This was the only ancient site that charged admission probably because they had to build the dome.
We then had a little over an hour to return the car (at 4:30 PM). That seemed like plenty of time, so we stopped in a town outside of Edinburgh for lunch. I think we picked the only town that didn't have a decent fish and chips place. The only restaurant open was a sort of greasy spoon called 'The Coffee Pot.' I had a rather poor haddock and chips. It took rather longer than we expected, so it was a race to get to the Budget-Rent-A-Car office by the 4:30 PM closing. We made it with five minutes to spare. 4:25 we drove into the parking area at Budget. It had closed early. Hmmm! Now what? Well, we could just leave the car and forego getting our itemized bill.
Well, our train wasn't until 10:30 PM. Now that there was no reason to rush, we drove through Edinburgh. On a whim I told Evelyn to leave me at the Scott Monument. I ran up to the top, finding that much easier than going almost to the top nine days earlier. On the way down I bought myself a certificate saying I'd done it. I did take some photos at the top to prove I'd been there. Evelyn picked me up at the bottom. I couldn't resist telling her, 'You should try it on a really windy day.'
While I was gone she'd looked at the Michelin book and had found one more castle to visit. This one was of the snake farm variety, though it did have the endorsement of the National Trust. The National Trust for Scotland is the official group who sanctions sites and sets up presentations telling you the history of the site.
While on the way there, there was a semi-tongue-in-cheek expose about a supergrass (a grass is a stool-pigeon). I think he was called John 'The Stick' Smith. He got the nickname because he used to carry a stick to break people's legs with. It was a term of endearment. Smith was the kind of guy who would put an arm in a fire just to make a point of how tough he was. Not his own arm, of course. Someone else's. John never wanted to get in trouble with the police. It just sort of happened. But then few criminals really do. The interviewer noted that while he was a grass, not a single piece of information John had given the police had ever been corroborated. The police said that that just proved what a unique source of information Smith was.
I would have liked to hear the whole program but we got to Craigmillar Castle and had to move on. Unlike most of the castles, this one had not been restored. It is really little more than a shell, but it is a very big shell.
Now, what is Craigmillar Castle? Well, you may remember Mary Queen of Scots's husband played a little practical joke on Mary. Lord Darnley wanted to put a little scare into Mary, so he had some of his friends sneak up to her chamber and stab her secretary Rizzio several dozen times. Mary didn't see the humor, nor did she miscarry (which Darnley had expected as the capper of the joke), but she did pack her bags and move across town to Craigmillar Castle until Darnley 'grew up and stopped acting like a jerk.' Mary had a friend there (Bothwell?) who came up with a payback joke that not only would really get Darnley back and would make him feel silly, but would just kill him. Unfortunately somebody poisoned Darnley and they never got to pay him back.
The task of restoring this huge fortress would be immense. The Castle was a split-level three or four stories high. We must have spent about 45 minutes there and got done about 7 PM. There had been a lot of exploring. The place was almost a maze of rooms. So that was really it for sightseeing. All that was left was going home. We drove back to Budget. On the way, we drove through Edinburgh railway station to see if we could find a phone number for a cab company. We couldn't so Ev stopped and I ran over to a cab and asked what number to call. (A silly detail, but I am trying to be complete.) We dropped off the car, called a cab, and waited about 25 minutes. I was getting ready to hail passing cabs when ours finally showed up. Then came a long wait at the train station. We sat next to a German student who was on her way to the University at Stirling. We recommended Mrs. Whitten's B&B. We talked to her for a while and helped her find her train, which was at first canceled and then was restored.
At 10:20 or so, our train was in the station. We boarded. The porter looked at us and said, 'You look like Leepers.' Apparently he gets a list of everyone who'll be riding in his car. The cabin must be about 4-1/2' by 6' and 3' of the 4-1/2' is bunk. Everything folds into and out of the wall. The sink converts to a table, with a foldaway top. There are two different foldaway tables over the lower bed and one over the upper one. As I commented earlier, the night was less than comfortable. We got to Gatwick uneventfully, taking the Underground between trains. At Gatwick we found out that we'd been booked on a 4:15 PM flight, not an 11:55 AM (British Summer Time).
Thinngs went along pretty uneventfully after that except when I noticed the same backpack had been left unattended on the seat next to me for about 45 minutes. They'd been broadcasting on the public address system not to leave any bag unattended. We were going downstairs anyway to check our luggage and when we saw a constable, we told him about the unattended knapsack. He was interested. It was probably nothing, but when we came back later the knapsack was gone.
