Find that dappled dream of yours, come back and see me when you can

I'm back in Portland, after one last wet but wonderful day in London and a couple of cramped but uneventful and decent flights. I'm back, and things already feel like I never left, and I hate that. By the end of today the afterglow of "I was in Europe yesterday" has faded away, and now it just feels like I never really left. It's the house and the room and the people never changing that much, not having friends who just want to hear you tell stories about your trip, so on and so on. I know that I always sound terribly depressed whenever I talk about being home; the way I always describe it is that I suddenly have to sit in the backseat, which just feels wrong after spending all that time taking care of myself and getting out of some shitty situations. Last night when I got in dad asked me:

"So can you believe that it's over?"
"No," I said. "but I still can't believe that I got through everything, I mean, it was tough."
"Haha. Yeah." He mocked picking up a phone with his hand."'Mom, dad, can you put more money in the account pleeeeeeeeaaase?'"

Anyway, that's basically how things have gone so far, but it's only been a day. This weekend is the Rose Parade and the Ballet, and then mom's birthday. By next week I hope to have some prospects of a job. My goals for the summer so far are:

• Get a job
• Make money
• Save 90% of the money I make
• Write a novel
• Read Ulysses
• Find a good place to live in Vancouver
  

Pretty simple, huh? I think that I can manage most if not all of it, I'm getting more and more comfortable with the writing that I've done for the novel (tentative title: The Secret of the Clockwork Mouse) Here's what I have so far:

PART ONE

Chapter 1
Bridget in Atlantic City. Meets Michael. He tells her suchandsuch, magic is a lie, la la la.

BEGIN FLASHBACK ARC

Chapter 2
Three years earlier
Bridget at home in Missouri with family. Description of family life, etc.

Chapter 3
Two weeks later
Some sort of community event (dance? something like that) where she sits with Michael, hint hint he’s shallow. Hint hint so is her family. Michael gives her a book or something that he thought was “pretty”.

Chapter 4
Two days later
Reads book, it blows her mind, tries to explain it but no one gets it, first real solid inkling of wanderlust.

Chapter 5
One day later
Has a sort of existentialist breakdown, makes plans to leave Missouri.

Chapter 6
One week later
Leaves Missouri. Is awkward but determined. Stays in a couple towns, locations TBD

Chapter 7
One week later
Gets into Chicago, creepy hotel, finds Gimbal poster and enough money for a ticket, decides to go, goes and sits down. MEANWHILE, Gimbal gets all pissy about performing, thinks about his wife leaving him, et cetera.

Chapter 8
That day
Performance. She’s blown out of the water. Sneaks down to the front of the theatre to try and see the magic stuff. Gimbal takes a liking to her, decides to take her on as a road assistant since she has nothing to do. Bridget goes back to hotel, meets other guest and tells her about new career as a magician’s assistant.




Chapter 9
Two weeks later

On the road. Learning tricks. Shows a serious knack for illusions. Gimbal lets her on as an assistant, first show, big success, she’s found a place where she belongs, la la la.

Chapter 10
Three months later

A few months later, she and Gimbal are BFFs, though he seems suspicious of her. She is probably falling in love with him, more or less. Tour has moved to Atlantic City, Gimbal gets a contract to play a show there every night for a month. A few days into the show a clockwork mouse breaks, he gives it to Bridget to fix. She does, and the next day he is gone. The theatre manager says that she will have to complete Gimbal’s performances, or else the company will owe everything back to the theatre. She does, and of course it’s spectacular.

END FLASHBACK ARC

PART TWO

Chapter 11
Two and a half years later

With Michael gone after saying that magic sucks, Bridget is totally bummed. She is up on her extended contract, so she closes the show and saves the money, while getting odd jobs on the boardwalk, like working at a soda fountain. Spends her extra time trying to figure out magic tricks without the aid of props. Notices cute blonde girl (May) sitting outside the Psychic booth across from the soda fountain.

Chapter 12
Two months later

Rainy day, May comes in to the soda fountain. She and Bridget get to talking. She reveals how she’s too scared to know her fortune but she still wants to find out anyway, she was a former winner of the Miss America contest a year back but has fallen into obscurity and stayed on the boardwalk anyway. More magic practice.

