After I got off the train, I was wandering around Paddington Station, trying to decide whether to take the Tube or catch a cab to the hotel. That’s when I found a sushi place.

It was one of those sushi boat-type places, except this time the sushi was running around on little conveyor belts.

Automated-delivery of Japanese food in a British train station? How could I resist! Plus, it was getting late.

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Each piece of sushi also had a little transparent dome cover.

The cumulative effect was like a little parade of UFOs.

Another interesting feature was the built-in area between the seats, with chopsticks, napkins, etc..

The soy sauce and wasabi were cute. There were also dispensers for water.

This was something I’d never seen in a restaurant before: an overhead system to signal for a waitress, just like on an airplane.

i suspect that one reason I chose this place- though I wasn’t conscious about it at the time- was that there was a family there with a boy who was about three- the same age as my son. After a few days away from them, I start to go into child withdrawl.

And the sushi itself was really quite good. Nice and fresh, well-proportioned, just the thing. Expensive by American standards, but for a meal here, pretty reasonable, I thought.

All in all, it was an excellent time.

I then got on the Underground and promptly got lost. Not quite lost; but turned around in some really stupid ways, which eventually forced me to backtrack to Paddington, and start all over again.

[To the tune of Motels, “Shame,” from the album “No Vacancy”.]

I got into Paddington Station from Oxford around dinnertime. (And so far as I know, my ticket was the right one.)

I then went off looking for some dinner.

[To the tune of Paula Cole, “Feelin’ Love,” from the album “City of Angels”.]

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Every time I cross the street, I think, This is it, I’m going to get run over. I’m pretty good at looking to the right, and then the left, but I still quite can’t believe the evidence of my senses- that the cars come from that direction, not this one- nor can I ever get over the instinct, homed after so a lifetime of living among drivers who stay to the right, to look over the other way, too.

The result is that while I’m awfully paranoid- am I looking the right way now? no?!? how about looking the other way? look both ways just to be sure! but looking both ways just shows how confused I am? how can I cross the street if I don’t know something so basic?!?- I get across safely.

[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, “Intruder (Live),” from the album “Plays Live”.]

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In the common room, having some tea before my talks today (which went reasonably well).

It’s raining cats and dogs outside, so I’m a bit damp.

[To the tune of Fiona Apple, “Criminal,” from the album “Tidal”.]

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There’s a reality TV show called Airport, which follows some people around Heathrow as they do their jobs. I find it totally gripping. But since I was just in Heathrow, and will be back there on Tuesday, I would find it cool….

Also up: Wife Swap, celebrity darts on Sky Sports 1. And more reality shows. More than you can shake a stick at. What is it with all these reality shows? Any country with lots of reality TV must be really twisted. Oh, wait….

[To the tune of Double, “Bed (Knock On The Door Mix),” from the album “Gee(Gts) Presents Greatest Remix”.]

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Another train, another blog entry. This time I’m on my way from Oxford back to London, where I’ll be based for the rest of my trip. I’ve got a couple more interviews tomorrow, including one that looks like it’ll take me up to Ipswich, where I’ve never been, but then there’s the weekend. That’s when my colleagues arrive, and we spend the whole week working on next week’s events. So there’ll be no rest for the wicked. However, when on the road, one doesn’t expect to spend lots of time going to shows or just rambling around the countryside.

When I was a kid, I once went down to Brazil with my father on one of his archival expeditions. Looking back on it, it was a pretty extraordinary thing for him to do, especially given that he did it a bit under duress- I was pretty desperate to get out of rural Virginia- and it must have cut into his research time. But that summer, we spent several days a week going to the archives: he would work in the papers, and I would sit and read my own books (I was on a science fiction binge, but tended to choose things way beyond the abilities of an 8 year-old reader- Jerome Bruner, Philip Dick, etc.) or read an ancient (I suspect Eleventh) edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (possibly the first time I interacted with EB). I think I also tried to write my own book, but never got more than about 10 pages into it before giving up or getting bored.

Maybe, now that I look back on it, that was kind of an unusual summer for an 8 year-old, too.

Though it would have been a lot harder for me to spend a summer like that in Nashville or Richmond- places that I knew, and which held no surprises or exoticism for me- versus spending it in Brazil. Even the archives there were cool, as far as I was concerned. I once found a lizard in an archive in Salvador, and though, This is the neatest building in the world.

Could I imagine doing such a thing with one of my kids? If it were largely an interactive trip- like this one, dominated by interviews and talks- then it would be tough: I think it would be hard on an 8 year-old to be dragged to interviews, and have to sit there and quietly entertain themselves. I suppose if it were a trip where I was mainly reading stuff, if they were good travelers, and if they were capable of keeping themselves entertained for long periods, I could. Just barely. Not both of them, though; just one.

I’ve gotten onto an express train, but I’m not entirely sure I’ve got the right ticket for it. But maybe I’ll get away with it.

[To the tune of Nikkfurie de La Caution, “Thé à la menthe,” from the album “Oceans Twelve”.]