It may have been fifteen or twenty minutes later, but Evelyn and I were walking around and the police were closing off sections of the floor and setting up a police cordon. Shortly after that they reopened the floor. Either it was an unrelated incident or they'd moved the knapsack to where they could put it behind the corrugated blast-proof doors.
We'd heard that in France when unattended parcels are found, they take them outside and blow them up. On one hand I guess I feel a little guilty that I may have caused a great deal of trouble for some innocent person, but in these days of terrorism you really should not leave unattended parcels in airports, and I think that the police would much prefer someone reporting unattended parcels than just assuming everything is okay.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the two events had to have been related. I think we started a bomb scare. We did the right thing, but there wouldn't have been the scare without us reporting it.
Well, that out of the way, we were still waiting. I grabbed some lunch from a Burger King, just so I could see if British hamburgers were still bad. They'd gotten better over the last eight years but they were still not really good. Before we knew it, it was 45 minutes before our flight. We still had to change our money. That took about 15 minutes. With a half and hour to get through security, we had not counted on how complete their checks had become. They wanted to see each film cup opened. There was one for each Kodak 35mm roll (the Fujis come in clear plastic cups). We ended up running to the gate only to find it filled with passengers still sitting around.
The rest has been a pretty uneventful flight. I discovered that the earphones for the movie are electrical plugs rather than the usual forced-air column, so I could use Walkman earphones to hear the film. They had five Disney cartoons including the one which introduced Huey, Dewey, and Louie (big deal). The film was Ted Turner's colorized version of 42ND STREET. I can see what people say about how badly Turner's people colorize. Faces were uniformly orange. A pink dress was white at the edges. The actress lifted her arm and the dress went white around her arm. It was an incredibly half-hearted and unconvincing attempt at colorization.
Following the film there was an hour-long documentary on James Bond films. We should be landing in about 40 minutes.
September 14 (4:36 AM): We actually landed a minute ahead of schedule. That is unusual for Newark, but may have had something to do with the co-pilot asking if there was a doctor on board. They may have rushed us through. The passport check took longer than Customs. Though in Customs, when they read we'd been on a farm they called out an agricultural agent to see the bottoms of our shoes. We were home by 8:30 PM. As always, the first night after a trip, particularly a long one, the house feels unfamiliar.
Going over, a sleepless night before leaving really killed any jet lag I had. I could sleep on the plane and woke up pretty much feeling in time with British time. In this direction I went to bed maybe a half-hour early, but I woke up something like 2-1/2 hours early. Not bad, but it will take a little work.
I had been dieting before the trip and was concerned how much effect three weeks of ignoring my diet would show on my weight. Net effect was zero.
Well, I guess it is coming time to summarize the trip. It broke roughly into two halves: England and Scotland. England broke into two halves: London and Brighton. The England half was pretty expensive; the Scotland part was fairly inexpensive. London is a fun city and probably the best city in the world for live drama.
We saw little of Brighton but the convention. There was talk before the convention that it was disorganized and a lot of people were unhappy with the con committee. I think it was a pretty good con once it got going, but then a lot of the things people complained about are not the sort of things that affect me directly. I had a good time, far better than at most conventions.
Scotland has had a long history of two cultures fighting each other. One culture was the Anglo-European culture which most of us grew up with. The other was the Highland tradition which is fairly alien. Now, a theme of our travels has been looking for alien cultures. They are generally pretty expensive to get to and require the inconvenience of a foreign language. By this measure, Scotland is a real bargain. You speak English, you get around cheaply, and you get a look at a fairly alien culture, particularly in the Highlands. You get to see a good deal of a feudal past. It's like seeing Japan cheaply and without language problems. The one unfortunate aspect is that at some point there was a general acceptance of European culture and seeing castles you see a little too much of nobles' fancy plates and paintings. They have tried to cover up at least some of the barbarism of the past which would give the country more flavor and color. Living rooms were restored to luxury but dungeons are empty shells. Now granted, that is an overstatement. We did see quite a bit of the colorful past, but more would have been better. That is a quibble. For what we like in a vacation, Scotland was a very good choice. It would be high on my list of countries I would like to return to.