Chapter 13
Five days later

More flirting, more magic practice. Bridget has been trying to stay awake in order to make her unconscious more active in her conscious life (she doesn’t say it that way though). The girls go out to dinner and get cozy, there’s a kiss before Bridget passes out from exhaustion.

Chapter 14
The next day

Bridget wakes up in May’s room. Awkwardness followed by making up, just-being-friends attitude. Bridget thinks that she has enough to start rehearsing a stage show. May confesses about her financial woes to Bridget, and Bridget decides to let her stay in the guest room of her apartment.

Chapter 15
Three weeks later

Couple weeks later. Still working on magic act, quits soda fountain job and May takes her place there. They are living pretty cozily, though still just friends. MEANWHILE May finally gives in to her curiosity and goes to see the psychic. The old woman gives her a reading and tells her about her fear, lack of self-esteem, and says that it is all caused by a blockage to her heart (she doesn’t say it that way though). May comes home a bit half-crazed and shaken by the reading, Bridget comforts her and they just end up, well, you know.

Chapter 16
One month later

Happy couple-time! Though they don’t think of themselves as a couple. La la la, they’re still happy and all so that’s good. Bridget is ready for the magic act, and May is eager to be an assistant. So they rehearse a bit and everything seems to go fine. May keeps going back to the psychic, but doesn’t tell anyone what she hears there, though the readings seem to disturb her slightly.

Chapter 17
The next day

First performance of new show. Blows people away, but Bridget loses control of herself, accidentally setting the stage on fire and nearly killing May. May gets put in the hospital and then comes home, does not blame Bridget but still seems shaken by the event. Bridget, totally obsessed with her own guilt and disturbed by her own ability, leaves in the middle of the night.

PART THREE

Chapters 18-23
The next six months

Letters organized by month from Bridget to May. Describe the places that that she visits, the people she encounters, and especially the revelations that she finds and the new acts of magic that she is able to perform. Letters get more and more lovery-dovey emotional and confused and less logical and straightforward as time goes on, but not too much yet...these first five months are still mostly dominated by reason.

Chapter 24
A few days after the last letter

Returns to Missouri. Her family is overjoyed to see her, and don’t seem to be angry at her for leaving, especially since she has found her own success. She meets Michael again and he doesn’t realize even when she tells him just what an impact he has made to her life. He is only a few days away from getting married, so her family insist that she stay for the wedding.

Chapter 25
Three days later

Bridget has spent the last couple days trying to reconnect with home and she can’t really do that. She opts to leave in the middle of the night before the wedding so that she won’t get stuck. Her father finds her about to leave and tells her how hard it actually was for them the first time, and that it was wrong of her to leave them. However he does not object to her leaving this time, and they have a generally loving father-daughter moment before she goes off.

Chapters 26-28
The next three months

More letters from Bridget to May, explaining her reactions to the family visit. The letters are more manic, more emotionally written. Bridget begins to convey a real sense of love for May, and expresses how much she misses her and how wrong she feels in leaving. The magic becomes bigger and more abstract, suggesting that Bridget’s abilities go beyond the simple manipulations she thought she could do.

Chapter 29
The day after the last letter

In Las Vegas, Bridget finds a man fallen in the gutter, drunk and ill. When she realizes that it is Gimbal, she takes him to the hospital and then rents him a room to rest in. He explains to her how he lost most of his money, became alcoholic, got arrested for attacking his ex-wife’s husband. Explains more about their relationship before the divorce, how she was an assistant that cheated and left him.

Chapter 30
One week later

In taking care of Gimbal, Bridget has rekindled her affection towards him. Though he is still not well, he seems happy to see her. Finally, she asks him why he left. He replied that he was both afraid of her abilities and wanted her to have opportunities for herself without the influence of another magician. He explains how what she does isn’t illusions, but real honest-to-god magic, because she thinks that it is real and that somehow makes it real. He proves this by showing her the clockwork mouse that she fixed all those years ago. The inside of the mouse is still in shambles and doesn’t seems to be capable of working, and yet the mouse works better than any of the clockwork ones. He admits that he has always loved her, but that he also supports her relationship with May, and tells Bridget that she should go back to her. A few days later he is dead.

