This England

I keep trying to tell myself I can't take pictures of everything that looks like an enchanted path to Wonderland here in England. I don't think I'd consciously realised how much I'd been looking forward to this for so long, from all the Lewis Carroll and JRR Tolkien and Shakespeare of it. So much of British media is so misleading, like I was to think it was all guys who look like Jason Statham and Bob Hoskins getting into fights over football. But, no, it's actually Middle Earth.

I'm on my fourth day here. I will say I had one of the worst hotel experiences I've ever had in my life in Southampton. If you're planning to stay at number 10, Darwin Street, let's just say you should bring your own towel and probably bedding and some command of the Russian language and experience in arbitrating domestic disputes would be helpful.

I checked out early and booked a room roughly halfway between Southampton and London in Farnham called the Princess Royal. Night and day. From the worst of hotels to the best. For only 65 pounds, for one night, this combination pub and hotel was not only absolutely lovely but it also had wifi, good food, and good drinks.

The room had an espresso machine with free espresso, shortbread, lots of tea, and a minifridge with free glass bottles of water and milk.

Surely there's a catch, you say. Well, it's a 45 minute walk through enchanted woodland from the train station. Darnit!

There's also a witch's cave nearby, Mother Ludlam's Cave, which my English friend, bri_fidelity, recommended to me on Facebook. It was all fenced up but I enjoyed the journey there. Just look at the ominous path leading up to it.

I had dinner at the pub attached to the Princess Royal, some fish and chips, and a glass of Laphroaig, which I was able to enjoy while reading JRR Tolkien's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. There was a loudmouth rightwinger guy in the place who called me a "faggot" (I thought that meant cigarette over here?). The staff were uncomfortable and embarrassed. I found it fascinating, especially because he had this fake Woodywoodpecker laugh. This is something I'm used to hearing from rightwingers in Japan, the "targeted laugh", not meant to express genuine mirth but to lash out at people who are strange in any way. So much of the rhetoric on the right is about how postmodernism is wicked because it makes people think that they can be whatever they want to be but, really, the right is quite willing to adopt affects such as the targeted laugh. The argument is just another way to say, "It's us versus them." I don't really hear the targeted laugh in the US, I suppose because it just seems to theatrical to Americans. I found it really confusing the first few times I heard it in Japan because I couldn't believe people would do it in the effort to make me feel embarrassed. It's like if someone hit himself in the head with a log in order to embarrass lumberjacks.