Stephen Goes to England

This article is now complete. You can navigate from the top here by day of the tour. There are also accompanying photographs which can be enlarged by clicking. The account was originally written in pen in a marble notebook that will never be displayed behind glass.

Please note that the text is hyperactively hyperlinked, or, put another way, crazily cross-referenced. There are eighty-eight external links. The inclusion of a link in the page is by no means a recommendation that you follow it unless you are interested in learning more about whatever it is that is being discussed. You will waste your own time if you follow all of the links. This is how people sit down at their computers, visit one web page, and stand up ten hours later having accomplished nothing. You have been warned.

1. You Call This Bacon?
2. The Mother Church
3. The Ramada: Why America Ruins Everything It Touches
4. Three Cathedrals in One Day? Are You Insane?
5. Winchester Is Wonderful, but Maybe Only Because It Was Sunny and Warm
6. A Daunting Task: Singing in the Twin Intellectual Centers of the Western World
7. What Do a Magical Nanny and a Greek-Style Cathedral Have in Common?
8. Incarceration and a Reflection on the Value of Primary Sources

At twelve-fifty local time in Detroit, Michigan, a brand-new Airbus A330 jetliner took off carrying the crew and passengers of Northwest Flight 32 with nonstop service to London, England. Among these passengers was Stephen Rintoul of Carrboro, North Carolina. As the plane accelerated at last on the runway, after over three hours of delays, Stephen sat excitedly in seat 22-A (a window seat), passport in pocket, and promptly fell asleep.

Stephen woke up for the sunrise, which happened in about the middle of the flight. The plane was over the Atlantic Ocean, and it was quite pretty.

About six hours later, a slightly annoyed flight attendant awoke Stephen by thrusting an immigration card in his face. "Thank you," he muttered groggily. One half-hour later, he stood at a desk in Gatwick Airport where a stern employee of the United Kingdom interrogated him about his intentions in her fair land. His answers apparently proved satisfactory, because the woman permitted him to pass into an extensive network of corridors leading to the baggage claim, where he quickly spotted and grabbed his navy duffel amid a sea of black upright rollers. He met with his fellow travellers (the internationally renowned Rhodes Singers), and they boarded a luxury stagecoach with the door on the left side.

No joke, you guys. This was the view out Stephen's window. And that thing is huger than it looks in photographs.

Fortunately, the choir members and their luggage were all accounted for, so the coach left the airport for Canterbury, a city in the southeastern corner of the United Kingdom. Canterbury, of course, besides being the setting of the Canterbury Tales, is home to the impressive Canterbury Cathedral. The Singers' hotel was on the cathedral grounds, and Stephen had an excellent view of a huge church. He also had a single room, and it was sweet. Stephen's first taste of England, in other words, was incredible. Canterbury is a town in which people, not automobiles, travel theroads, a town dotted with shops, pubs, restaurants, and cafés. A quick walking tour of the town with Tim Sharp, choir director extraordinaire, ended with a stop in the Café Cultura, where Stephen purchased a chicken & bacon baguette for £1.50. Considering that it was the most significant meal he'd eaten since lunch at the Catherine Burrow Refectory 24 hours and 4400 miles ago, it was delicious. However, it was here that Stephen began te realize the British meaning of the word "bacon," which is somewhat different from the American version and much closer to what Americans might call "fried ham."

After returning to the hotel, Stephen watched a little British television and went to sleep.