Chapter 31
Two days later

After sorting out Gimbal’s affairs, Bridget writes one letter to May, declaring that she is finally going to Los Angeles, but that she wants to come back to Atlantic City as soon as she has visited LA, but only if May will let her come back. She begs forgiveness, summarizes her trip and her meeting with Gimbal, explains how she feels about May.

PART FOUR

Chapter 32
One week later

Bridget arrives in LA. Finds place to stay. Should echo her first day in Chicago, though now she is more worldly. Gets a hotel room, wanders around, sees the Jazz Singer, explores around the studios, hears the name Mary Camden thrown around as she is apparently a former beauty queen and a new starlet. At the hotel she learns that a woman had come to see her, but did not leave a name, just a message asking her to stay in her room in the earlier parts of the next day.

Chapter 33
The next day

Bridget waits as per instruction. The woman who shows up is May, who moved to LA ahead of Bridget, knowing that she was going to be going there, and had her mail forwarded from Atlantic City. She did not get the last letter about Gimbal yet, so Bridget tells her, and May is at first cool with her, but then forgives her, though their relationship seems platonic at this point. MEANWHILE May goes back to her new Beverly Hills home and reads the Tarot cards that the psychic woman gave her when she left Atlantic City.

Chapter 34
Three days later

Bridget and May go out to lunch while she is shooting her new film. May suggests that Bridget use her skills in motion pictures in order to create special effects. Bridget explains in more detail to May just what she is capable of. May seems interested but also concerned for Bridget, and is secretly afraid that Bridget’s obsession about controlling her abilities is nothing more than an excuse to not stay in one place at a time.

Chapter 35
One week later

Bridget has her audition at the studio, after rehearsing her “effects” for the past week to make sure that they will be safe and work in a studio. The studio heads are stunned by what she can do, and offer a handsome paycheck, with the exception that she will be credited under a pseudonym, Herman Waite (Gimbal’s real name). Bridget and May go out to celebrate Bridget’s success, and spend the night together. Two days later, Bridget moves into May’s apartment.

Chapter 36
Three months later

Bridget is living happily, occupied both with her new job at the studio and her newly renewed relationship. She still practices the magic privately, but is no longer intimidated by it. She seems to have influence over most of the elements around her. MEANWHILE, pressure from the studio department forces to May to lie somewhat about her relationship with Bridget, and to create a pseudo-romance with her current co-star.

Chapter 37
Two months later

Bridget is still kept busy, but is feeling jealous of May’s co-star, especially since publicity seems to require him to come over to their house often, as well as be at every event or dinner that they attend. Bridget asks May if her getting her own house would help to ease the pressure from publicity, to which May reluctantly agrees. Bridget buys a house down the street from May’s. The two discuss how, when May’s contract expires in a few months, they could find a few investors and executives in order to fund their own studio that would exclusively feature Bridget’s effects.

Chapter 38
Three months later

The two women have found a few backers for their studio, and have scouted out locations for it in Beverly Hills. On the eve of May’s contract expiring and the night of the wrap party for the film that her and her fake boyfriend starred in together, Bridget has a crisis of conscience. She goes to May’s house and when she’s not there, Bridget waits for her to come back by randomly setting out the deck of tarot cards that May keeps on her table. The results seem to show that she is destined to be alone, so she panics and goes home to pack her things for another journey.

Chapter 39
The next day

May, having figured that Bridget was at her house the night before, confronts Bridget just as she is finishing her preparations for leaving. She begs Bridget to stay, but Bridget refuses, saying that her magic is still too dangerous to fund an entire studio for, that May would be happier with her fake boyfriend, that her life would be easier if Bridget wasn’t an active part of it, and that she is destined to be alone. May replies by bluntly declaring her love for Bridget, and that she can only be destined to be alone if she allows herself to. Bridget replies that her feelings are the same, but that she is still to worried about herself to be with someone. May replies that she’s staying with her anyway. The two agree to go to Europe or something for a few months while the studio is being constructed.


Next thing to do is character summaries! Then fleshing out the chapters. Those letters are gonna be hard to write.

All these things I say to you, all these things I say are true

I think that's in a Coldplay song. It fucking sounds like Coldplay and it might not even be in a song, but whatever.

I haven't posted enough about how generally beyond shitty many of the experiences in Norwich were for this semester, probably because the posts would have been full of expletives and I would end up punching the computer.

