London, British Library, GO!

8.6.12 - (London, UK) 

The coach is delayed, says the attendant, about twenty minutes, do you have a ticket, then just wait over there with the others, it's the Olympics: everything in London is delayed.

The coach finally arrives almost a half-hour later. The driver steps out in a panic, a flurry of hellos and getinlines. A couple asks if they can buy tickets, but the driver tells them the coach is full up. The couple stalk off, pissed. Everyone, it seems, is going to London today.

Crossing London Bridge by Coach.

On the bus I sleep. I awake to a beautiful Monday afternoon just as the bus goes over the Tower Bridge and there, surreally, are the Olympic rings. The Thames, however, is its usual color. 

I take the tube to the British Library, infrequently snapping photos because I'm late for my work at the library, and I feel somewhat stupid taking pictures here. I'm not a tourist, this is business. I get a shot of the front and the insides of the library. A simple formality that I'm tired enough to overlook.

The library is busy. Inside are pictures and mementos of the Olympics on display. I quickly brush past them and spend about a half hour getting my library card from the registration office. I head to the Manuscript Reading Room to request my manuscript: Cotton Otho A.xii: the burnt manuscript that once contained the Vita AElfredi (Life of King Alfred) that I'm studying for my dissertation. It takes another forty minutes to get the manuscript, but it's worth it. The thing is a destroyed relic. Each page of the restored Cotton Otho A.xii has been cut-out and the surviving pages of the manuscript have been stretched out and set in it so that each resembles a stained glass window: the damaged pages have turned slightly transluscent from handling or preservation. Some are completely charred, browned, and useless.

I have just over two hours to get my work done.

I request the British Library transcript of the life. This manuscript is is (B) Cotton Otho A.xii* - the shelfmark includes the asterisk, which confuses the lady at the desk to no end (in her defense, she says she never works in Manuscripts and has no idea what to do). This transcription was made for the British Library before the manuscript was destroyed, but whoever made it didn't really look at Matthew Parker's original transcription, and it reproduces several interpolations.

After my work, I take the tube to Piccadilly Circus, arriving circa five thirty...

It's insanity! Crowds of internationals fill the streets to the brim. Shoppers, stragglers and Olympic-goers, all of them lost, confused, drunk. Flags hang from lines strung between buildings. People pile into a local Tesco. At the corner where the Picadilly tube empties out are people perched on statues. I wandering around for a while looking for my hostel, trying to avoid the crowd (yeah, right) and I end up in Chinatown.

It's embarrassing how expensive food is in Piccadilly Circus. I wander for a while when I step into a pub, whose prices seem decent. The bar is packed with people, but I get up the nerve to ask whether they do food, and what kind. The bartender says they do, and that there is more room upstairs.

Upstairs? Something about this place seems familiar...

As soon as I get upstairs, it all makes sense. I've been here before! About a year ago, in August '11, Diana and I did a London excursion, and hung out with our friend Erik, a friend and colleague from University, and one of his friends, a local Londoner. The Londoner showed us around to a great Sushi place and then after to this bar in Piccadilly Circus. But that was a year ago and today I accidentally walk into the same bar without realizing I'd been here before.

Drinks are in order, I get a wit and sit!

My bed.

Later that evening, I find my hostel. The Piccadilly Backpacker's Hostel, just up the street from the tube station (it was much closer to it than I thought). The walls of the place are lined with kitsch graffitti: dragons, vaginal-shaped flowers, and a Chinese comic about a guy who loses his girlfriend. The Hostel is clean, but it has that male dormroom smell. After getting my room, fixing my bedsheets, and checking my laptop bag into the luggage room, I go exploring, I find that there are three bathrooms: a men's, a women's, and a unisex. Right. There's also an internet room - it sucks. And there's a common room with a pay-as-you-go foosball table

Anyway, I head out to a pub to get a beer (the one across the street, it charges me 4.60 for a pint of London Pride...). I drink my beer slooowly, so that I feel that I've paid for at least a seat in the place. When I return to the Hostel, I head to the Common Room and watch the Olympics with the rest of the crew. I never get to know anyone, but it's okay, they seemed boring, and young.

The view from my room at night.

The next day I check out of the hostel and head back to the British Library and finish some work on (B) Cotton Otho A.xii*. It's a tiresome job and I don't have much to say about it. Work was done. After I finish for the day, I head back to Piccadilly Circus and see if there's any souvenirs I should buy for people. I basically walk around Leicester Square for about two hours, grab some Thai food from a decently priced vendor, and then head back toward Victoria to catch the coach home.