Day Two: The Mother Church

The next morning, Stephen was awoken by the bells of Canterbury Cathedral. When he opened the curtains, he was delighted to find the sky unexpectedly blue. He was also delighted to find himself adjusted to Greenwich Mean Time. He was not, however, delighted to find that he had slept through both breakfast and the guided tour of Canterbury. He cursed himself for this and committed himself to making the most of the remainder of the day. First up was the Sunday church service at Canterbury Cathedral. Stephen, it should be known, did not have a great deal of experience with church services. He had been to churches for several weddings, one memorial service, one Christmas Eve service, and two regular Sunday services (in churches of different denominations). At eleven o'clock on Sunday, March 12, this young man found himself among the regular worshippers in the "mother church of the Anglican communion," the biggest, bestest, importantest church in Great Britain. He felt underdressed, out of place, and confused. Certain phrases in a church service are secret cue words for some action or speech on the part of the congregation; Stephen was ignorant of these. Although he had been able to memorize the Lord's Prayer for Choral Evensong purposes, he did not know the apostle's creed, any hymns, or any of countless other secret phrases and practices. He didn't know what to do when, seemingly at random, the elderly gentleman seated next to him turned to shake his hand and said, "Peace be with you," so he replied, "Thank you." He did not know what to do when everyone started filing up to the high altar to receive the body and blood of Christ, so he remained in his seat. After the service, Stephen took a moment to reflect upon Christianity. What was the meaning of all this ritual? Was the true meaning, perhaps, somewhat lost in the repetition of the ritual? And might strange rituals discourage newcomers? The complicated rituals had a repellent effect on Stephen, who found them unwelcoming and snobbish. Never, in fact, had a church service made Stephen feel welcome (and certainly not spiritually fulfilled), although individual clergy whom he had met were able to do so. The same was true in Canterbury: the Dean delivered an excellent sermon. Stephen was asked to consider what his creative endeavors left behind. What would be different, in other words, if he had never existed? It was an interesting thought, and Stephen enjoyed entertaining it for quite some time.

The police cars in England are all neon-colored and impossible to miss. This one, in Canterbury, is no exception.

The afternoon in Canterbury was spent in search of trousers, stamps, and genuine English food for the various members of the group with which Stephen spent his time. Stephen additionally sought truly excellent photographical opportunities, of which he found a few. He also found a glowing employee recommendation in a bookstore for Nigel Williams's The Wimbledon Poisoner, the "funniest British novel of the last 20 years." He purchased the book.

Looking straight up the bell tower in Canterbury Cathedral gives you a view something like this. This photo, however, does not capture it at all. You should visit sometime.

Seriously, they passed through Kansas. Here is pictorial proof.

This is the part of Rye that Stephen photographed. I'm sorry it's not the most interesting thing.

In the late afternoon, after all but Stephen had napped (for he had, you will remember, awoken altogether later than most of the others), the choir rehearsed for the first of several Evensong services. Hearing their voices ring out through the vaulted ceilings and Gothic archways of Canterbury Cathedral energized the Rhodes Singers, and although the attendance at their service was rather low, they were outstanding and truly deserve praise. Afterward, Stephen found himself joining a group of singers on its way to Wagamama, a British chain restaurant which serves Japanese food. Stephen's food was rather good, if (to his eyes) overpriced, although he'd not been in the mood for Asian cuisine. The group then proceeded to Bar Eleven, which played loud 90s pop music from the United States. I will take a moment here to describe British musical tastes. British people, by and large, seem to enjoy loud 90s pop music from the United States. Fortunately, Stephen and three other interlopers found a quieter room upstairs. It was here that Stephen had his most significant alcoholic drink yet: three sips of Strongbow, a hard cider drink. I'll take another moment here to explain that the legal drinking age in the United Kingdom is eighteen. For most of his choirmates, particularly the half or so of them between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, this was regarded as a strong element in the United Kingdom's favor. Stephen had considered it somewhat neutral, but decided that a taste would hurt nothing. The cider was vile (an acquired taste, he was told) and he drank no more until much later in the tour.

The next morning, the Singers toured Canterbury Cathedral, which contains a great deal of history. Stephen learned about kings and wars and assassinations and floggings and archbishops and martyrs (particularly one Thomas Becket), and he remembers little of it now. All he really knows for sure is that Oliver Cromwell was not a fan of idolatry and enjoyed destroying churches. Stained glass was a particularly frequent target.

After the tour, the singers sang a farewell concert to the air inside Canterbury Cathedral, ate some "Fish 'n' Chips" in the subzero weather, and boarded the coach for the hamlet of Rye, the sometime home of author Henry James. En route to Rye, the coach bizarrely drove through rural Kansas. There was not terribly much time spent in Rye, and before long the choir was off to Chichester, where it checked into the lowest-quality accomodation of the tour: the Ramada. The Ramada had transient hot water, creaky floors, and stubborn toilets. It was also located on the outskirts of Chichester, meaning dinner options were limited to a chain pub called the Barn, which looked like a Perkins but tasted rather worse. While Stephen's mashed potatoes were quite enjoyable, he was not impressed with his grilled chicken breast. After the meal, there was nothing to do, so Stephen went to bed after finding his telephone calling cards useless. Of course, he blamed the Ramada.

