The O2 Premiere in London

Back in 2000, London put on a big celebration of the millennium. Most of the additions to the city were built to last and can still be seen today, including:


the Millennium Wheel, the Millenium Bridge...


and the Millennium Dome. This one is basically a big tent 365m in diameter (to represent the days of the year) that's held up by steel cables and 12 support towers (one for each month of the year). All the time stuff represents Greenwich Mean Time.

The Dome is located way out in east London near Greenwich and turned out not to be as popular as the others. It housed exhibitions on the millennium throughout 2000, but lost a lot of money. After 2000, it didn't attract the bidders to buy it that the builders had hoped for.

But recently, the cell/mobile phone company O2 bought the Dome and renamed it "The O2." It was reconstructed inside to serve as a sports and concert arena and reopened to the public on Sunday for a Bon Jovi concert. But since David works for O2, we got to be special and visit it a day early for "The O2 Premiere," a free event just for O2 employees.



We had quite an adventure trying to reach The O2 on foot, since it's on a peninsula and not reached by many bridges! More on that in a later post.

The concert/sports arena is in the center of the Dome, and the outside is ringed with restaurants and bars and a nightclub. It was extremely crowded when we arrived and the lines for all the restaurants and bathrooms were endless. They'll definitely have to fix that if they want this venture to succeed!





But it was interesting to see the Dome and we had good seats for a couple British comedians (despite our two years here still we didn't get all the jokes), Tom Jones and the Kaiser Chiefs. They were both great, and knickers were thrown on the stage during Tom Jones in accordance with tradition.




We left in the middle of the Kaiser Chiefs, in part to miss the huge exodus onto the Tube when it finished at 10pm and in part because it was too loud! We both were in near pain at the loudness and we both swear it's not because we're old.

Having learned our lesson on the way to the Dome, we took the Tube back. Below is the London Bridge station where we changed lines - wonderfully retro.



We got a hotel in London and made a weekend of it. It rained most of the time which was very annoying, but we still did some good sightseeing and had a great time. Highlights in the next post.

The Oxford Exam Experience

Just in case anyone's interested in what it's like to take exams at Oxford, here's the details of my two-exam experience for the MPhil in Ecclesiastical History, which I took on Thursday June 14 at 2:30 and Friday June 15 at 9:30.



Between 15 and 30 minutes before the exam, everyone assembles outside the Exam Schools (above) and inside the grand lobby area. It was like a sea of penguins in there with all of us in our academic dress. It's a terrible tragedy that you are never allowed to take photos inside the Exam Schools, even when exams aren't going on. It's a beautiful building with marble floors, classical columns and a large gallery over the lobby.

Most people had pink carnations pinned to their robes, meaning that they were in the middle of their exams. (The tradition is white for the first one, red for the last one and pink for all the ones in between.) One girl's pink carnation was very dead-looking - she must have had a lot of exams! Apparently they were available in the Covered Market, but I was too lazy to bother on Thursday and didn't have time on Friday, so went carnationless.

When you first enter the lobby, the exams are displayed by title on a big-screen TV (the same one that announced my lectures that were held here), along with the room number for each. Several different exams are often assigned to the same room: on the first day I was with Jewish Studies and on the second day I was in a much bigger room with many subjects, including Philosophy and Engineering.

Having learned which room to go to, you then wait in the lobby for your exam to be called over the intercom. Before my first exam I hung out with one of the guys from my study group and the second one I stood outside with David for most of the time then plunged in with a large herd to head straight to my assigned room.

Many people brought in some sheets of paper for last-minute cramming during the wait, but these have to be thrown away before entering the exam. All you are allowed to bring in to the exam is a transparent pencil pocket with pens and your university card. You also have to bring your mortarboard since it is part of academic dress, but you can't put it on until graduation. It was a royal pain to carry that thing around.

In the exam room itself, I had an assigned desk with my name printed on a pink card that was taped to the top corner. I had to place my university card face up on the card and then during the exams people walk around and check that the names match and your face matches the picture on the card.

My exam paper was waiting for me on the desk along with two wide-ruled writing books. On the front of the writing books I filled in my candidate number, degree title and exam title. They never use your name for fairness purposes, although since I was the only one taking my second exam I think they'll know who it is! I could have as many writing books as I needed; they bring you an extra when you raise your hand.

There was also an interesting doohickey on the desk: a short green string with straight silver parts on either end. I was quite puzzled about what it was until I read that you are supposed to fasten all your writing books together and it dawned on me. You put the doohickey through a punched hole in the upper left-hand corner in each of the books; pretty clever actually.

The exam lasts exactly three hours and you can't leave the room in the first 30 minutes or the last 30 minutes. I've been told the first rule is a response to many instances in which people would take one look at the test, panic that they can't do it, and leave immediately without trying to answer any questions. The second rule is to avoid distracting people who are trying desperately to finish writing before the time runs out.

In the first 30 minutes and last 30 minutes each subject must have an examiner present, which means a professor in our field wearing all their robes and academic finery and reading a book to pass the time. The exam itself is conducted by the wonderfully-named "invigilator," who reads off the regulations in the beginning.

