Sunday, July 17, 2005
Christopher’s Manchester Weblog - Summer 2005 - Days 21-24 - Heat, Diet Coke and Headbashing
Another story from time in Manchester
Well, its Thursday evening and time to check in with another post. I will do at least one more, covering Friday and maybe, depending on the trip home, one for Saturday.
Basically its been a quiet week here in Didsbury. I have spent much of my time revising chapters one and two (coming along splendidly Dr. N. says), making copies of articles (which I really do mean to read), and sweating. I mean really sweating, as all week it has remained in the 80s, which for here is stifling. This afternoon finally the clouds rolled in and it dipped down into the mid 70s, but with 75% humidity. I took runs both Tuesday night and tonight, and cannot get over how hard it is to get cooled down when the heat clings to your body. Give me dry heat!
Because of the heat I had to do something I had never done here before. I got a haircut (sorry Kirk). My hair had grown so thick so quickly, that I was sweating from my hairline, so off I went Monday afternoon to get a haircut at a “Gentleman’s Grooming” shop. It was the most unusual haircut I ever had. The man who cut my hair looked like a David Beckham wanna-be, and he didn’t so much cut my hair as, well, beat my hair into submission. Picture Riley Beagle going after a bone or your dental hygienists cleaning the plaque off your teeth. This man attacked my head with scissors and a razor, taking great swathes of hair off (and I think some of the scalp and bone). He just about gave me a concussion. If he had been smoking he would have fit the classic picture of a 1970s Liverpool steel worker, banging away on some molten steel. All I could think is on weekends he must be a football hooligan. He asked me what I thought of the cut: “Its great…really…really great.” I paid and dashed away, with less concerns about a sweaty head but having to go to the toilet and check for bruising right away. Say it together everyone, “I will never get my hair cut in England again!” On the bright side, most of my hair is no longer Fanta Orange.
Then there have been the bus rides. Bus ridding has still been down since the attacks in London (where people are now riding bikes, because, yeh, that’s a whole lot safer in London traffic), but even with less people the buses bake in the sun. So when you get on its like entering one of those old fashion saunas, or maybe a cookie oven. And you have to sit there for what seems like forever, sweating, swealtering, and giving scowls to the people who don’t have exact change for the ride. I have seriously considered becoming a nudist, at least for the bus rides, but then again, maybe not.
Tuesday I met with Nick, the Team Vicar (sounds like a super hero, huh?) at the church. Nick has his family just moved here from Sheffield about two months ago, and he is a riot. He has a PhD from Cambridge…in Molecular Biology, but then decided he wanted to get ordained so he went back and got an MA from Ridley Hall at Cambridge. And he’s only 32!!! But despite that I really liked him. Great insights on British culture, on why people don’t go to church, on why people do, and on what its like to raise a kid in churches where he is the only kid. Nick definitely counts in the “Nerd” (by which I mean cool and doesn’t care about it) category. Although there was the small matter that for tea time he ordered…Diet Coke. I almost left the table right then, but, you that wouldn’t have been very British of me (now that I drank Fanta Orange and all).
I was supposed to me with Dr. N. on Tuesday. Lo and behold…he forgot me, again. This is a rather common occurrence with him, and yes, it is the absent minded professor bit. He is incredibly helpful when we do meet, so I can oblige the occasional…um…misses. When we met today he definitely thinks we are well on the way, and I should have Version 3.0 to him when I see him in Edinburgh at the end of August.
One of the good things about going down to University of Manchester is that I get to hang out on the quad and read and write, smoke my pipe, and act like a student for the first time in my life. Its weird, I don’t think I was ever really a student, you know, “soaking in the experience.” Its nice, for about 15 minutes, but then I feel like I have to go and “do something.” That’s when people ask me, without any prompting, “Are you an American?” Wonder why that is?
The students at University of Manchester may not have laptops, but literally all of them have IPODs, and you just see this stream of people with white earbuds strolling along, happily ignoring their neighbours. Really a bit strange, but the ubiquity of the things and the fact that no one seems to acknowledge the presence of anyone else. But today, the British government released a report that within ten years they will be able to make drugs that will make everyone happy and successful, so maybe the campus is just a large experiment. You do know that Huxley was British.
Well, I am off to Marks and Spencer know, not to buy food (its an upscale grocer) but because they are the only ones who have air conditioning throughout their store and they have little wine and cheese setups. One must stay cool somehow.
See you soon.
Christopher