Day Four: Three Cathedrals in One Day? Are You Insane?

In Chichester, a fascinating juxtaposition of a quite modern-looking altar hanging and a centuries-old building.

On trips with buses and huge groups of people, there are always those people who hold everyone up by being late coming back to the bus. Those people are always the subject of illicit (one might say, "snarky") behind-their-backs conversation. Stephen, it needn't be mentioned, had never been one of those people. He was prompt and responsible at all times, and I would very much like to report to you that this trip was no exception to his flawless reputation.

Chichester proved otherwise. In the town of Chichester, England, Stephen misheard his instructions and came back at half-past when the tour guide had actually asked everyone to be back at a quarter past. He was, of course, with someone else, so the excursion was entirely safe, but Carl and Stephen gave the assembled masses a scare that day. While doing so, they had visited Chichester Cathedral (the resting place of Gustav Holst) and the Chichester museum, which reminded Stephen most of the Hillsborough museum in North Carolina. For those readers who do not know about the Hillsborough museum, it is small and there isn't very much information there. In the same way that there just isn't that much to talk about in Hillsborough, there isn't very much to talk about in Chichester. The museum was fun only in its lameness. Stephen took a picture of a leper.

But Stephen swore to himself that day that he would never again be late.

Fortunately, due to coach driver Jim's impeccable driving skills, the choir's prompt arrival was unaffected by its late departure. Although the coach left Chichester eight minutes late because of Stephen and Carl, it arrived in Arundel a full three-quarters of an hour early.

Arundel Cathedral was the one and only Catholic church the Singers visited on their tour. Though still very majestic, it is quite smaller than both Canterbury (huge) and Chichester (large) Cathedrals. It is, however, a richly detailed and acoustically splendid venue, and Stephen was a bit disappointed that he was unable to stay longer. After a very brief rehearsal and an equally brief concert, the Singers left the city of Arundel, never to return. Acoustically, this was indeed Stephen's favorite cathedral, and they left it by lunchtime.

The oldest working clock has no face. It's been around since the 14th century and it has never had a face. It just makes the bells chime on the hour. The bells chime from the attic of Salisbury Cathedral; the bell tower was lost years ago.

With the afternoon came a guided tour of Salisbury Cathedral. Although many of the cathedrals ran together with each other in Stephen's mind, Salisbury ran together more than most. It has, he remembers, Gothic construction and was finished in 1258 after only four decades of construction. Its spire stands 404 feet tall and is the highest in England. (By comparison, the tallest lighthouse in the United States is Cape Hatteras at 193 feet.) It contains, as well, the world's oldest working clock. Many of the stained glass windows were brutally smashed by our friend Oliver Cromwell's men. In the chapter house (where photography is not permitted) the Magna Carta is on display, one of only four originals. (Obviously, all four cannot be original; they were all neat copies of a much messier original manuscript, which was presumably destroyed.) These facts, and no others, remain in Stephen's mind concerning Salisbury Cathedral.

After this hasty visit to Salisbury, the singers drove on to the biggest disappointment of the tour. Stonehenge closes its gates at 4 PM daily during the winter. Although this was known in advance by the tour planners, it was not known that there would not even be an opportunity to get off the bus and wander around. As a result, the sole records of Stonehenge for most Rhodes Singers are a few poor-quality photographs taken through the windews of the coach. Stephen elected not to take such a photo, since everyone else was. "If I want pictures of Stonehenge," he mused to himself, "I'll go online."

The coach pulled into Winchester that evening and the Singers moved into their coolest lodgings yet. After settling in and watching a little Weakest Link, Stephen and Carl went into the lobby trying to find someone with whom to go to dinner. After a lengthy search, Carl, Stephen, Andrew, ande Jay ended up in O'Neill's, a chain pub near the hotel. The food was moderately priced but only moderately satisfactory, so the foursome continued to the Italian restaurant Prezzo down the street for dessert (Stephen ordered a chocolate cake and peppermint tea). Sated at last, they returned to the hotel, where Stephen read his book and began to write this account.

