Canterbury Tales

Not the most original post title ever but that’s what I’m working with.  I took a day trip to Canterbury for an appointment a while ago and although I’m not moving there, it was a nice day out. The town is lovely and it was interesting to see how it had changed since I visited it briefly nine years ago. I originally went to Canterbury while on a two week (I think) car trip around some of the more southerly parts of Britain with my Grandfather and Canterbury was one of our early stops on the drive from East Anglia.  This time I had a more work oriented reason for my journey but still had a look around.  The weather was really good - here’s what Canterbury looks like.

Royal Museum and Free Library (as per the sign) found on one of the main streets

Main gate of Canterbury Cathedral

This is the main entry point for the Cathedral. I didn’t get the time to visit on my latest trip but have been before and can highly recommend it (especially if you like Cathedrals). The building is stunning and the shrine dedicated to the murdered Thomas Becket is worth a look.  I would like to go again but that will have to wait for another visit.

There was a crooked house...

...and a crooked terrace of houses

The old city walls, now part of a carpark

The Canterbury Tales

And this beauty is the outside of a tourist attraction everyone should visit. It’s The Canterbury Tales - an animatronic rendering of the classic tale for everyone’s enjoyment. Sadly, like the Cathedral, I didn’t get to go in on this visit but I have been before. In fact, on my last visit to the UK I patronised a number of similar exhibits, a sort of oddly smelling, jerkily puppet-like tour of British history. I also visited the Robin Hood Tales in Nottingham because I am all class.  I do recommend it, they put a lot of work into it and they’re always amusing.

punting on the river

And last but not least, I finished the day off with a visit to Tiny Tim’s Tearoom for a delicious cream tea (also highly recommended) before catching the train back to London.

delicious afternoon tea

Library of Libraries

Yesterday afternoon I walked to St Pancras to have a look at the British Library and a few other sights in the area. I left it rather late in the afternoon, so spent most of my time there.  It has the most amazing collection of rare books, some of which you can view for free.  If you’ve ever wanted to see what Jane Austen’s or a Bronte’s handwriting looked like, this is the place.  There were beautiful illuminated manuscripts from many areas of the world and I was able to have a look at the Magna Carta and the Codex Sinaiticus – the oldest version of the Bible (and certainly the New Testament) still around. It was all housed in a low light area to preserve the items on display but if you have a thing for books, you should definitely visit. The rest of the public space was quite airy but like any good library, there were piles of people hidden away in corners (and planted on any other available surface) using the free wifi. I also listened to a multimedia exhibition about the power of public speaking, which was really good.

British Library

massive sculpture in the courtyard

Punch sculpture in terrace courtyard

inside the British Library

interesting book sculpture that doubles as a chair

just so you know where we are

I also wandered down the block to take some photos of the beautiful St Pancras station (and Harry Potter related platform at King’s Cross) but it was not to be. St Pancras is almost completely covered in scaffolding as a result of the apartment/hotel development going on inside the structure and I was so put off by that, that I forgot to walk across the road to King’s Cross and be a nerd there. It’s not too far away though, so I’ll try and go back another day.

Warrior Librarians!

If you’ve recently visited your local Library and thought “What this place needs is a bit more interpretive dancing accompanied by formation book trolley handling and some horns, nice fake ones to wear on your head, and maybe some rather chesty breastplates.” Well my friends, this is the video for you.  In fact, if your library needs are that specific, this is three minutes fifty-five seconds of awesome.  You’re welcome…

Ray Bradbury loves libraries…

and so should you!  It’s nice to hear someone speak so positively about such public places but I’m a bit concerned by the state of funding for libraries in the US.  And just think, next time you see an old man reading in the corner of the libary, it could be a famous author (or maybe not).

Literary action

I found this page on Yahoo answers when catching up with my feed reader yesterday.  Not sure if it’s legit but it would be fantastic if it was.  Banned books rule!

More Southbank images

I took more pictures of Southbank during my trip to Brisbane for the Game On exhibition.  Here’s a few of the other good ones.  It was a beautiful day to be out and about.

Surely every large city has one of these by now?

The wheel is right by the river, conveniently situated right near the tour bus drop off point.

Brisbane river with citycat and central library in view

I like being in cities with a river flowing through them (even if it is an interesting shade of brown).  The central library is the partly blue building hiding behind the bridge and flyovers.

The older Queensland Art Gallery

We also now have a Gallery of Modern Art nearby but I don’t have picture of that building yet.  This is the one I grew up visiting.  Some of the artworks are so familiar it can throw me off when they get moved (as galleries tend to do with their collections from time to time).

Link mix tape vol 1

Essential food blogs (according to the Times Online).

Economic pressures hit UK Libraries.

It’s a week old but check out the AV Club’s latest review of comics and graphic novels.

The perennial online privacy debate – this time it’s Facebook’s turn.