At exactly 9:30 (or 2:30), the invigilator says "You may now begin." And off we go! The sense of being timed definitely adds to the nerves, and at my first exam I had trouble concentrating at first. I ended up writing half a page and then crossing it out and starting over before I got into the flow of it. You have to turn in everything you write, including any scribbles, outlines, and rough draft, but it won't be graded.

After finishing the exam, you leave by different doors depending on whether it's your last exam. The first day I left out the side near High Street, which threw David a bit because I thought I would come out the front. But he noticed the stream of penguins filing out and quickly found me. It was very pretty back there and a side of the Exam Schools I didn't even know about.

The second day I followed the signs (scrawled on big white boards in the hallways) that said "Finishers to Merton Street" with big arrows, which led me out the back of the building (right).

Taking Oxford exams were certainly a life experience and a great memory, but I'm very glad they are over. Now I have more time to work on my website, which is what I really love!

Last Exam and a Movie Set in Oxford

I am finally all done with my master's degree! I still have the verbal defense of my dissertation coming up, but don't have to prepare much for it, so I am essentially free! Hooray!!! It feels really great.



My second exam went much better than my first and I even finished early this time, at 11:50 instead of the scheduled 12:30. That was actually unfortunate, because when it's your final exam you go out a special exit where people wait for you and cheer when you emerge, and David was going to be there for me. But I just couldn't sit in the exam room for 40 minutes doing nothing or I'd go crazy with boredom!

So I just wandered out the special exit by myself and waited for about 15 minutes until David showed up (early, bless his heart), and it was okay. The exit for the "finishers" is on Merton Street, which is one of the most picturesque streets in Oxford, so I just had a seat on a stone step and soaked it all up.

David was mighty disappointed that I didn't do the big exit, so he could cheer for me and take pictures, but he also understood. He took some pictures of me at the exit then we decided to wait around until 12:30 to watch everyone else come out. That was great fun. By the time 12:30 rolled around, there was a little crowd waiting outside with balloons and silly string and all kinds of mischief.



There is a distinguished tradition at Oxford that you get your friend as messy and disgusting as possible after their final exam. I was not interested in participating in that tradition, but enjoyed watching it. Some were very mild and just gave their friend a balloon or a plastic lei, while others dumped a bucket of water over their head, threw eggs, sprayed shaving cream, threw confetti, you name it.




A Movie Set

We made our way through the center of town to have lunch, and on the way we stumbled upon a movie set! It was so fun. They were filming just a small scene with all extras, but it was still so cool.

The movie is The Golden Compass, an adaptation of a fairly popular fantasy-type book. The movie stars Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, but sadly they were nowhere to be seen. I believe they did their Oxford part many months ago - I remember reading about it and being upset I missed it!

The scene we watched being filmed was of a group of military men running down the lane between the Radcliffe Camera and Brasenose College. First they wet down the street with a fire-truck-like vehicle, then filmed two takes, then broke for lunch.




After the filming we were able to walk through the main set and look at the cameras and such. The fire-truck vehicle said Pinewood Studios on it! That's where James Bond and many other movies are filmed in the UK.




A Nice Lunch

For lunch, David took me to the Old Parsonage Hotel, which is on the north side of town in the direction of our place, next to a very old church. The restaurant is built in the old parsonage, which had a date of 1628 over the door. In the introductory welcome speech I attended shortly after arriving in Oxford, I remember them saying the Old Parsonage is the place to take your parents when they come to town - especially if they're paying. I have also read that it has the best afternoon tea in Oxford, so we intended to have tea there.

Sadly, however, afternoon tea doesn't start until 3:00. So we settled for lunch instead, which was on a set menu and was not expensive at all. We sat outside under big canvas umbrellas and the meal was delicious.

We both had butternut squash soup, served with a basket of walnut and rye breads with French butter, then David had poached salmon with Russian salad and I had an intriguing ravioli of beetroot, watercress and pinenuts. Both were very good!

Just as our main course arrived, the skies opened up and it absolutely poured. It also turned significantly colder, but we stuck it out outside along with one other hardy couple. It was good fun, and then we had the restaurant call us a taxi and so made it home nice and dry.

David is now napping happily and I'm tempted to join him, as my mind was too full of councils and bishops and dates last night to get much sleep. But I'm still fairly peppy from all of today's excitement so I'll try to just go to bed early tonight instead. I'm so thrilled I can now play with my websites without guilt! Yay!!

C.S. Lewis Pilgrimage

I'm a big C.S. Lewis fan, so it's pretty bad that it took me almost two years of living in Oxford to do the proper pilgrimage. But we finally did so yesterday, with a visit to his parish church, a revisit to his grave with better cameras, and a stop at his house.

1. Holy Trinity Church

Our first stop was Holy Trinity Church in Headington, an eastern suburb/village of Oxford. The church looks old but is quite new by English standards: built 1849. It is normally locked, but thankfully they have just started opening from 2-5pm on summer weekends.



C.S. Lewis attended services here with his brother Warnie for 31 years, from 1932 until his death in 1963, and they always sat in the same pew near the back. There is a small plaque marking the spot.