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I’m shifting now from conference mode to work mode: an interview this morning for a project we’re working on, then later this morning I’m back at the Business School to do a workshop with some graduate students, giving them a sense of the craft of futures work and facilitated group discussion. Should be an interesting time.

Though it looks like it might rain….

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On a plug in the bathroom:

Maybe I should start a Technorati tag for “Cute British icons.”

[To the tune of Led Zeppelin, “Heartbreaker,” from the album “Box Set (Disc 1)”.]

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Last night I had dinner at Green College, one of the colleges here at Oxford. Of course, never having been to a faculty dinner, but having seen Chariots of Fire and read various accounts in E. M. Forester (actually, they’re both Cambridge, aren’t they? I keep meaning to get around the Brideshead Revisited), I was keen to see what it was like.

A view of the main quadrangle. According to the College Web site, “This area was previously the private garden of the Radcliffe Observer and the sense of enclosure, self-containment and domesticity is still pervasive.”

We first had drinks in the downstairs room, shown here after we cleared out. It’s a pretty nice place.

The downstairs room, where drinks were served

I don’t usually drink, and I never have acquired a taste for sherry. Still, when I saw it was there on the table, I took a glass. It just seemed like The Thing To Do.

The sherry tray

After drinks, we all went upstairs for dinner, to another room exactly like the first.

I should add at this point that our host had, just before dinner, shown up in his academic gown. We followed him into the dining room, and before sitting down, he said a short benediction- in Latin. When in Rome, as they say.

At first, I thought, that was kind of pretentious. Then I thought, but it’s actually also pretty damn cool. And doubtless it’s as much fun to do as it is to listen through. So good job, Steve.

We then got down to some serious eating: soup, a fish (served on its own), chicken (with vegetables), and dessert. (I had managed to miss breakfast and lunch— just moving too quickly during the day.)

It was pretty good, and obviously, sitting at the long table, eating on dishes with the college logo, was a Cool Experience. Though I have to confess, I kept thinking of the dinner scenes in Harry Potter more than anything.

The dinner menu

At the end of dinner, our host said a brief Grace- again in Latin, use it or lose it- and we retired downstairs for coffee. I didn’t stay long, as I was getting pretty tired, and so I excused myself to walk back to the apartment.

Walking back to the front quad. According to the College Web site, “The three-quarters span greenhouse is prominent as you enter [or leave-ed.]. Its glass, curved on the leading edge, is designed to take rainwater away from the timbers. The house functions mainly as a winter garden for tender plants and a propagation house for summer flowers.”

The front, or Lankester, quadrange. Again, quoting from the Web site, “The front or Lankester quadrangle (converted from the Observatory’s stable yard) is given design strength by the arrangement and materials used in its paths and paving. There is permanent planting in the borders, containing a variety of subjects with an interest in leaf and form as much as flower, while seasonal variety is obtained in the choice of subjects grown in stone troughs.”

I thought it was so cool to have participated in such a genteel ritual of college life, to have tasted of Oxford tradition dating back how many centuries. (Apparently back to when Latin was regularly spoken- though of course, around here that was through the late 1880s at the earliest.) Naturally, when I got back to the apartment, I looked up Green College, to see when it was founded and such. Here’s what the Blue Guide on Oxford and Cambridge (6th ed.) says:

Green College was established in 1979… and named after its principal benefactors, Dr and Mrs Cecil Green of Dallas, Texas. It is entered from Woodstock Rd through an unpretentious set of buildings in the neo-Georgian manner, somewhat reminiscent of an 18C stable block, designed by the University Surveyor, Jack Lankester, in 1978-79. (p. 134)

Ah. Well, then.

So my Big Fat Oxford Dinner was in a place that’s been around since roughly the days of the first Andy Gibb world tour. Still, it was fun. And a great example of the phenomenon that Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger famously called “the invention of tradition.”

Then I walked back to the apartment.

[To the tune of Led Zeppelin, “Achilles Last Stand,” from the album “Box Set (Disc 3)”.]

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So after my walk, I get home wet, and decide to take a shower. Generally, this is a pretty straightforward experience.

Here’s the shower in the place I’m staying. Doesn’t look too complicated, does it?

You get closer, and it turns out that the box isn’t something that, car wash-like, dispenses soap, shampoo, etc. right into the water stream; it’s a heater. It’s a heater with something like 256 different settings, all of which later turned out to be variations of “scalding” and “freezing,” unless I missed something, like you’re supposed to turn both dials at once or something.

We had something like this in one of the apartments I stayed in in Rio de Janeiro as a kid. Only that one had an exposed gas flame- or more specifically, you had to stand in the shower, strike a match, hold it near the gas, and hope it caught before your shower started. Go figure.

I got in, found the controls, and pulled the door closed. Wait. Where’s the rest of the door? The glass shower door only protected half the shower. Huh?

I ended up turning the water off after getting wet, using some soap, then rinsing off quickly. At one point, the thought came to me, “if the kids used this shower it would look like Marine World when they were finished.”

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