THE END
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A theatre review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
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I review a lot of things and see or read a lot more. It is not all that unusual that I come away from some and consciously say that it is the best of a certain class I have ever seen, read, or whatever. I thought that the remake of CAT PEOPLE was the best shape-changer horror film I had ever seen. But of course that is the best of a small class. It is far rarer that I would say something is the best play. But I will say that for me PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was the best play. By artistic merits alone AMADEUS was a better play, I suppose, but PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was the most enjoyable and even the most meaningful play. It is a pot-boiler melodrama based on a pot-boiler melodramatic novel and I loved it. Sometimes even a pot-boiler can hit you squarely on target and you are absolutely floored. I hope Margaret Thatcher, who attended the same performance as I did, enjoyed it as much.
Contradicting a review I wrote earlier of the record, I now concede that the play may be more faithful to the novel than the Lon Chaney film. It certainly reveals more of the Phantom's background and tragedy. The Phantom is shown to be the genius he was in the Gaston Leroux novel and the victim of an unfeeling world. The Chaney film undercuts its own tragedy by making the Phantom a mad escapee from Devil's Island. That robs him of his power and gives the power instead to the madness. In fact, the Phantom is a polymath, a genius of whatever he does who is robbed of the fruits of his genius and at times was actually caged as an animal because of his extreme ugliness. After decades of being denied by humanity, the Phantom finds and partially creates for himself a world where he is all-powerful. That was what gave the novel its power, but none of the films built him up as the tragic polymath. The play does. On lilstening to the record I did not catch how much of the novel really was translated to the stage for the play. To fit as much of the plot into a musical of all play forms is incredible. They did eliminate the Persian, who is a major character of the novel, and many chapters from near the end of the novel, particularly those involving the torture chamber scenes which are telescoped to a few seconds on the stage, but I don't think the impact has really been lost.
Most of this could be told from the record. What I could not have expected is the brilliance of the set design. When youo are first sitting in the theatre, the stage seems small. What they do with that tiny stage is hard to believe. Many effects are impressive but none so impressive as the descent to the lake below the opera house (it really exists under the Paris Opera House, by the way, and is used to buoy up the stage), which has to be seen to be appreciated. Less impressive is the falling chandelier, which is much less convincing. But the moment when you first see the Phantom is a cold chill like nothing I remember seeing in any film or play. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is really a superb adaption of a story I have loved for years.
Now for a few minor quibbles. Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is spectacular as long as he is simply having his characters sing, but he does some funny things when he is representing other composers' music. Presumably his song 'Evergreen' is an aria from the opera HANNIBAL by Chalumeu. From the style of opera of the period, and from what we do hear of the opera, it is clear that the song simply would not fit in. It is not of an operatic style and Webber did not want to take a chance on his audiences not appreciating the beauty of the operatic style. Further it seems absurd that a musical genius like the Phantom would write an opera in which the music is just unappealing scales and with phrases like 'Those who tangle with Don Juan....' That sounds like it came from a poverty-row Western rather than an opera written by a musical genius.
But I think the measure of how much the play was enjoyed by its audience can be taken by the group I was with. They paid 18 pounds (about $30). The scalpers were selling the same tickets for 75 pounds (about $125) and were selling out. The group I saw the play with were clammering for us to get tickets for them at New York City prices so that they could see it a second time.
I'm looking forward to it.
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I review a lot of things and see or read a lot more. It is not all that unusual that I come away from some and consciously say that it is the best of a certain class I have ever seen, read, or whatever. I thought that the remake of CAT PEOPLE was the best shape-changer horror film I had ever seen. But of course that is the best of a small class. It is far rarer that I would say something is the best play. But I will say that for me PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was the best play. By artistic merits alone AMADEUS was a better play, I suppose, but PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was the most enjoyable and even the most meaningful play. It is a pot-boiler melodrama based on a pot-boiler melodramatic novel and I loved it. Sometimes even a pot-boiler can hit you squarely on target and you are absolutely floored. I hope Margaret Thatcher, who attended the same performance as I did, enjoyed it as much.
