In York

• In York, I binge-watched the last three episodes of Night Agent, a 2023 show, streaming globally to anyone anywhere as long as you had a Netflix account and a TV set… while I sporadically glanced outside the window to see a 800 year old York Minster. Entertainment for the masses has come a long way.
• In York, we arrived on Saturday. The York Minster bells rang every five minutes non-stop. We were confused and discombobulated and slightly irritated by the interminable offkey clashing of it all, but because York is such a cute, charming, and quaint little town… with thousand year old Roman walls, red ceramic roof tiles as far as the eye can see, and home to Shambles, where the seemingly overhanging second floors inspired the set designers of Harry Potter for Diagon Alley… we grinned and bore it with stiff upper lips as any good Brit would. It wasn’t until we joined a walking tour later that afternoon that we found out there was a “bell ringing contest”. A bell. ringing. contest. In other words, every five minutes, there was a different team(?), priest(?), professional bellringer(?) up in the highest belfry showing his mad skillz and ringing centuries old church bells. I started to rattle off music critiques like it was off-pitch, or Whiplash comments like it was too slow or too fast. Youngest said, “well that’s not going to be annoying the entire time we’re here.” Oldest interjected, “You mean we’re so lucky to be here. When else in your life can you hear a bell ringing contest? A bell ringing contest!” They are my children. They have my dry sense of humor.
• In York, I waited over 90m in a queue in Shambles because my friend Olivia told me about The Ghost Merchants of York, a cute little shop that went viral in July of 2021 on TikTok. They make these small ghost figurines made of a proprietary material they refuse to divulge by seven York artisans. Each and every figurine they make is unique and one-of-a-kind. They have two “queue handlers” running up and down, chatting people up, and making sure people don’t cut in line. I overhear one of them saying how they’ve seen wait times as long as five and a half hours. All to buy these ghost figurines. Surpringsinly, they weren’t overpriced at “exclusive collector” prices. Small ones were £9 (11 USD / 15 CAD), larger ones were £17 (22 USD / 29 CAD), and a few in the glass cases were more due to material they did reveal. Once you get into the shop, it’s a very small space with over 600 ghosts to choose from. They have a little papercraft and inkdrawn set for you to take a picture of the ghost you chose, and they box it up nicely. Their only upsell is a £3 cloth bag. If this shop were ran by Americans, the small ghost figurines would probably go for $30 USD, and the big ones $50 USD. And they would purchase licenses from every major media IP (Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, DC, Star Trek, Disney)… and then stop this “one-of-a-kind” nonsense. That way, all the kids can have a Spider-Man ghost. Or maybe limit it to 1000 at $100 a pop. Just look at the stupid, massive popularity of Funko Pops. And those are clearly a cheap plastic. That’s what Americans would do. Needless to say, I bought six.
• In York, I had Yorkshire pudding both nights for dinner. It’s just roasted meat, carrots, green beans, and potatos on a simple soft pie crust (the “pudding”), with gravy and optional horseradish. Such a simple meal, but so good.
• In York, we stayed in “The Music Room”, a cute little AirBNB that’s above a winery. You’d go into this sidedoor, up two flights of winding staircases. It’s quite possibly the most charming place we’ve ever stayed in.
• In York, I learned of Margeret Clitherow. She was a Catholic during Elizabeth’s reign. She harbored Catholic priests and held secret services in the basement of her house. When she was caught, they put a door on top of her, and placed rocks on it, one at a time, until it crushed her bones and collapsed her lungs. When Elizabeth heard about it, she was so horrified by this form of torture, she went to York itself to apologize to the people and promised that they were never ever do this again… to a woman. Men were still eligible for this form of torture.
• In York, both tour guides overexplained Guy Fawkes (as this was his birthplace). Do Americans and most tourists not know about the attempt to blow up parliament? Didn’t we all see V for Vendetta (2005) and then looked up what the hell was up with that mask, or am I, again, forgetful I’m one of the few people on the planet who has an insatiable need to look up every reference and footnote - not necessarily out of curiosity but because I have an irrational fear of being that one idiot who doesn’t catch a reference (pop, cultural, historical, or otherwise) and/or I like being known as that idiot who does have all that useless encyclopedic knowledge like a walking IMDb. Yeah, OK, it’s probably just me.
• In York, point-in-case to the above, I learned that in the 1950s when they brought back “The Mysteries”, a series of short plays they once did in Medieval times, where they go through all the major Bible stories… a young 18-year-old Judi Dench played the Virgin Mary. That’s pop trivia you can take with you anywhere.