Near the "Lewis pew" is the Narnia Window (above), which was added in 1991 as a memorial to two children of the parish who sadly died young. It features Aslan the Lion and lots of other characters and scenes from the Narnia books.

A lady from the parish was there during our visit and we enjoyed chatting with her. (You can see us if you enlarge the photo at right.) She told me that now only one church member survives who attended at the same time as Lewis, but is too frail to attend services very often. The Lewis stories still circulate, though!

Apparently he and Warnie always arrived early for 8am communion, then left early before the service was over. Lewis didn't like sermons, church music, or small talk.

One popular anecdote is that every time the Lewis brothers would leave early, the door would slam loudly behind them. Finally the churchwarden decided to line the door jamb with rubber to muffle the sound. So the next time they left, it closed quietly behind them. But then when the rest of the congregation went to leave, the door wouldn't open! Someone had to climb outside through an old back door, walk around to the front and shove it open with great effort. They took the rubber off again, and had to go back to the slamming.

She also told us that we had missed out on an excellent flower festival in Headington the previous weekend, and showed us one of their entries: a kneeler made entirely of flowers (above left). It was very impressive.

2. Lewis' Grave

Next we headed out to the churchyard to photograph Lewis' grave again, since our first visit was spontaneous and we only had a cell phone camera with us.




The epitaph was written by his brother Warnie, who then was buried with him a few years later.



I just recently learned the meaning of the phrase "Men must endure their going hence" - it is from "King Lear" and was on the Lewis family's Shakespeare calendar the day their beloved mother died. She died of cancer when Lewis was only 10, and the traumatic experience was part of why he became an atheist at an early age.

Next to the church is a pub called the Masons Arms, where Lewis and Warnie often headed after they left church early. We didn't go inside but snapped some pics of the outside. It is clearly still a popular watering hole, as there were lots of convivial noises coming from the open door.

3. The Kilns

Our final stop for the day was the Kilns, C.S. Lewis' home from 1929 to 1963. He lived here with his brother Warnie, an older woman named Mrs. Moore, who was the mother of Lewis' college roommate that had died in World War II, and Mrs. Moore's daughter Maureen. Later, long after Mrs. Moore's death and as seen in the movie Shadowlands, Lewis' wife Joy moved in with them for the last few years of her life.



It was here at the Kilns that Lewis wrote all the Narnia books as well as his other classics. The two windows in the above photo are his study (left) and bedroom (right). The house plays a significant role in the stories as well - in real life, a few children who were evacuated from London during the WWII bombing came to stay at the Kilns.

And that's how The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe begins: a group of four siblings leave London in wartime and go to the country to stay at the "Professor's" house. The Professor is a gruff old man who is a little bit scary but believes their tale of the magical wardrobe - clearly Lewis himself!

The house is not generally open to the public but is owned by and has been thoroughly refurbished by the America-based C.S. Lewis Foundation.

It is used mainly for scholars on sabbatical and for C.S. Lewis conferences, which the Foundation believes is more in the spirit of Lewis than opening it as a museum. I dunno if I agree or not.

Happily, when we arrived there happened to be one such scholar out in the garden. She was from Tennessee and was writing her doctoral dissertation there. She lives in Joy's room! She welcomed us to wander all around the property, and even gave us a quick guided tour of the outside.

She showed us Lewis' bedroom and his study where his books were written. She said he added the stairs on the outside so that he could come and go without disturbing his housemates, especially the elderly Mrs. Moore when she was living there. These rooms are kept as a museum and visiting scholars don't get to stay in there. She also pointed out "the children's room," where the children from London stayed during the war.

She took us around back and pointed out the sitting room, which had a desk from the 1940s, complete with period accessories like a Ration Book. Sadly none of the furnishings are original to Lewis' time, though. And finally she showed us Joy's room on the ground floor (left).

The friendly Tennesseean told us that the Foundation does occasional tours by appointment and that it was well worth setting one up. She even wrote down the phone number for us. She then encouraged us to check out the wooded area with pond out back, where Lewis used to spend a lot of time and that inspired the land of Narnia. She said last winter she went out there when it was snowing and thought, "This is Narnia!"



We were already planning to take a peek back there, but it was nice to have directions and extra encouragement. The house is now on a cul-de-sac called "Lewis Close", but in his time it was all by itself in the middle of 8 wooded acres. Lewis' study was on the top floor and overlooked the wooded area with pond, which is now known as "The C.S. Lewis Nature Reserve."

He used to take a punt out on the pond and even bathe in it. Yuck! Our Tennesseean guide had showed us the very punt, which is now out behind the house under a tarp and partially restored after being found at the bottom of the pond. Beyond the pond were more walking paths through the woods, which were delightful, except that David got stung by a nettle on his leg. They seem to be very prevalent here in Britain.



More photos available here. A full article, photo gallery and map on C.S. Lewis sights in Oxford will be added to Sacred Destinations soon.

Our C.S. Lewis mission thus accomplished very satisfactorily, we made a quick stop at our local Marks & Spencers (which has been renovated since we were last there and was prettier than ever), and made it home just in time for the Formula One Montreal Grand Prix at 5:00. Congratulations, Lewis Hamilton!

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