Day Five: Winchester Is Wonderful, but Maybe Only Because It Was Sunny and Warm

This is one of the best photographs Stephen took in England. It's a pigeon-eye view of the River Itchen.

Each of those decorative rose things (called bosses) weighs at least one ton. This is a massive architectural undertaking, especially for having taken place millions of years ago.

The next morning, the choir walked to the town Cathedral and then took a walking tour of the city, passing Winchester College, Wolvesey Castle, and Jane Austen's deathplace, and following for some time the picturesque River Itchen. Then came the inside tour of the Cathedral, which Stephen soon pronounced his favorite for its architectural unity and sense of completeness. The afternoon was spent leisurely, with lunch in a pub, King Arthur's round table, a bit of quick shopping (candy, postage, a telephone calling card), and a bit of wandering. The choir met in the late afternoon for a rehearsal, which was immediately followed by a splendid performance of Choral Evensong. Immediately after that was a lengthy drive to Oxford, where the Singers checked into a hotel and fended for themselves for dinner. You see, the hetel was far outside of Oxford proper and there was no organized trip into town for dinner. A small but intrepid group, put off by taxi fare (£5), decided to brave walking in very low temperatures for several miles to the Eagle and Child, favorite pub of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, J. Pierpont Morgan, J.K. Rowling, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Werner Heisenberg,Virginia Woolf, William Shakespeare, Karl Marx, Charlotte Brontë, Chairman Mao, and Al Capone. This group, known as the Inklings, met weekly to discuss their writings. The walk was biting cold, and the payoff was minimal: on their arrival, the intrepid seven learned that food (which they desperately wanted) was no longer being served. Casting about for an alternative open and warm place, they settled on Bella Italia, a chain Italian restaurant where Dr. Tim Sharp, M.D., Ph.D., Ed.D., D.D.S., O.T., J.D., O.B.E., F.B.I. was seated with his daughter Emma. Although neither eagle nor child, the food was exquisite, but the group decided to cut the bullshit and call a taxi back to the restaurant. They had to have been out of their minds to have walked three miles in subzero temperatures. A much-welcomed sleep followed.

Day Six: A Daunting Task: Singing in the Twin Intellectual Centers of the Western World

Christ Church College dining room, also known as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Stephen couldn't get a direct answer as to whether this room served as the set for the great hall in the films or simply inspired that set, but he suspects the latter; the room is simply too small to film a motion picture in, and it also already has a day job as the Christ Church College dining room.

Traveling on the coach...

Thursday was busiest of all, because it incorporated two performances with hurried walking tours and a multiple-hour coach ride between them. They started with a walking tour in the bitter cold through the centuries-old spires of Oxford University's distinguished colleges, ending up in Christ Church Cathedral, which is a part of Christ Church College, Oxford. It is a small cathedral with excellent acoustics. After a few minutes of rehearsal, the Singers filed off and then immediately returned for their concert.

Here, an explanation seems to be in order. Stephen had, in high school, taken a trip to Chicago with his high school chamber choir. The "reason" for the trip was a single performance in the basement of a shopping mall. The audience consisted of about sixteen people, all of whom were friends or family of the choir who happened to live in or near Chicago. The audiences which attended the Singers' concerts in England were usually disappointingly small, too. Since the tour was not domestic, there were fewer friends and family, but no one can deny that Canterbury Cathedral compares favorably with the basement of a shopping mall even with no audience whatsoever. As Dr. Sharp, who is greatly intrigued by the influence of architecture upon music, said, "We're here for the spaces. Audiences are just icing." Stephen found it hard to duplicate this attitude exactly, but he didn't find himself dwelling on the small size of the audiences, either. After all, he was in England. What right did he have to complain about anything?

At the conclusion of their performance at Christ Church, the Singers made their way to the room which serves as the great hall in the Harry Potter films. It was much different, and seemed to Stephen altogether smaller, than the one on the silver screen. The tables, long and narrow, were the same (except in number), but the walls were covered in portraits of famous Christ Church alumni from bygone years, the likes of John Locke, Albert Einstein, John Wesley, Robert Hooke, W.H. Auden, Charles Wordsworth, and William Penn. Of course, the ceiling was also not enchanted to reflect the sky above. It was actually pointed out as a shining example of an English-style ceiling.

