Beyond the Hollywood Bubble!

Dear Juliet

I don't think my brain's doing very well today, so I thought I'd send you a few pictures from Merrie England?

Well, I Hope U Like:

Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. It's the largest artificial prehistoric mound in Europe, built about 2400 BC. Nobody knows what it's for as the guys who put it together didn't leave a handbook...

I've been past it several times. I first found it after being diverted from the M3 because some nut dropped nuclear waste on the carriageway. I had to navigate along the back roads by the seat of my pants, decided I'd try and find England's best-looking pub and came across the Waggon and Horses just behind it in Beckhampton:

Then there's Richard III... I went to a college get-together in Leicestershire, had a look round town first and found Richard's recently recreated resting place. As you know, they lost his bones for centuries and only rediscovered them in 2012-2013.

British Pathé made a movie about it called The Lost King, and it did strike a bit of a chord. In the film, Philippa Langley felt like she saw him, and I kind of know how that feels. However, "Richard" spoke and Dru never did...

Still, at least I kind of got her out of the car park...

Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon:

Statue and grave:

Alice in Wonderland's grave, Lyndhurst, Hampshire:

The Cherhill White Horse:

And Downton Abbey! Or rather, Highclere Castle. Note the young couple at the front:

One wet shot of Stonehenge...

And one dramatic photo from Brexit night!

Better not mention the unexploded World War Two bomb I nearly ran into...

Well, I hope you enjoyed it, Alice!

Actually, I based the origin of Dru's rhyming speech on Alice Through the Looking-Glass:

"She had murdered a child by a booksellers in Bloomsbury, and as she supped the blood unconcernedly from the girl’s jugular, her hands had inspected the child’s pockets with idle curiosity. Money could be useful, and she liked pretty little lockets.

This time, though, her hand happened upon a small book bound in blue buckram. Licking the arterial blood from her lips, she flicked through the pages ‘til her golden eye happened upon some verses she rather liked:

I sent a message to the fish:

I told them, ‘this is what I wish.’

The little fishes of the sea,

They sent an answer back to me…

Fish! She thought excitedly. Burning baby, fish swimming, she babbled to herself as she danced back to her family’s nest in Mayfair where Darla slapped her (not for the first time) and Angelus used her before sending her to bed for the day.

Despite her carelessness, the book stayed with her for a time, and sometimes after a kill she would scamper up to the roof of a house and by the light of the moon read about knights and pawns, chessboards and plum cake...

(Drusilla Revenant)

I suppose Alice Hargreaves would have been a bit bemused...

Anyway, there it is, "this royal throne of kings, this sceptr'd isle, this earth of majesty..."

Or, with reference to Los Angeles (see L.A. Story with Steve Martin), "this other Eden, demi-paradise, this precious stone set in the silver sea of this earth, this ground, this Los Angeles..."

It can be magical.

Love,

James