times. I was much more of an inexhaustable reader than I am now, and so every time I was there, I would go to this little bookstore near Tottenham Court Road where they had this simply amazing collection of Science Fiction books. Equally amazing was that these books were to be had for prices that, after conversion to guilders, amounted to less than half or even a third of what you would have to pay in the Netherlands if you could find them in the first place. At one occasion, when returning home my suitcase was so heavy that I could hardly carry it. Fortunately, weight restrictions for luggage were also still a thing of the future...

Albert Dock

Since then they have grown enormously and branched out not just geographically but also into other materials than just books. In particular, they are now apparently Britain's No. 1 store for fan merchandise of any kind - including Dr. Who. Floris and I spent the better part of a mouth-watering hour wandering around the shelves, though in different parts of the store.

The "Beatles Story" exhibition at Albert Dock is also a treat, though of a different kind. It is actually a rather traditional setup: lots of things shown behind glass, John Lennon's first banjo, Brian Epstein's contracts, original album covers and suchlike. I would have said you'd have to be interested aleady to find this really interesting, but somewhat to my surprise (and relief), Floris, who had not even known the connection between the Beatles and Liverpool in advance, drank up the audio tour. And so, needless to say, did I. But let's face it, it is a story of epic proportions.

We had less than 3 hours altogether in Liverpool, but it was enough. Where Floris had almost fallen asleep on the way to Liverpool, I very much felt like doing so on the trip to the airport. I didn't quite, not even on the home stretch after dropping him off, but I will do so immediately after finishing this post. I hope I have not equally exhausted you, dear reader, with this overlong report.