Stephen took a few obligatory photographs, and then the Singers hastily left for Cambridge and their next engagement. Cambridge, particularly Clare College, was in part their reason for coming to England in the first place. Dr. Sharp had recently completed a year of sabbatical at Clare College, and this helped inspire him to take the Singers on tour in the United Kingdom. When they arrived in Cambridge, a lengthy guided tour greeted them. Stephen loved the town. It was clearly a community of learning, but the students still seemed able to enjoy themselves. Stephen was particularly excited to find a penis drawn in chalk upon a stone building in King's College. Even where England's (and indeed the world's) brightest minds met for intellectual pursuits, the ubiquitous bathroom symbol of puerility was to be found inscribed hastily upon a wall. To commemorate this, Stephen snapped a quick photograph.

The most impressive part of the visit was the King's College Chapel, built by Henries 6-8. Although it should have been architecturally impressive, Stephen was a little unimpressed, certainly in comparison with most of the Singers. This was probably because it was boring. Though big, it was big and square. Unlike the cross-shaped cathedrals they had visited, King's College Chapel had no architectural interest. It had no nooks or nifty side-chapels or huge archways and columns. So, when I tell you that King's College Chapel was the most impressive sight in Cambridge, I am not representing Stephen's opinion, only the group's as a whole. Stephen was most impressed by the age and beauty of the buildings. But that is boring, and difficult to communicate verbally, so I'll move on.

It was in Cambridge that Stephen's surname was turned into a verb by his friends. He was walking down the street, taking photographs of the architecture, when he ran into a metal post in the sidewalk. He was not injured, and his friends made fun of him. The reflexive verb "Rintoul" came about, the correct usage "You got Rintouled," addressed to a person who had been tripped up by a crack in the sidewalk or a post in the ground.

There was a precedent for this. Just before the Singers' Evensong service in Winchester Cathedral, as the Singers walked out to the choir stalls, Stephen had tripped no fewer than three distinct times on the uneven floor tiles. The word, you see, had been in the oven for some time.

Cambridge is a place where choral music is no small matter. The King's College choirboys have had a global BBC broadcast every Christmas Eve since Nikola Tesla first figured out how to transmit signals through the air, and many huge names in choral music, past and present, hail from Cambridge: John Rutter, Stephen Cleobury, Charles Villiers Stanford. This reputation was intimidating for the Rhodes Singers, particularly after they had the opportunity to sit in on a rehearsal of the Clare College choir. "I don't want them to come to our performance," a singer said, "I peed myself when they started to sing." It seemed to the Singers that the Clare choir's impressive power, tone, and blend were so far beyond their own that their performance was somewhat irrelevant in such a location.

The performance came that evening. After their usual half-hour of preparation, the Singers sang (actually quite well) for an audience which included the President of St. Catherine's College, where the performance took place. Unfortunately, John Rutter did not attend the concert. This was, apparently, a possibility.

Stephen had run out of his first £100 at this point, so he visited an ATM for more cash. The group he was with had to walk to the hotel, and while Stephen knew which streets to take, mob rule overturned his decision and the group got somewhat lost. Andrew asked a native resident but was brutally rebuffed: "Bloody help yourself," the irritated man said. Stephen took this as further evidence of what the entire tour had suggested to him: English people, as a rule, aren't very helpful to strangers. He longed for Kansas's famed hospitality.

For dinner, Stephen and others tried the pub (the Eagle) where James Watson and Francis Crick celebrated after demonstrating the structure of DNA, but it was smoky and full of people, so they found an Indian restaurant that looked promising. However, while the food was good, the portions were apallingly small and the prices deceptively high. Disgruntled, the group grumbled back to their hotel, where they played cards for a while and then went to bed. Instead of going to bed, though, Stephen used his new calling card to telephone his parents, telling them all about his experiences so far. He also tried to call Leigha, his girlfriend, but he was unable to reach her, although he stayed up until 1:30 trying.

Day Seven: What Do a Magical Nanny and a Greek-Style Cathedral Have in Common?

St. Paul's Cathedral, in the Greek style. Notice how different this style is from the English gothic style in all the other cathedral pictures. You can just see the other side of the dome at the top of the picture. The Singers sang from directly beneath the dome, at what is called the crossing of the cathedral.

