Life has been fairly uneventful here in Cambridge. I have mostly been working on my spy fever paper. I’ve read through a bunch of articles but I still need to go through and find more primary sources. I’ve found some pretty interesting stuff, though. For a previous class I had looked through Jock Haskell’s book on espionage and there was a paragraph in there that inspired me to write this paper. He said that the British thought it ungentlemanly to spy on your neighbors during peacetime so they didn’t really set up spy organizations till the First World War. So I wanted to look into the creation of those spy organizations. What I found was this was a severe over simplification. They actually started spy organizations about ten years before the First World War. Now that I think about it this of course makes much more sense. In the sources I’m looking through it talks about how ridiculously pitiful British attempts at spying were so now that I’ve thought about it, of course if you haven’t had a spy organization you will have a learning curve. It doesn’t make sense that they would suddenly have a decent spy organization when the First World War pops up with no precedent. It turns out there was a spy fever before the war in which the British were absolutely convinced that there were like 90,000 German spies throughout England all waiting to rise up and take over the country. Their spy organizations grew out of this fear. So anyways, that’s what I’m working on over here.
While I was writing this there was actually a fire drill. It was pretty scary. They have them periodically but they never warn you and it isn’t always clear if it is a drill or a real fire. The other day we were at tea and the fire alarm went off. We were really confused about whether it was real or not and whether we should evacuated or not. Anyways, with the one that just happened, the doors at the end of the hall which are normally open were automatically shut, I guess to help stop fire from spreading. Now, this did not lock the doors, but I have to admit it’s kind of scary to hear the fire alarms go off and see the doors through which you would run suddenly swing shut.
Last night I went to see Rhys Darby, a comedian from New Zealand, perform at the Corn Exchange. I had been walking around town and found signs saying he was coming to town for one night to do a stand up comedy show. I know him from playing Murray in Flight of the Conchords and basically everyone in Short Poppies, a mockumentary series in which he plays basically everyone in a small village in New Zealand which you can see on Netflix. I had posted on the study abroad facebook page inviting people to come with me, but no one had heard of him, so I went alone. It started off pretty weird. He came out in character as Bill Napier, the local park ranger in Short Poppies and that was quite fun, but then it got a bit odd. I guess in real life Rhys Darby discovered a pair of Cornish rappers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and decided to take them on tour with him, so then they came out and did 3-4 songs. One of them came out in his underwear and by the end of the set he was wearing even less underwear. Here is a link to see the music video of one of the better songs they did. The part I liked best about them though, was that apparently they did the theme song to Short Poppies so they played that and had the whole audience dance along with them. Anyways, after that, there was a brief intermission, after which the real show started. So that first bit was weird, but once the real show started it got really good. I’m always amazed at how stand ups can do a series of seemingly unrelated jokes that somehow tie together. One of my favorite bits was a story he was telling about his 8th birthday when he got lost in a maze at a fun park. He was wandering along lost when he saw a telephone on the wall. He picks it up and speaks with Jeffrey, the maze helpline guy. He becomes known as the cursing little boy because he is freaking out and lost. Later on in the bit he is told he needs to vacate the maze as the park is closing but he is lost and can’t find the exit. Eventually they put his mum on the phone and she tells him the other little boys just found a hole under the maze and got out that way. Something I found interesting was he tells a story about a strange hippie couple he met at Loch Ness who believed we were being watched by lizards and were going to be rescued by cats from outer space, which he clearly incorporated into a couple of characters from Short Poppies. After the show he was giving autographs and I was actually the first person in line. Which I think may have been a bad idea because I was very nervous, had verbal diarrhea, possibly insulted him by mistake, and then ran away. I tried to say that I like his work so much I came alone, but what came out was that I am a weirdo with no friends and that no one knows who he is. Yep.
My other adventures this week were fairly small. Some of the other girls said they were going to the Haunted Bookshop, and as I had not heard of it, I tagged along. Apparently at some point there was a little girl who lived there who had elephantitis. Her mom kept her locked up in her room and she died there. The shop is really tiny and filled with tons of old books. I found a bunch of old Doctor Who books in there but one of the other girls hit the jackpot. She found a first edition Tolkien book, The Treason of Isengard, which is one of the histories of Middle Earth. We were also informed this week that there would be a talent show towards the end of the program. I searched around town but did not find the equipment necessary for my talent. What I did find, however, was that the British don’t spend their time pondering Where’s Waldo? They instead opine as the location of Wally. Weird.
Tomorrow we are going on a trip to Warwick Castle and then on to Stratford upon Avon to see (I believe) Henry IV. We are going to dress up and get group pics in front of the castle. I’m pretty excited 🙂