Great Western’s 12:16 arrival from Hereford dumped me on Paddington’s most northerly platform. Actually, it was the refreshment trolley guy who deployed the wheelchair ramp. In fact, he asked me to guard his goods while he went in search of Network Rail’s finest. I confess it’s a hit and miss, the disabled rail services in the UK. I had booked special assistance for this particular journey weeks ago. I was in their system, as it were, and had an email to prove it. Still, it took a long time Read more [...]

At times I worry that I am slightly narcoleptic. When the lights go down in a theater, I often find myself dozing off. But not this afternoon, for the 1:30 PM matinee at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford home had me riveted from the very opening.   How do they do it, I always wonder. Ben Jonson’s Volone is 400 years old, after all. The current production starring Henry Goodman…in modern dress with slightly updated text…bursts into exciting life, then flies by…three hours Read more [...]

Funny how England seems so insurmountably far away when I am in California. It seems downright close when I’m in Gloucestershire. And with Jane heading home today, having just left for the airport…well, the high wall that separates my two worlds seems higher than ever. Jane will spend the entire day going down that physically wrenching rabbit hole called intercontinental travel. And in a week I will do the same. This makes me all the more aware of where I am.   I am in a place built Read more [...]

‘Just go a bit off the high street and the business stops,’ my cousin Alastair is explaining. He is speaking of Moreton-in-Marsh, the Cotswold town that is closest to his village, Todenham. We are here for market day. And I am reminded of Brecht’s famous stage direction from the opening of ‘Threepenny Opera:’ Market day in Soho. Thieves theaving. Whores whoring. I needn't worry. Nothing quite so colorful happening in the town square. But a lot is happening, all the same. The vans of Read more [...]

On route to the British Museum this morning, our London cab driver told us, as it is the way, a lot. I innocently asked about Uber. It will be the end of us, he said. Looking around, there was little to support this claim. After all, hadn’t there been at least 10 taxis queuing up in front of our hotel this very morning? And is the West End jampacked, as usual, with black taxicabs? Still, judging by the rate of change in the British capital, I was easily persuaded that he was right. This made Read more [...]

“There is someone behind you,” Jane says in the crush of the Deck 7 buffet. Wives – and I have had three –have a way of saying such things. It frequently rubs me the wrong psychological way, this sort of observation. I can’t remember what I was doing at the time in the buffet. Most likely, stopped to grab a piece of bread or something. It doesn’t matter. Fact is, being in a totally altered setting highlights of my situation. I stop frequently, much like the sign on the mailman’s van. Read more [...]