The next morning was the end of Cambridge; the coach took the Singers straight to London, where they arrived in the late morning. The city isn't as immediately grand as many in the United States because the buildings are shorter. Stephen learned the next day that Queen Victoria outlawed skyscrapers long ago, so when most cities were expanding upwards, London was forced to expand in other ways. Stephen shrugged and found lunch, quite cheaply, in an Italian fast food joint on Fleet Street. He and his companions then made their way to St. Paul's Cathedral, a structure even more prominent than the Paul Barret, Jr. Library. There, they robed up and got ready to sing in an entirely daunting venue.

The St. Paul's audience was larger than usual for several interrelated reasons. London is big, so there was a larger population available to listen to the Singers. St. Paul's Cathedral is huge, and a tourist destination. This increases the number of people who are just walking by and hear singing, and some of these people decide to stop and listen. Also, many of the Singers had friends in London, and these people found their way to the performance. As a result of all these factors, the St. Paul's audience was, at its peak, around five dozen strong, by far the largest tour audience yet.

The swans are labeled. Swans with no notches on their bills belong to Her Majesty the Queen. Swans with one notch on their bills are owned by the Dyers, and swans with two notches belong to the Vintners. Stephen doesn't know what a Dyer or a Vintner is, but he thinks they sound like they wear funny hats. Now I bet you didn't know any of that stuff.

At last, the group finds a smart car, and Desmond gives Daniel the bird in front of it for a photograph. It's explained by a complicated story that goes all the way back to Spain in the 18th century, when Daniel's family visited.

After a brief post-concert tour of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Singers checked into their hotel and enjoyed a few hours of free time. Stephen and Daniel went in search of a Smart Car which they'd seen from the coach while driving to the hotel. You see, Smart Cars are extremely funny-looking, and Stephen and Daniel wanted photographs. Unfortunately, no Smart Car was found, and the pair walked back to the hotel dejectedly, taking note of the restaurants on the surrounding streets for future reference. In the hotel, they gained some new travel companions (Jay, Andrew, Chris, John, and Desmond) and left again, this time for Hyde Park, where an author whom you may know as Johnny Depp played with the kids who inspired Peter Pan. From Hyde Park, the crazy group continued to St. Mary Abbotts church, much too far away. On the return trip, a parked (and therefore photographable) Smart Car was sighted. Daniel and Stephen's flashbulbs flashed wildly, and the rest of the group tried to look as if it had never seen Daniel or Stephen.

Dinner came in the form, once again, of Italian. This Italian, however, went far beyond all the rest in excellence, and the waiter was patient, accomodating, and understanding. Stephen had one of his most satisfying meals here (lamb in some delicious sauce), but he deeply regretted that he couldn't savor it a bit more due to his upcoming theatre tickets.

Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre was both wonderful and...odd. With the descent into hell scene, it registered as darker than the familiar Disney film, but it just wasn't all pulled off in a convincing way. The children had no real personalities; the were angelic or wretched as the scene demanded. Mary Poppins was fine, but the best performance was that of the mother. I would rate her as fantastic.

It was a terrific stage show. The scene changes were executed flawlessly time after time, and the sets were beautifully detailed and fantastically conceived. Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane was in six huge pieces: three rolling, three flying. They all fit together and moved separately to form a beautifully dressed London home with a floor, ceiling, and three walls; only the fourth wall was missing. Other settings were mostly indicated by digital projections of scenery working in concert with lighting. Stephen would probably have not used the digital projections, but it was a valid and well-executed design decision.

The show relied heavily, though, upon its special effects, which were fabulous. With enough money, these days, nearly anything you can picture in your mind's eye can be realized upon the stage. As Mary Poppins herself sings, "anything can happen if you let it." Among the anythings in Mary Poppins were appearing and disappearing nannies, large objects emerging from ting bags, plush animals coming to life from within a two-foot playhouse, and, of course, flying. Mary flew, kites flew, and perhaps most impressively, Bert took a tap-dancing stroll around the proscenium. Overall, Stephen was quite impressed with the technical aspects of the show, but he felt the production relied a little too heavily upon those elements and sacrificed real theatrical substance to some degree.

It was after the play that evening that Stephen finally was had an opportunity to talk to Leigha. He found a phone booth and sucked up the 20p per minute pay phone surcharge. After all, what could he do with a £10 U.K. phone card in the United States anyway? As long as he had it, he might as well use it. This conversation made Stephen happy, and he was able to go to bed quite happy.

