Stonehenge, Bath, Shakespeare's Home

The cottage at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Matthew and I bought paninis and he bought a cheese and onion pasty at Victoria station. Paul the hairy-eared Irish tour guide took the head count and yelled at us for having "malodorous" food and was stern about speaking loudly but he was pleased that we were attentive to his Stonehenge and Bath lectures and softened and befriended us by day's end.

Stonehenge's sky was low and the rolling green plain spread before the north wind. There was a sense of the sacred and the artistic and the epic and the journeying nature of primitive man in the 5,000 year old megaton stones. The audio guide had a quote from the last lines of classic literature master Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles describing the sullen stones. It is silly to go to world famous sites and pose in front of them so I decided to turn this idea on its head - literally (photos on Facebook to come).

The Georgian architecture of Bath surrounded us as we spotted the locals. Matthew sought out dogs and an old couple warned him that their grey Jack Russell bit but he thought it would not and we all had a laugh when the animal snapped at his too-close fingers.

Then the Bard's home and O my brothers it was like a Meccan pilgrimmage. The Tudor cottage was still intact after years of refurbishment and Matty asked a young blonde guide whether Shakespeare had written all his plays. She said we know that he didn't write all of the later stuff including Henry VIII and I interjected - but no one reads that play anyway - and she said but we know he wrote all of the major works, i.e. Hamlet, of which the soliloquies alone are enough to guarantee a man eternal fame. And she mentioned how he took these stories from sources and reinvented them and we said yes, interesting how art is all about borrowing and reinvention and this reminds me of a certain post postmodern blog.

Your JFK Flight Status is: Cancelled

It is snowing in New York. There are 50 m.p.h. winds and an expected foot through tonight. Luckily, I am in the warm confines of my great uncle's house, where we are drinking malbec and eating crab cakes with remoulade and brussels sprouts (the crisp browned leaves and healthy vitamins make it a personal favorite. They grow on stalks, and are not baby cabbages, btw.) It isn't helping much, because I'm getting really fat as you can see.

My baby girl is in L.A. and was supposed to come home today, but when she checked her JFK flight status, her flight was cancelled. Now she's coming home Tuesday or maybe even later. This is actually a southeaster, so if you're thinking about flying to the Philadelphia airport, you're out of luck.

Meanwhile, I'm reading George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman," which is supremely dope. The introduction alone outlined the difference between the men who act as artists by modeling the great writers and studying how to write, but lack the creative passion that separates the artist from the amateur. Shaw goes on to mention that David Copperfield and Hamlet are lesser characters than those allegorical figures in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, because they are mere puppets through which the authors enact their own thoughts and feelings. While these characters are some of their most interesting, they are not representative of a cohesive philosophy or religion, and thus, come up short. These notions sprawl through my mind at present like the clouds that pour the tiny flakes that blanket the tarmac at JFK airport.