So I'll let this real survey from UEA Accomidation do the talking, along with the answers that I wrote out for them:



If you called the accomidation office, why did you need to come and see us?

I along with one of the other residents in MCC went to ask about the incident of a non-resident gaining entrance to the flat and abusing the utilities, which made the residents feel unsafe. We had to go into the accomidations office because we were not informed of how the issue was resolved and were still feeling insecure.

Did you feel that your query was dealt with to your satisfaction?

No

Please detail why you felt this.

We were patronized by the people in the security office and told that our worrying was nothing more than 'fear mongering', and then informed that they did not have the manpower to simply leave a message of some kind in the flat telling us that we were safe and that the situation was being dealt with.

Do you have any other comments about the services offered by the Accommodation Office?

I booked my reservation for my flight to England from the United States three months before departure, since I was operating on a budget and that was the best time to get those tickets. A few weeks before my departure I was told that I needed to be at the office to pick up my key at or before 5 PM on the day that I got in (Friday), or else I would have to book a room in a hotel for that evening, at my own expense of course. With the type of ticket that I had bought there was no way of getting a flight into London any earlier on that day. I arrived in London at 11 AM on Friday, and had to rush to get to UEA on time, the entire process being incredibly stressful and difficult to manage, especially for someone who had never been in the country before. I literally got to the office at one minute before it closed, and from that point on was apparently entrusted to find my way there and manage the moving-in process. I was never told that there was no internet in the dormitory, and because it was Friday I was unable to get online until Monday afternoon, and though I understand that there is a good reason for registering for internet, an initial warning of the lack of immediate service upon moving in would have been helpful. Also, not having a liason from the housing office available at MCC during all hours (save for the housekeeper who was only there for a few hours each weekday) was in my opinion unacceptable and probably contributed to the insecure conditions of the apartment, since not only did the one incident of break-in occur, but two weeks beforehand another woman who was not a resident had somehow gotten into the flat and set a pile of phonebooks on fire under the stairwell. That there is not a front desk system or a nearby security office from the University for Mary Chapman Court makes it an unsafe situation, and though I personally think that residents and students should be treated with respect as they are adults, this should not be viewed as a sort of abandonment by the University (with the exception of the cleaning staff) that compromises our safety and general welfare.

Please can you detail in the box below the things that you liked most about your UEA Accommodation

I appreciated having a housekeeper to help with the general state of things in the kitchen and in the bathrooms, and the location in the city center was a good way to get to know my host city while on my exchange.

In the box below can you tell us the things you would most like to change about your UEA Accommodation.

Having a front desk service or any sort of 24-hour assistance on the site of the dorm itself is necessary for the well-being of its residents. Even in private apartment complexes, there are building supervisors and superintendants and a front desk that is on call to help with any sort of service or security issues. The fact that this was only immediately available to us on certain hours of the weekday is a serious problem, and a safety and health hazard.

If you have any other comments about your Accommodation this year please can you detail them below.

The presence of mildew and rust stains in the bathroom is unacceptable. Mary Chapman Court itself is almost depressingly decorated, we don't even get proper walls, just painted brick, the washing machines left holes in my clothing, the showers were easily clogged, the beds were small and uncomfortable, and the radiators were turned off without residents being informed and, in several of the dorms, the entire heating system would break, in the middle of winter. Also, the system of 'if you lose a key you have to go to campus security (a 30-minute bus ride) and pay a £20 fee to get a new house key is unfair and unreasonable.


I'm in a little place called Stevenage right now, staying with Amanda's relatives, and I swear it's like I died and went to heaven by comparison to all that crap.

Retour

I'm in Paris again. And I'm leaving tomorrow to go back to England.

I know that that seems like a completely lackluster pair of sentences. Fact is that I'm in the middle of a lackluster trip, part not having enough time to enjoy the things I want to enjoy, part remembering all the reasons why not traveling a lot with my family is, well, a good thing, and part straight up repetition. One day I'll come to Paris and not be required to go to the Louvre; I really don't think that visiting it every time is worth the nine Euro. Truth is it's just too damn big, and too damn hard to get around in. And the crowds are hell.

