It’s a strange thing, traveling through the land that has informed so much of your imagination.  The castles and keeps, the unending hills, the barrows (the barrows!), the city streets that wend and wind and turn in on themselves: it was all there.  And that’s just the literary stuff.

I tried to talk British pop culture every chance I got.  It wasn’t often, but it was good.  King Arthur? Myth.  Robin Hood?  Myth.  Douglas Adams? Who? Broadchurch? State of Play? Catherine Tate? Martin Freeman? Simon Pegg? I asked it all.  The tour guide seemed impressed with my knowledge of Brit-pop, and that was nice.  But it always came back to Doctor Who for me.  “Oh yes.  That scared me to death as a child.”  And then: “my daughter is terrified of the Weeping Angels.  She just can’t go to bed after seeing them.”  Ah.  Very nice.

It really is amazing to me how much quality work comes from England.  They produce great stuff.  They tap into something good and deep that lies just beyond the Wild West of the American imagination.  And while it was great to hear about Wordsworth and the Bronte sisters and Shakespeare, it was of great comfort to find that some of the things that had made their ways across the Atlantic were important to both shores.

+ + + + + +

In my list of favorite moments yesterday, I forgot to mention another great moment in Oxford.  While visiting the university, we got to step into an exhibit of artwork as it related to magic in English literature.  On display?  At least two of Tolkien’s original covers to The Lord of the Rings as well as on of Lewis’ original Narnia maps.  There was, alas, no photography allowed.  Great moment, though.  Made me love Oxford all the more.