Day Eight: Incarceration and a Reflection on the Value of Primary Sources

Flying buttresses, aside from looking kind of funny, serve an important function in that they prop up the walls. Stephen learned this. These are triple buttresses, which means that there are three archways. Assuming the stone with which they're built is strong, buttresses are extremely strong; that's why people use them. This is Westminster Abbey.

The next day was mostly free. The official business of the Rhodes Singers was complete; this day was for sightseeing. The first destination was yet another church. This one was Westminster Abbey, resting place of nearly every British monarch and a surprising number of other notables such as Darwin, Thompson, Dickens, Chaucer, Händel, Kipling, and Tennyson. The Abbey is also home to the Coronation Chair, on which every British monarch is crowned. The chair is in terrible shape due to graffiti by the Westminster schoolchildren through the ages. Stephen thought it might be nice to leave his own mark on the centuries-old wooden face of the chair. He ran at full speed toward the chair, tripping briefly over the railing around it, and used a router to cut his initials and a lewd picture into it before the the Royal Guard finally dragged him away, kicking and screaming. He was taken to the Tower of London and summarily executed, but he was content in the knowledge that he had left his mark on history, literally.

After spending a brief time at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, or a reproduction thereof, the Singers continued to the British Museum, where they saw the Rosetta Stone and the statues from the Parthenon. Apparently, imperial Britain just took all the cool stuff from anywhere it imperialized and hauled it back to a huge building in London. Stephen spent several awestruck hours in this building, finding artifacts from across the globe. In the heart of the Museum is the impressive reading room where Marx wrote Das Kapital. Stephen tried to photograph it, but an internet search during the composition of this account produced a much more impressive panorama. He would have spent weeks in the Museaum given the opportunity, but he did not. The next stop was the British Library, where some of the most impressive primary sources in existence are on display: one of three perfect copies of the Gutenberg Bible (the first mass-printed book); Pages from Da Vinci's Notebook (the Renaissance painter and thinker, not the a capella group); Händel's original manuscript for the Messiah; the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays; and many other equally staggering documents. Stephen was impressed, but he didn't know quite why. After all, he reflected, the physical papers and volumes aren't what is important; it's the ideas and information within that has the true value. Since all the documents have been reproduced elsewhere hundreds of times, what importance do the originals have left? And since all these sources were behind glass, the ideas and information contained within was unavailable to Stephen. Would he feel comfortable, years from now, if people gathered around his original scribblings for a paper? The answer was a resounding "no," and Stephen wondered if Leonardo might have felt the same way. Was that why Leonardo had written from right to left? To make his original notebooks confusing enough to posterity that they wouldn't display them in glass cases? The answers are not clear.

After this, the Singers were left to their own devices until they had to meet at 6:45 for a farewell dinner. Stephen rode the Underground (he enjoys riding the subway, for some odd reason, no matter how filthy or crowded or uncomfortable it is) and took a stroll through London.

The farewell dinner was enjoyable but not particularly noteworthy. There was a brief awards ceremony where Stephen was applauded for his act of vandalism, but besides that, little of importance occurred.

That evening, Stephen and Carl went to the Mitre, a pub within walking distance of the hotel. Here, Stephen had his first full drink. Everyone had been telling him that he needed to give alcohol a chance; he probably wouldn't like it until he had a full drink. The Mitre was that chance. He ordered a pint of beer and drank it even though he found its taste as vile as any other alcohol he'd tasted, ever. When the pint was gone, Stephen still didn't enjoy beer, and he also felt no different than when the glass had been completely full. No pleasurable taste, no discernable effects: the score didn't seem to be in alcohol's favor for Stephen. He hasn't written it off completely (after all, millions of people enjoy drinking), but he is highly skeptical.

That evening, he made significant progress in the composition of this account, and the next morning the Singers made for Gatwick airport, where Stephen was searched by a kindly British fellow who resembled Lance Bass and admitted onto yet another A330, where he spent the seven-hour flight watching movies he'd seen like An Affair to Remember and ones he hadn't like Harry and Tonto.

At about two-fifteen local time, Northwest Flight 43 touched down in Minneapolis, Minnesota.