Posted 5:18 AM by Rob Holland
No Busking in the Underground

The loudspeaker system in the London Underground is like a relentless nagging parent (or conscience), continually reminding the harried passengers to "Mind the Gap" so as not to end up crushed between the train and the platform, or informing us that "pickpockets are known to operate in this station" and to immediately feel for our wallets, signalling the pickpockets where we have our loot stashed.

There were a couple of such announcements that Pamela and I had a hard time figuring out. One was an anxious announcement, seemingly always in the King's Cross Station, that "known 'ticketouts' are operating in this station," and informing us that buying tickets from such creatures would subject us to a thousand pound fine and/or jail time. We finally figured out that the term was "ticket tout," as in someone who touts something, and we did indeed encounter such gentlemen, who were usually scrounging, like fans at a baseball game, for leftover tickets from departing passengers. I'm not quite sure what the dynamic of the used ticket market is, and wasn't particularly curious. We had day passes on the Tube and needed to keep our tickets.

Another curious phrase, which we also saw printed on signs in some stations, was "busking." As in: "No begging. No busking." We had no idea what busking was, but guessed that since there were numbers of folk playing musical instruments in the serpentine underground tunnels, that it might mean that. Upon getting home, I found the following definition on the web: "A busker is a person who plays an instrument, sings, dances, juggles, mimes, performs an act or entertains the public." This came from a Sydney, Australia, city website, which lays out the city's rather enlightened busking policy.
There were a number of buskers in the London subway, most of them with guitars, and with a wide range of quality in their voices. Most could create some semblance of a credible rock song, and I must admit one of the most affecting moments I had while down in the city's bowels was hearing scruffy looking guy with a guitar singing "Here Comes the Sun." All the buskers we encountered were huddled down next to their guitar cases, hoping for the stray coin to fall in it. We didn't run into any jugglers, dancers, or mimes (thank God!) Like the ticket touts, the buskers didn't seem the least phased by the harping of the loudspeaker telling them their activities were illegal, nor did we see any of them being rousted by transit employees or police.

In researching the term, I came upon the following, an possible job opportunity for Nicholas: "From: anthonyccaporale
Date: Mon Mar 18, 2002 9:05 am
Subject: Durham, NC Busking Opportunities

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Now scheduling auditions for professional street performers for
engagements at high-traffic locations within the NC Triangle area.
Musicians, clowns, jugglers, magicians, mimes, acrobats,
contortionists, puppeteers -- all professional, entertaining acts
appropriate for family audiences will be considered. To schedule an
audition, please mail, fax, or e-mail a brief description of your act
and experience along with promotional material to:

Triangle Theatre Festival
100 Timber Ridge Drive
Durham, NC 27713-9330
Attention: Anthony Caporale
Telephone: 919-401-3555
Facsimile: 919-401-3565
info@t...
http://www.theatrefestival.org

Please forward this message to other interested parties. Thank you!

Posted 8:53 AM by Nicholas Holland
Hello all. Just wanted everyone to know that I'll be in Durham this summer working for a professor. I"ll be watching tapes of jury deliberations as well as doing research on juries, etc. It seems pretty interesting, and the professor doesn't really care when I do the work (he's said that I could work morning or night if I want), so the summer should be pretty good. The pay isn't great, but I'll live.

Exams are coming up, so that means lots of time spent reading and learning everything that I've forgotten the last thirteen weeks. My first exam is April 22, then I have one every five days until they're over a couple of weeks later. Then I have a week to write my casenote for the casenote competition, which is part of the consideration for the law journals. Yippee.

Posted 9:34 AM by Rob Holland
Hi, guys --

We're at the end of our last day here, a pretty good one, as we didn't rush from place to place, and saw what we wanted. It helps that a couple of the major museums are open late tonight, though we'll probably go back and pack before it gets too late.

Yesterday we went out into the exurbs, to Kew Gardens and then to Hampton Court, mainly because there were quilt shops nearby each. Hampton Court, which was Henry VIII's little villa, was closed in honor of the Queen Mum, but we were pretty sick of musty castles anyway, so we went and had tea at a local tea room instead. The quilt shops were quite nice, and the owners/help were friendly. Most of the fabric was American of course, but we did find a few things British in the mix. Kew Gardens was a nice change of pace from the city. It was the first greenery we had seen in days (it's pretty paved over here, and there are no trees on the Underground). We did a second visit to Wagamama last evening. Couldn't help ourselves. We're fighting the urge to do it again this evening, but will probably do pub grub instead.

We visited the Victoria and Albert Museum briefly, but more fun was the Pollock's Toy Museum, where we saw a very amusing collection of old toys in an equally amusing building. They certainly don't seem to have any building codes when it comes to stairs in London. We also hit the Camden Lock market in the north part of town, but it wasn't too lively on a Wednesday. Better on Sunday, we understand. Maybe next time.

We made the effort to go out to a Waterford place to get Sherri Brown some crystal she wanted (hopefully we can get it home unbroken).

We made a stop at Toey's blog before we wrote our own and if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut til you have your presents in hand. They're really cool and we wouldn't mind keeping your stuff. ;) Just a friendly suggestion.

Well, we are exhausted and a little hungry. We're going to hurry to the pub before the kitchen closes, so we better be off.

Posted 11:38 AM by Pamela Holland
Hello!! It's been a busy couple of days since we last wrote and we're a little tired. Yesterday we went to St. Paul's for a service (we missed the memorial one for the queen mum), then we had lunch in the Crypt Cafe there and then we headed out. We went to the tower of Londonwhere we saw lots of royal junk--suits of armor, cruel weapons of torture and a 536 carat diamond ( oh, yah, Daddy says we also saw some fat English ladies--they were playing the part of fat English ladies from back in the day--they were good at sitting and doing nothing). Then, we headed over to the Tate Modern after that, where we actually had about an hour to look around. We saw some really neat and famous pieces, but we also saw some wierd crap from a couple of contemporary "artists." Then, we went back to the hotel and collapsed. When we came to, we decided to go to Wagamama's, a reallyneat noodle place that now has locations all over london and one in Dublin and one in Amsterdam. We went to the Mama Wagamama and split two delicious dishes and an order of incredible vegetable dumplings. We also oohed and aahed at the technology--they type your order into a handheld visor type thingy and it is radio signaled to the upstairs kitchen where they make it fresh and send it down on the food elevator when it's ready. well, I was impressed. We also passed what must be London's prime spot for adult items--more than one half-naked girl was standing out next to the 'best men's clubs in London.' Anyway, today was another busy day. We started out early--we were beating down the doors at the British Library at about 9:15. We saw all sorts of literary masterpieces in the handwriting of their authors--Finnigan's Wake, Beethoven's music (sloppy), Lewis Carroll, about a billion others. We also saw the Magna Carta (and for those of you that know PennyRatliff, I did not have the pleasure of throwing up on it). We finally tore ourselves away from their (but not until after visiting the bookstore, of course) and left for our next stop--Harrod's. I guess we should have bewen impressed by the incredible selection of WAY over-priced stuff, but it got old after a couple minutes. We didn't have to pay the £1 for the "luxury washroom," because we had purchased a little charm earlier. For £1, that potty better come to life and wish me a good day. Anyway, we did get lunch from the massive food halls and ate it in Hyde Park (ha ha we went to Hyde Park and you didn't). We went to a couple other shops, including a ton of fabric stores all on one street in SoHo, and we are about to leave this internet joint to see a play. That was our last couple days summarized. We're looking for junky souvenirs for everyone--it's easy to find crap, but tough to find good funny crap.