Londonium

Before I speak of Scotland, there was a few more things to do in London. But before I speak of that Julius Caesar deserves an honorable mention.

He was brought back to life by the Royal Shakespeare Co. in Stratford with Hollywood special affects and sound (probably not what Shakespeare had in mind but give it a chance). The play was good but Mark Anthony was overplayed. The actor had recently done Alien vs. Predator and it seems he was still in that mode. There was no character development, as he played at the same level of emotional intensity for the whole play. This is one of my favs, and I saw the Skakespeare Co. of St.L performance a couple of years ago, where Anthony was more subtle and complex.

We also saw Romeo and Juliet at the Globe which, which by comparison, was stripped down and authentic. No elaborate stage, no mics, just say it and play it. One of my students noted that Romeo was a genetic miracle, as he was black with white parents. Then she commented that maybe he was adopted. Multicultural diversity (which is good) at the expense of realism (which is bad). What's a playgoer to do? Overall, the play was a much better performance than JC and, apart from some unnecessary bawdiness added by crass minds, was excellent.

I also forgot to mention that we toured Tolkein sites through Birmingham with a published Tolkein expert. We saw the inspiration for the two towers which was a massive clock tower whose face glows like an evil eye in the dark and a huge industrial smoke-stake further down. We had lunch with our author who wanted to know if we were creationists after he noticed us looking at the image of Darwin on a pound note. When I told him we believed in Intelligent Design he suggested we better not go there. Good, I really just wanted to hear what he had to say about Tolkien.

He was great on the influence of local geography, Oxford, and Tolkien's bio but clueless about his Christianity. All he could say was that the Lord of the Rings was pagan and that Tolkien was a complex fellow. Many intelligent pagans don't understand that there is not one inch of this world that we Christians don't reclaim for our Lord. Redeem the mythology that points to Christ and some people will still look the other way!

Later we went to St. Paul's Cathedral which is baroque. It has the second largest dome next to St. Peter's in Vatican City and we got to go up this time! The view inside and out was breathtaking. We also saw the tombs of Admiral Lord Nelson who died defeating Napoleon at Trafalgar and the Duke of Wellington who ended Napoleon's career at Waterloo. We also visited Covent Gardens, Cheapside, and went up in the London Eye and looked Big Ben in the eye!