Contradicting a review I wrote earlier of the record, I now concede that the play may be more faithful to the novel than the Lon Chaney film. It certainly reveals more of the Phantom's background and tragedy. The Phantom is shown to be the genius he was in the Gaston Leroux novel and the victim of an unfeeling world. The Chaney film undercuts its own tragedy by making the Phantom a mad escapee from Devil's Island. That robs him of his power and gives the power instead to the madness. In fact, the Phantom is a polymath, a genius of whatever he does who is robbed of the fruits of his genius and at times was actually caged as an animal because of his extreme ugliness. After decades of being denied by humanity, the Phantom finds and partially creates for himself a world where he is all-powerful. That was what gave the novel its power, but none of the films built him up as the tragic polymath. The play does. On lilstening to the record I did not catch how much of the novel really was translated to the stage for the play. To fit as much of the plot into a musical of all play forms is incredible. They did eliminate the Persian, who is a major character of the novel, and many chapters from near the end of the novel, particularly those involving the torture chamber scenes which are telescoped to a few seconds on the stage, but I don't think the impact has really been lost.
Most of this could be told from the record. What I could not have expected is the brilliance of the set design. When youo are first sitting in the theatre, the stage seems small. What they do with that tiny stage is hard to believe. Many effects are impressive but none so impressive as the descent to the lake below the opera house (it really exists under the Paris Opera House, by the way, and is used to buoy up the stage), which has to be seen to be appreciated. Less impressive is the falling chandelier, which is much less convincing. But the moment when you first see the Phantom is a cold chill like nothing I remember seeing in any film or play. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is really a superb adaption of a story I have loved for years.
Now for a few minor quibbles. Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is spectacular as long as he is simply having his characters sing, but he does some funny things when he is representing other composers' music. Presumably his song 'Evergreen' is an aria from the opera HANNIBAL by Chalumeu. From the style of opera of the period, and from what we do hear of the opera, it is clear that the song simply would not fit in. It is not of an operatic style and Webber did not want to take a chance on his audiences not appreciating the beauty of the operatic style. Further it seems absurd that a musical genius like the Phantom would write an opera in which the music is just unappealing scales and with phrases like 'Those who tangle with Don Juan....' That sounds like it came from a poverty-row Western rather than an opera written by a musical genius.
But I think the measure of how much the play was enjoyed by its audience can be taken by the group I was with. They paid 18 pounds (about $30). The scalpers were selling the same tickets for 75 pounds (about $125) and were selling out. The group I saw the play with were clammering for us to get tickets for them at New York City prices so that they could see it a second time.
I'm looking forward to it.
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A theatre review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
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'Boffin' is a piece of British slang. Literally, it simply means scientist. But I have never heard it used without more meaning tacked on. It would never be associated with someone like Carl Sagan, though he is indeed a scientist. The implication of the term 'boffin' seems to be that somewhere around age 14 the person totally stopped developing his mind in anything but his scientific reasoning power. The boffin is mentally a little kid who has grown used to playing with very big and technically complex toys. The character James Stewart played in NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY, based on Nevil Shute's NO HIGHWAY, was a boffin. The king boffin was Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician, computer scientist, and even a biologist. He did fundamental work in computer science defining the abstract computer, the Turing machine. While there were a team of mathematicians working on the problem, it is Turing who is credited with breaking Germany's Enigma Code, a message encryption system whose solution contributed in major ways to the war effort.
He was also apparently a mother-dominated homosexual. That the fact that he was a homosexual ever came to police attention was the result of his blundering. Removed from the field of science, he was a nail-biting, stammering misfit. This duality of personality, so brilliant and polished when dealing with science and yet so unpolished and insecure in his personal life, is the subject of Hugh Whitmore's drama BREAKING THE CODE, based on Andrew Hodges's excellent biography, ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA OF INTELLIGENCE. (Curiously, both the title of the book and of the play are doublemeaninged.)
The Michael Redington production at London's Comedy Theatre starred John Castle as Turing. Castle is well-remembered for the role of Geoffrey, the son neither parent wanted for king in the film version of THE LION IN WINTER. Castle shows impressive range playing the two Turings, one brilliant and self-assured, one awkward and insecure.
The play is a montage flashing backward and forward in time like the scanner on a television screen painting a complete picture from bits and pieces. Turing's homosexuality is seen as one more manifestation of his sense of wonder at the universe. In a life that in some ways parallels that of Robert J. Oppenheimer, we see him both honored and abandoned by his government.
The play includes details of his homosexual life and examples of his scientific reasoning, including a complete lecture on the nature of the brain. The staging is sparse and usually irrelevant to the action. Still, it is a lot of play. Strongly recommended for computer scientists, mathematicians, and just about everyone else.
[BREAKING THE CODE starts previews on Broadway 11/05/87 and opens on 11/15/87 in the Simon Theater.]
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