The Texas Book Depository

September 23rd.

I landed in Dallas after a six hour domestic leap-frog from Virginia.

It was 11:32am Dallas time, and we pulled straight into the Parking Lot beside Dealey Plaza.

I've watched the Oliver Stone movie JFK about 400 times, it's not a fantastic movie, mainly because it has Kevin Costner as the main role, but I usually have it on in the background when I'm doing something else.

The movie has several different scenes of Dealey Plaza, which has not been changed since the 60s.

So stepping out of the car really played with my brain, as I had seen every angle of the plaza from the movie without ever visiting Texas before.

The Texas Book Depository, which is now a museum, sits on the corner of the plaza. The museum is called the 6th floor museum, where you catch an elevator directly up to that floor and are given an audio tour of the building walking you though the political and personal life of JFK, the events of the fateful day in Dallas and the consequences and reactions of JFK's death.

I was a moving story and you see people, even people that were clearly born after 1963, crying and mournfully approaching the exhibit.

If you visit the exhibit and the square, it makes you realize that it was probably that the shots came from the Depository, but whether on purpose or not, it also questions what else happend.

Read to Children

Children are great, There aren't many more satisfying ways to start your week, than to go to a local school and read to a bunch of kids.

Our Assignment was to read to children, but I had accidently ended up volunteering to teach, or at least attempt to teach a group of kids how to use homophones.

It was the most terrifying 28 minutes of my life. I have to do presentations all the time at school in front of several classes, but nothing has scared me more than 

The only thing is I didn't know what a homophone was. I crashed out of English class when I was sixteen and I have not looked back since that day, so to get to terms with a bunch of terms that I had not heard since Elementary school was fairly tough.

So I winged it, figured it out before they knew I was stumbling and having no idea what to talk to them out.

Children are so much more aware than adults, anything at all that interests them will be pointed out to you immediately. They have far less restraints than adults and tend to ask far more questions than you do. They are still young and everything is new to them, so to stop the curiosity of a child will seriously damage their development later on in life.

That morning I learnt how nervous and shifted I can be when I am not only asked to present something, but actually pushed to leave an impression and attempt to have someone learn from me.

Bring out the Safety Car

A 1/3 mile oval of asphalt.

More cars than the downtown expressway at 8:46am

The Foundation of Nascar

This is Short Track Racing at Southside Speedway, Richmond, VA

I have breathed in more carsogens to last me the next twenty years

I could potentially drunk enough beer to take out a field of yeast.

My ears were assaulted to hell.

At least me teeth didn't rattle out everytime the car rolled by.

we are going back again, If you didn't go, you should come, at least if it's just for 15 minutes of repetitive crashes

Shakespeare Fast Forward

This week in Virginia,

I journeyed for the first time to Charlottesville to see a play which basically condensed everything written by Shakespeare into about an hour and a half of performance.

This means there's a lot of improv.

This means there's a 40 second version of Macbeth

and a lot of ridicule of traditional theatre. Good.

The basic format of the play was written a few years ago, and I remember it being a bit hit.

Since then it has reproduced and performed all over the place.

The production I saw was staged by a drama/acting college in Charlottesville by students.

The cast consists of just 3 actors and minimal props. The stage is really just a backdrop, one armchair was used briefly.

If you ever hear of this being done anywhere near you, just go, it'll be worth it.

Return to the Promised Land

The return to Richmond was supposed to be an anti-climax, a return to the normal.

It felt more like a time warp had erupted on the side of my brain.

I drove down from D.C. on a Tuesday morning, after 3 months of being out of the country I was happy to discover that the I-95 was still riddled with roadworks and bad drivers.

I was also relieved to see that my car worked after baking on a friend's drive all summer.

Interstates are the same wherever you go, they are a stretch of slightly bent and cracked highway rhythmically thumping away under the tires. You hit a gas station followed by a bridge over a valley with no decent view and the occasional phantom traffic jam, followed by a gas station.

Richmond became familiar just before I hit it. There is a junction for another highway just outside the city that I know very well. It is just another junction like the other 20 that I passed through Spotsylvania (I love that name) & Fredicksburg. Except I know every bend. My Brain got very confused by suddenly transitioning from 100 miles of dull highway to dull highway that was as familiar as the road I grew up on.

I went into autopilot and descended on the city that has only been changed by the roasting southern sun. Nothing was different.

Within 60 seconds of getting out of the car, someone from school drove by waving.

Gas prices

So people have spent most of this summer worrying about the rising price of a barrel of oil.

Seeing as it has dropped for the first time in short-term memory let us reflect upon it.

I find myself staring at the gas prices all the time, it seems to be the only drama allowed for my brain on the commute to work or school.

In the U.S. you pay close attention to gas prices, they have a certain foothold on your life. You find that is one those things that you look out for on your regular drive to work, your regular drive to 7/11 and your epic statewide journey to the mall. We rely on the car so much that these gas prices cause us to go on a hunt for the cheapest gas station, even it's only a cent less and involved a 3 mile detour, thankfully this means when I fill up my 16 gallon tank, it will save me 16 cents, just ignore the 3 mile detour.

In the U.K however it's a different story, first it's called petrol. Gas makes the oven work.

The price of petrol is currently around 1.16 pounds, but it's priced per litre, we like metric in europe.

There are 3.78 liters to the gallon and it's 2 dollars to the british pound at the moment, done the math yet?

That means the brits pay $8.78 per gallon

Think about that the next time gas crashes over $4 a gallon, or you visit California and cry at the west coast cost of gas.

(unless you already live there)

But the UK is not SUV land, we drive cars with 1.0 liter engines, most of my friends drive cars that have yet to exist in the U.S because of their size and that's if they drive at all. We have a tiny island to roam around on, so most people do not travel the distances that are possible in the U.S.

Most people who have a brain catch a bus, ride a train or even sometimes a plane.

Some people even ride a bike.

I didn't get a driver's license until I moved to Virginia, I was 22.

If I had not left London, I still wouldn't be behind the wheel of a car

The guy that asked for some Blog love

There's this guy I know back home on that small rain-infested island I come from.

His name was Ches**r. (His identity has been safely protected for purposes of future blackmail).

Ches**r is a lovely guy, when I first met him I thought he was an arrogant little whatsit, but most people look like that to me when I first meet them. He was tall, handsome and annoying. He was one of those kids that always has good skin, a smile that knocks people over, rides motorbikes and an abundance of happiness all round. I still thought he was a little shit. 

As time passed I got used to him, and eventually began to like him. It has been a long-standing trait of mine that the people that I befriend the closest start off as the opposite, so just watch out if I'm friendly to you from the start.

C**ster was the perfect example of this, however I strangely became a close friend of his when I found out he had a 70-acre farm with a swimming pool in Southern England.

Honestly though, it is rare that you meet such decent people.

it is worth noting that he surrounds himself with an equally decent group of people, except that dipshit Alex.

So on that note, here is your Long awaited Blog Love Che**er.

See you in a Month.

You'd better be counting down the days.

James