Yes, more of the UK experience at long last. For those of you desiring a reminder (and I can’t blame you: the last instalment was a month ago after all), head to the entry in the Table of Contents above titled “On Merry England’s Far Famed Land”.

Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Having now slept and started to adjust to the fact that I was in the cradle of civilization and culture (Stratford-upon-Avon), the opportunity to learn something about this place of great acclaim presented itself. So, who better to drag me about the town of historical import than that Man of Great Historical Import himself: Our Man in Shakespeare’s Stratford: Stephen Newman, BA (Hons.)!!

That’s him on the left, hoisting a pint in the Black Swan Pub just around the corner from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s venue called “The Other Place”. It also happens to be about a block from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Coincidence? Hardly.

I noticed that, for some strange reason, much of Stratford’s historical spots and locations of significant events seemed to be in Public Houses. Now I did not object in the slightest. Heavens, no! But it did seem quite intriguing at the time. He claimed that the route of our historical walk was principally one that he and Hilary took of an afternoon and also a fine overview of the area’s past.

I would hesitate to suggest that the precise route may have been altered to include more salubrious pauses along the way, but one might be forgiven for suspecting him of doing it for the benefit of a traveller’s acclimatization to the local customs.

As you go through the day, you can simply click each of the images to make them larger. If you wish to see the whole set of photos I took that day as a slide show, then head to the set on Flickr here: long link shortened.

The Black Swan Pub was our first port of call of any great note. The place is just as tiny as you can imagine from the image to the left. Yes, that’s really all it is. We didn’t really poke about much, but as near as I could tell there is this one room that you see here, then a room much the same size on the other side of the entrance, a space outside the front raised above the road, and then a back-yard kind of patio thing (if I’m guessing correctly by the indications in the rear near the bar). And that’s all. this most infamous of modern theatrical watering holes is not much more than about 1,000 ft² in total, and doesn’t seem to have been re-decorated since… well it doesn’t seem to have be re-decorated period to be honest. How can one renovate history, after all? There’s some astonishingly young looking faces on those walls, let me tell you. Derek Jacobi with hair…? There it is…!

And the local brewers’ India Pale Ale is a wonderful example of how it ought to be made. Read the rest of this entry »