My family took me going to England as a perfect excuse for them to go abroad as well, which has, at the moment at least, resulted in me having to listen to two people snore at the same time. You would think that they would find some somnambulistic way of synchronizing. My brother, who is 14, is sharing the room with me, and he prefers to sleep on his back, with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, and he snores with such conviction that either he has a breathing problem, or he dreams of being Laurence Olivier. My father on the other hand sleeps in the other room, above the covers, and his snores are accompanied by clicks with each in and exhale. I know these things because I have traveled with my family before. And I don't sleep very often when I do, you see, I'm a sensitive person when it comes to noise; anything dissonant or continuous (say, a car alarm or the ticking of a clock) is bound to keep me awake until I stubbornly fall asleep, most likely with a frown and crossed arms. And of course I'm sick of doing the whole faily schtick, the hypocritical gesture of being old enough to drive, drink, vote, pay taxes, and keep a job, and yet every summer be forced into the back seat, given a list of chores, curfews, and the pidgeonholing action of making me try to sleep within ten meters of my brother. I love him, I do, but ever since he was four his sleeping habits have been a problem for my sleeping preferences (when he was a kid he insisted that we left the bathroom light on in the hotel room(s) as a nite-light, interfering with another one of my sleeping requirements: darkness), and the more I live on my own, the more pissed getting stuck with him makes me; of course I can't afford my own room, but there must be something to be done. Some sympathy for me not getting sleep would help, which for my mother is just me being dumb and stubborn, and why-not-just-get-earplugs.

So there's that, and then there's the day-to-day life of Brennan Family Travel: my father not being interested in what's significant around us (PARIS) and going on and on about his job that I know all about, my brother not really caring too much one way or the other, and my mother berating everyone else's decisions or ideas if they conflict at all with her's. You should have seen them trying to conduct a car in Britain. Good grief.

So other than that, I spent hardly enough time around my favorite pieces of art in Musee d'Orsay and didn't even get a chance to see Cupid and Psyche in the Louvre, the Opera Garnier was closed, and what hit me the worst, I only got a few minutes in the upper chapel of Sainte Chapelle, because everyone else had "seen enough" and was "about ready to get going", after spending about ten minutes looking at some of the most beautiful stained glass in the world. And I don't even want to start on how everything I tried to say in regard to the art, or museums, or Parisian things in general was either shot down via rolled eyes or completely ignored.

Oh, and I got almost-heat stroke dehydration in the Louvre and blacked out in the entrance hall, then spent forty minuted lying on a cot in the infirm, trying to explain the nurse that I have cramps from hell in French. "J'ai de al mentration....je souffre."

Oh, and the apartment we rented has mildew and roaches.

Good rant post, Meg. Good think I'll be home tomorrow to amend this.

Reading on Easy Street

I can't always stick my nose into the heavier volumes of classical literature. Really, I would like to think of myself as one of those "only the classics" types, but every now and then it's good to find a novel and spend a couple nights with less intense fare. It's the same with everything else, really: you could try to live a life watching Bergman films, having dinners of roasted vegetables and merlot, but ever now and then you need to just eat a burger, watch The Mummy, and drink a beer.

So I needed a literature break, if you will. After all, I had just finished re-reading House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (it's still fantastic), and was deciding between finishing Paradise Lost or starting Goethe's Faust. The second part of that sentence alone should make you roll your eyes, or maybe even throw up. Anyway, I was a bit sick of things that required analyzing. So I went to the library and grabbed two books: Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

In theory, the two books should go hand in hand, and are a good companion to the last "light reading" type novel that I read, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Though of course neither come close to Chabon's prose or his story, at least Carter Beats The Devil proved itself to be a satisfying lead, despite a penchant for swashbuckling. Water for Elephants is promising, but falls flat at the end, victim of its own predictability.

Carter Beats The Devil is a very fictional retelling of the life of Charles Carter, one of the more well known magicians of the early 1900s through the 1920s. Though the story does not necessarily pull any new or fantastic plot turns and twists, the vibrancy of it, especially in the world of early 20s San Francisco that Gold paints. In truth, it does almost everything that a good story does; it gives us a hero, a villain, a cast of familiar characters, a love interest, and just enough of a plot twist at the end to leave us impressed and satisfied. Gold's prose is impressive, and though at times he seems to lose direction, the novel's second act is a well-paced mystery-thriller. That, and Gold seems to have such a fine understanding of stage magic and its application, that we are given just the treatment that the audiences back then got: we are both amazed by the effect and impressed by its secrets. The final magic spectacle, where Carter indeed does beat the devil (here in the form of a vengeful and psycopathic rival magician) made the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I imagined seeing it in the theatre. This is a perfect beach or rainy day read, and should only take a few days. Still, if you have nothing else to do, give it a go, it's bound to entertain.

Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants is also a story about entertainers, but instead of creating the mystery and intrigue that it seems to promise (or that any story about circuses in the Great Depression would (think Carnivàle)), ends up being a sappy love story, with colorful images that, unfortunately, don't have enough space to hold the novel up. The story is told as a memory, an old man named Jacob Jankowski remembering his early days working for the circus during the 1930s. Jacob himself is an almost nauseatingly good guy, and his altruism and style of talking ("It's hard to conceive of such evil.") make him seem like an unbelievably flawless character. The "incredible odds" which Jacob and the horse trainer, Marlena, need to overcome are hardly so; and the last few chapters involve nearly everything falling into place so easily that you have to wonder if there was really any struggle at all. The book has so many elements in it that would give it strength, but in the end it all seems thrown away. Certainly it's not a short book, over 300 pages long, but in the end I wanted an expansion of everything--time, place, descriptions of locations and minor characters. Instead, the more colorful elements of the story are rushed through for the sake (I suppose) of Plot. And though Gruen seems to have a pretty good idea of what she's talking about, and the era seems well researched and understood, it's still slightly off, or off-tempo; so she's playing the right tune, but there's something not quite enjoyable about it. Of course, if what you want is total escapism, well, go for it. But in my opinion, if it weren't for the sex, you could do a book report on it in 7th grade.



Now that those two books are over, I have a couple more lined up to read: there's a collection of essays on medieval bestiaries, jung, more folktale books, and, of course, the ever-present Paradise Lost, which I keep coming back to and leaving all over again. It's all right though, it forgives me every time.

Harry Potter's Secretary Files Picture Show, in 3D

Here's my latest Celebrity Look-Alikes, courtesy of the magnanimous time-waster, Hy Heritage.

Personally, I laughed my very famous looking face off.

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

Yup, J.K Rowling, James Spader, Gillian Anderson, and Susan Sarandon. Not shown: Lance Bass?!

untitled, start of something, etc.

One by one the lights in the house go out, until it joins the blue-green darkness of the street. There are houses all around it, identical every one; stucco walls of white or peach, spanich tile roofs, two stories, two cars in the driveway. Moths and flies whirr around the streetlamps. A warm breeze goes by, and the nails that hold the plastic mailboxes to their posts creak.

Behind the row of houses there is a small but deep pond, used to catch all the dirty water and pesticides that the once-a-week landscaping men spray over the grass and the flowers and the privets. Still there is life in the pond, a few dozen catfish and sunfish that the children like to catch. They must always throw them back, though, since their parents say that even though the fish are alive, their lives are poisoned, and not fit for eating. Minnows breed freely, and frogs wait patiently for dragonflies on the algae-covered edges of the water.

There is a girl that lives in the house (her's was the last light to be turned off), and every night before going to sleep she looks out her window at the pond. She is seven years old. The pond reflects the moon grey and the palm trees black. A few ripples run along the surface. She watches them all intently, for she is waiting for the ripple that will mean that She is coming out of the pond.

She knows that the woman will wait until all is silent and all the lights are turned off in the neighborhood. Right now, it is one o'clock in the morning. The girl holds her breath, looking out the window and not moving, not wanting to scare the woman. A fish jumps and the girl gasps. A frog croaks, she presses her hand and nose to the window.

So I'm leaving

For France. In four hours. Or actually, I'm leaving in three hours, because the bus departs at 6, so we don't want to risk missing it.

It's been a weird and possibly impossible last few weeks for me lately, for reasons I do and don't understand and I would rather just, well, not discuss. But I can say that there's been the usual crap: my roommates and their constantly loud and obnoxious habits, the country charging me the equivalent of eight dollars for a cup of coffee, the city being so dull, and so empty, the school being nothing better than AP high school level.

But the school can sit here and get nothing done, and my roommates can scream their heads off, and the sirens can keep going on and on in Norwich all night, and I'll be in Paris. And Munich. And Vienna. And Provence. And Mont St Michel. So it's good by me.