and the uni­ver­si­ty search continues…

Sigh of exhaustion.

We are safe­ly home from our week­end excur­sion to Uni­ver­si­ties Two and Three: Birm­ing­ham and New­cas­tle.  Our feet are tired, our heads full of ques­tions, answers, pos­si­bil­i­ties, new horizons.

On Fri­day morn­ing we went our sep­a­rate ways: Avery to a last-minute day of “work expe­ri­ence” at a jour­nal­is­tic endeav­our of some kind in the City, and John and me to the train sta­tion to begin the long jour­ney north to Birm­ing­ham, and its great uni­ver­si­ty.  Train jour­neys in the UK are a dream come true, at least for an Amer­i­can used to the shab­by, neglect­ed cor­ri­dors of the NY-NJ-PA-DC adven­ture.  When I was in New Jer­sey recent­ly, I was alter­nate­ly charmed and a bit sad­dened by the extreme­ly old-fash­ioned trains of New Jer­sey Tran­sit.  Scuffed, tired and cramped, the trains felt as if they had­n’t been touched since the Eisen­how­er administration.

The Vir­gin, Cross-Coun­try and East-Coast train ser­vices of Eng­land, on the oth­er hand, are very plushy, full of Wi-Fi and refresh­ments, and near­ly always on time.  The con­duc­tor apol­o­gis­es for a five-minute delay!

We climbed aboard and very short­ly were speed­ing north­ward through sheepy fields and lit­tle vil­lages, each equipped with a lit­tle stone church.  Nat­u­ral­ly I won­dered about bells.

Some three hours lat­er we emerged at Birm­ing­ham, to take anoth­er short train jour­ney to the Uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus itself.

What a clock­tow­er!  It’s said that a Lon­don dou­ble-deck­er bus could fit across the face of the clock, and I was ready to believe it.

We got our­selves a seat at the his­to­ry depart­men­t’s lec­ture and were informed about the admis­sions stan­dards, the plans for stu­dents who plan a joint ven­ture in his­to­ry and pol­i­tics, as Avery does.  We felt a bit odd sit­ting there with no child, the norm being lots and lots of kids with no par­ents.  This was a real depar­ture from our Edin­burgh expe­ri­ence, where there was a much more ark-like expe­ri­ence of par­ents and chil­dren being paired off.

On the out­side wall of the human­i­ties build­ing we found this pre­cious plaque.

David Lodge is one of my absolute favorite nov­el­ists, if you want to make an intel­lec­tu­al effort.  My most often-reread of his books is “Nice Work,” a love­ly post­mod­ern fol­ly in which a snob­by lit­er­a­ture pro­fes­sor and a mid-lev­el engi­neer­ing exec­u­tive dip into each oth­er’s lives.  Very 1990s Eng­land; you’ll love it.  Read­ing his books always takes me back to the inno­cent days of grad­u­ate school, when read­ing about the dai­ly life of a pro­fes­sor was just about the most awe­some thing I could imag­ine.  And Louis Mac­Ne­ice: look no fur­ther for intel­li­gence, melan­choly and wit in poet­ry of the 1930s.

“Sep­tem­ber has come, it is hers
Whose vital­i­ty leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees with­out leaves and a fire in the fireplace.
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has ren­dered already
So many of its days intol­er­a­ble or perplexed
But so many more so happy.
Who has left a scent on my life, and left my walls
Danc­ing over and over with her shadow
Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls
And all of Lon­don lit­tered with remem­bered kisses.” 
(Autumn Jour­nal, 1938)

It was a bit thrilling to walk in Lodge’s and Mac­Ne­ice’s footsteps.

We nobly resist­ed a sausage sand­wich from the Par­sons Nose butcher’s stand (sigh, that was real­ly tempt­ing) and opt­ed instead for a rather wor­thy and dull falafel wrap.  (We planned to make it up at a lus­cious din­ner, and we did.)  Thence to the pol­i­tics lec­ture, and this Scot­tish pro­fes­sor was worth the price of admis­sion.  “Wel­come to Birm­ing­ham, where I’ve been teach­ing for 19 years.  So excuse any sil­ly things I might say on the grounds that I’m hav­ing a wee bit of a midlife crisis.”

“Did you know we have the tallest free-stand­ing clock­tow­er in the world?” (I can­not con­vey the num­ber of Rs that could be fit­ted by this Scot into “wor­rrrrld.”)  “Of course, free-stand­ing clock­tow­ers are rather rare.  In fact, there might be only two.  But if there are, ours is the tallest!”