• In York, I bought the trade paperback of Dan Jones’ Essex Dogs for half price at Waterstones. That works out to $8.50 CAD. I have never paid $8.50 for a trade before. In my three decades of obsessively buying books, trade paperbacks have gone from $12 to $25… so this was a steal for a book I already wanted. I read the first two chapters while queuing to buy ghost figurines on Shambles. It’s good. Dan Jones sold me on it during a podcast episode where he described it as D-Day, but in the 1300s when England invaded France for the Hundred Years War. The opening scene is a small company on a landing craft rowing as quickly as they can while French crossbow bolts and giant rocks from catapults rained down on them. Loveday is Tom Hanks. Scotsman is Tom Sizemore. Father is Giovanni Ribisi, except totally corrupted and messed up in the head. Rumford is Barry Pepper. Famous historical figures show up, like The Black Prince.
• In York, I found three small books that reprinted the foolscap pamphlets they gave to soldiers in the Second World War before they went to another country. I read the one they gave to American G.I.s for Britain. It’s a conversational “code of conduct”, almost like an email you’d write your staff for “expectations management” at an event. Don’t do this. Don’t bring up that. Don’t abuse your privileges as a guest. Here’s what they’ve been going through. Here’s how they act and how you should react. It’s fascinating. They did this because most Americans, especially the twenty-somethings that were sent there had never been abroad and needed guidelines on how to act. And then you quickly realize, as you read this historical document, that many of them would never come home. Thousands of American 20-something boys who had never left their country, flew over to Britain to invade Europe and fight Nazi Germany, and never came back. Documents like this just make it more real. More visceral.
• In York, I wasted £21 on a Flying Scotsman VR experience. The animation was shit. The information was barely audible and rushed. The interactivity minimal. Later, as I wandered the rest of the National Railway museum, I learned that The Flying Scotsman wasn’t the fastest steam engine (the Mallard was). It wasn’t the first steam engine to hit 100mph (the GWR 3440 City of Truro was), but it was first in Britain. And it got me thinking about all the “famous best” that aren’t actually “the best”… like Muhammad Ali for example. They just had better marketing. And because of that, the marketing, the mythologizing, the non-stop repeating of them being “the best” by themselves, by others around them, by people with vested interests… they are now considered “the best” even though factually, they are not. I also recently read the introduction to The Tudors (2011) by G.J. Meyer. The same scenario plays out here. Was Henry the VIII and Elizabeth I “the greatest”… or was it because historians, the gentry, and Hollywood mythologized them? Why did they do that though? Well, it was because they represented the “break” from Medieval times to the Renaissance, or the Early Modern period. Because a lot of people were eager to leave the Medieval times behind. Because the new wealthy… created by Henry destroying the Catholic church, had to mythologize a new hero. Because Henry and Elizabeth themselves were master marketers who, for survival reasons, created a PR campaign of themselves being “the best”. And so… just like that, a ton of people repeating “they were the best thing to happen to England”… made it so, when objectively, they were not. I’m not saying these people who became “the best” didn’t offer a ton of progress and/or utterly lacked merit, but I am saying their hagiography prevents us from getting at the factual truth. But then again, who wants that? We want simple heroes and villains. Richard the Lionheart was a terrible king that bankrupted the country with his pointless crusades and John had to pick up the pieces and tax everyone to death because of that… but we’ll keep romanticizing Richard and villainizing John because of Robin Hood. Makes for a great story. Sucks for their historical legacy.
• In York, my oldest had trouble listening to the guide for this Ghost Walk Tour we went on. The guide had a very light softpsoken Yorkshire accent IMHO. I can’t wait to see how my son reacts to the Scottish accent the further north we go. I’d imagine Edinburg is comprehensible. I can’t imagine what Inverness will be like.
• In York, I sat inside Clifford Tower as I listened to a recording of an actor dramatizing the Jewish Massacre of 1190. I had read about Jewish people committing mass suicide and locking themselves in houses and setting themselves on fire… so as to avoid the anti-semitic mob, to avoid being forced to convert to Christianity, to choose their own fate and how they leave this world. But to sit in a place where Jewish fathers slit their wives and childrens’ throats, and then had their rabbis slit their throats… (because suicide is unforgivable, but rabbis can absolve these murders)… leaving the rabbis left to burn as the fires set by the mob consumed them… that’s a whole other level of fucked-upness experience.
• In York, we walked everywhere because everything was literally a 10-15 minute walk away. Yes, Europe is small, and cramped, and the buildings are crowded, but aren’t you sick of driving everywhere just to get a jug of milk? Or whatever? With that said, walking on cobbled streets loses its charm after a couple of hours. Or I’m getting old and my feet are not as sturdy anymore.
• In York, I briefly fantasized about living here. Or maybe getting famous enough as an author to secure an artist-in-residence or something. This is where my head goes.