Stratford Upon Avon

We took off to Stratford upon Avon today. The last time I was in Stratford was for a press junket for the Phoenix festival, the year that Paul Weller, Iggy Pop, and the Beautiful South were playing (94?). My friend Hollie and I travelled on train from Birmingham, only to find out that on arrival I had to interview a press guy from National Express. Hall or Nothing’s PR tried to track down National Express guy, and waved me in the direction of the free bar. I’d never seen such a look of surprise on Hollie’s face! I’m sure she hadn’t seen one like that on mine either It took ages for the National Express guy to turn up, and when he did, I was somewhat unsurprisingly plastered. I remember barely being able to stand up, and asking him a genius-opening question. “So, you run coaches then, or trains?” That went down well. I can’t remember anything else but losing a baseball cap on the train home, and Hollie and I joining heads to sleep, only awaking up to dribbled-on shoulders.
This time in Stratford, the only dribbling was done by Elizabeth, 1. We found a parking place fairly easy. Not too expensive. When walking into the town we found the following place:




If only.

We wondered around town, a lovely picturesque town littered with the inevitable blights of modern capitalist living, McDonalds, HMV, and the like. In the park we watched a fire juggler thinking it would impress her. It didn’t. Seems she thinks the same of fire-jugglers as I, although I doubt she’s aware of the physical constraints of sticking a levellers album up one’s derriere.

We visited Shakespears birthplace, although didn’t go inside the house as I didn’t feel like paying £20 to be surrounded by Americans in an empty old house. Talking of Americans, Kirsty and me went into a tacky ghoul shop, as kirsty had seen the cauldron in the window. Lisa stayed outside admiring the statue of a jester and keeping Elizabeth’s pushchair out of the way of incense. When Kirsty and I emerged from the tat-emporium, Kirsty spotted a pigeon and stamped at it hard so that it flew away. It flew away all right! Straight into the faces of three American teenage girls eating on a bench. You’ve never seen so much panic in your life. Afterwards, when Lisa had stopped laughing, she informed me that the American girls were scared of the pigeons in case they were carrying bird-flu. Suddenly I was proud of Kirsty’s achievements in panicking gullible ill-informed American teenage girls.

I noticed that they were eating burgers, so obviously foot and mouth doesn't worry them.

After the laughter, we did a few shops, and I bumped into Sir Ian McKellen, Magneto out of X-men (for me), or the bloke out of Coronation St (for Lisa). I thought about asking for a pic, but he looked in a hurry, and I have a fear of coming across sycophantic, so instead of talking I just muttered “look it’s Magneto” to a bemused Lisa. It took me ten minutes to think of the acclaimed Shakespearean actors real name I’m afraid. I put this down to the sun, and a huge thirst.

And so, we had some drinks back at the park, and went home, crawling the entire way on a practically grid locked M42.
A good day overall.