He led us into a mer­ry dis­cus­sion about the num­ber of Brits who are mem­bers of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty (100,000), ver­sus the num­ber who are mem­bers of the Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (1,000,000), as well as an analy­sis of the new ways that polit­i­cal views are mak­ing them­selves known: social media, rev­o­lu­tions.  He was a charmer.

We decid­ed to take the train back into the city and explore a bit, since it’s real­ly impor­tant to Avery that her uni­ver­si­ty expe­ri­ence feel like a city.  The city might be too far away, in this case.  But it does have Europe’s most expen­sive library, recent­ly refur­bished to the tune of £189 million.

We mean­dered in and liked the inte­ri­or much better.

I can­not get over how aca­d­e­m­ic libraries have changed since I was last in one!  Com­put­ers every­where, Wi-Fi hookups, check­outs by swip­ing a card.  But still the smell of books, which made me happy.

The nicest thing about the Birm­ing­ham Library is its Shake­speare Memo­r­i­al Library, res­cued from an old Cen­tral Library and stored away until it was ready to be installed as the cen­ter­piece of the new Library, to be opened with cer­e­mo­ny in 2013.

It’s sim­ply love­ly, with obscure books and ephemera that would make any schol­ar of the Bard smile.

Hav­ing a bit of time to kill before din­ner time, we sat at the huge win­dows, read­ing and star­ing out at the passers­by below.  I became quite enam­ored of this love­ly cou­ple, who exe­cut­ed a very fun­ny mod­ern dance: now entwined kiss­ing and hug­ging adorable, then to break apart as if at a silent com­mand, to check their phones.

Final­ly it was time for din­ner, and Birm­ing­ham is famous for its cur­ries, as befits a city with a large Indi­an and Pak­istani immi­grant com­mu­ni­ty.  John had found a real gem for us, up a dingy flight of stairs in a neigh­bor­hood oth­er­wise remark­able only for the num­ber of book­ies and nail salons.  The Roy­al Ben­gal lived up to its reputation.

We feast­ed on duck jal­frazi, hot, com­plex and spicy.

And then saag paneer, lus­cious with spinach and Indi­an cot­tage cheese.

I shall be exper­i­ment­ing with these two dish­es tonight in my very own kitchen, and will report on my suc­cess or lack there­of.  Typ­i­cal­ly my results with Indi­an dish­es are… fine.  Not mag­i­cal, but fine.  I’ll do my very best.

Sat­ed and hap­py, rem­i­nisc­ing about every bite as we walked briskly along, we made our way to the train sta­tion and board­ed for the long jour­ney across coun­try to New­cas­tle, to meet Avery, who had made the trip from Lon­don that after­noon, com­plet­ing our tri­an­gle over Eng­land.  Our taxi sped us through the dra­mat­i­cal­ly lit streets of New­cas­tle, pass­ing jol­ly bar after jol­ly restau­rant, spilling over with hap­py peo­ple, the ancient archi­tec­ture smil­ing down on the crowds.  How cosy the Kens­ing­ton Hotel was when we arrived.

It was sim­ply heav­en to have her open the door to our suite to us, to show us around, and to sink down on the sofa with hot choco­late for her and a most wel­come Scotch for us, to share the details of our sep­a­rate days.  She had loved her jour­nal­ism out­ing, and described her head­line-writ­ing activ­i­ties with gus­to.  We in turn tried to con­vey our excite­ment at hav­ing seen the world’s tallest free-stand­ing clocktower.

Every­one fell into bed in that gor­geous hotel suite, very hap­py to be back together.

And up in the morn­ing to grab a bowl of cere­al and head to New­cas­tle Uni­ver­si­ty!  An extreme­ly tempt­ing choice, we all agree.

We walked, walked, walked, from the his­to­ry lec­ture (an impres­sive but warm pre­sen­ta­tion by the Latin Amer­i­can spe­cial­ist and his top two stu­dents, most inspir­ing), then a quick lunch under gen­tly spit­ty grey skies.  We took in the local col­or, includ­ing a most charm­ing dis­play of Banksy-like creativity.

John and Avery looked away as I embar­rassed us all by tak­ing pho­tos, but I did­n’t care.  Some­one had to doc­u­ment the love­ly sights of Newcastle.

