What Befuddled Me Along the Way
Thursday 07/26/2007 6:06 PM (In the United Kingdom: 11:06 PM)
I've had lunch time and after-library time to wander around Cambridge. Today I had most of the day, in fact, since it turns out that Milne really does seem to have "just written and then published" Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner ... meaning that there wasn't a whole lot to uncover that we don't already see in the Milne we have at our disposal at Barnes & Noble today. That provided even more time, though, for becoming (mostly enjoyably) befuddled...
I asked someone the time and he actually pointed up to this "dial tower" (my word for it). I don't know if it was meant to be a joke or not, so I just said, "Oh, okay. Thanks," and walked on. I know that more learn-ed folk than I can probably tell the time down to the half-minute with a glance at this thing, but I just dug my camera out of my bag, took a picture of the tower, and looked at the digital clock on my camera.
Emily & Gavin have a remote control for the jacuzzi in the apartment I'm inhabiting, which seemed neat at first, but since my first night, I've been trying to imagine a situation in which it would be at all useful, and I can't come up with one ... there are also controls for a TV on it, though they don't have one in the bathroom (they are planning to install a music system, though).
To be fair, I wasn't befuddled by this sign at all, though I was amused. See how much more precise these icons are than that pesky baby-changing one in London? I mean, there's even steam coming up from the dog's "foul."
I wasn't going to pay the 12 pounds ($24) the street vendor wanted for these, but I just had to take a picture ... this is probably a huge cliche to most Brits (and maybe some of you), but I got a good giggle out of it.
This is the way we cut down a tree, cut down a tree, cut down a tree.
This is the way we cut down a tree, on the River Cam!
I watched these guys for the better part of 15 minutes. They'd actually cut down the tree the day before (it came from the lot on the other side of the wall), and this morning, they'd maneuver the brown boat under a chunk of it and then cut that chunk off the trunk so it would fall into the boat. The two guys on top of the wall were doing some elaborate thing with ropes, but I'm not sure if they were attached to the trunk or the chunk or the boats. I took this picture just as a big chunk fell into the boat, and I heard the guy in the orange hat call up the wall, "I think we need a bigger boat." Um, yeah.
The Slug and Lettuce: isn't that just about the most appetizing name one could come up with for a restaurant? No, I didn't eat there.
Evidently, the towel racks are heated. Emily says that this isn't unusual for England.
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