Then the pol­i­tics lec­ture (dis­cus­sions of who is the most pow­er­ful per­son who was present at the recent G7 meet­ing, and did you know that the lead­ers sim­ply dis­in­vit­ed Putin, tak­ing the meet­ing from the G8 to the G7?), by the head of the depart­ment, who assured us that stu­dent sat­is­fac­tion in pol­i­tics was upwards of 95%.  We could def­i­nite­ly pic­ture Avery there, in class­rooms and build­ings that remind­ed us all of her cur­rent, beloved school, a 1904 gem.

Off to explore New­cas­tle itself, with a trip to the local Black­wells for a bag of heavy books (because what we all need­ed was more to car­ry), and a vis­it to the local duck pond.

We popped into the Library, because one can’t not pop into a library, and look what we found on the art his­to­ry shelves.

That was fun to find.

With tired feet and heads full of ideas, we sat down weari­ly at quite the most charm­ing tea­room imag­in­able, Quil­liam Broth­ers, for a love­ly cup of tea, and a duo of brown­ies: caramel and peanut but­ter.  Even I, who has no sweet tooth, could appre­ci­ate the delec­table­ness.  I can see Avery pop­ping in there of an after­noon in her fresh­man year, col­laps­ing with her books for a spot of something.

Final­ly it was to the train sta­tion, which is a love­ly place in and of itself.

Near­ly five hours lat­er, after the train, the tube, anoth­er train and a walk, we were home.  We col­lapsed with fatigue, sur­round­ed by cats, and hap­pi­ly tucked into the left­overs of the piz­za I’d made before we left on our jour­ney.  There is sim­ply noth­ing like home­made piz­za.  It’s the crust, really.

Home­made Piz­za With Moz­zarel­la, Mush­rooms, Red Onions, Hot Pep­pers, Black Olives and Sausage (arugu­la optional)

(dough makes 4 piz­zas, top­pings make 1 which will serve 2 people)

DOUGH:

500 grams/18 ounces plain flour

1 packet/2tsps dried yeast granules

1 tbsp Ital­ian seasoning

1 tsp each: onion pow­der, gar­lic powder

250 grams/9 ounces warm water

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp milk

SAUCE:

1 soup-size tin of plum tomatoes

hand­ful basil

1 tsp each: gar­lic salt, gar­lic pow­der, onion powder

TOP­PINGS:

250 grams/1/2 pound-ish grat­ed moz­zarel­la cheese

8 brown mush­rooms, sliced

1/2 red onion, sliced thin

2 small hot green pep­pers, sliced

hand­ful black oil-cured olives, pitted

4 pork sausages, cooked and sliced

hand­ful grat­ed Parmesan

driz­zle truf­fled olive oil

arugu­la leaves, if wanted

In a very large bowl, mix togeth­er with a fork all the dry ingre­di­ents, then mix the water, oil and milk and pour it onto the dry stuff.  Mix with a fork and then your hands, bring­ing togeth­er all the bits of flour.  If you need a bit more water, just add it in sprin­kles.  When the dough hangs togeth­er and has incor­po­rat­ed all the flour, knead it gen­tly with the ball of your hand, this way and that, turn­ing and squish­ing, until it is a fine smooth blob.  Use the dough imme­di­ate­ly, or if you have time, let it rise in a warm place, cov­ered, for an hour, then punch it down.  This dough works either way.

Put the toma­toes, basil and sea­son­ings in the food proces­sor and pulse till smooth.

Place your piz­za stone in your very hot (220C/425F) oven for at least half an hour before the dough is ready.  Now pinch off about 1/4 of the dough and cov­er your clean coun­ter­top with flour, as well as your hands, and the ball of dough, and your rolling pin.  Roll the dough out, flour­ing lib­er­al­ly on top and under­neath, until it is the size of your piz­za stone.  Take the stone from the oven, place the dough on it and bake for about 10 min­utes or until thor­ough­ly dry and a bit crisp.

Spoon on toma­to sauce.  Pile on your top­pings as even­ly as pos­si­ble.  Driz­zle the olive oil over all and bake again until cheese is a bit melty, per­haps anoth­er 8–10 minutes.

************

It was Sat­ur­day night.  The sun final­ly set on our weari­some, inspir­ing, future-look­ing adven­ture.  There is much to think about.  Next up, this week: Oxford!  Don’t miss it.