Exploring the Island-6/15/08

Fun British Word of the Day-Crusty Dragon-A booger, but not just any as it must be completely dried out...I can't even type this without laughing....no example needed I'll presume

I didn't take one of these pictures. I bet you can't guess which one...

I joined up with Mr. Bingham and his wife Jo, also a physician and public health official, this afternoon to go “flint hunting" on the western coast of the island. I was kept in the dark as we drove along the chalk ridge that runs straight in the center of the island and I feared the worst given the British vocabulary and like for extreme sarcasm. However it turned out to be exactly what you would think, that is hunting for Mesolithic flint from the stone age that had been used to make tools such as arrowheads, weapons, dish ware, etc. We searched along a cliff backing the beach which had been exposed as it slumped downward toward the sea with a fantastic view again of the white cliffs-I never get enough of them. Six feet down along the cliff was a well-preserved roman road made out of the white stone and yet another 12 feet under revealed endless pieces of carved flint stones. I now have several bags in my apartment and I’m sure it will be interesting to explain to immigration on my way back to the States what exactly I intend to do with them.

After foraging for prehistoric artifacts we drove by the needles which are the jutting white spikes I told you about earlier (see picture). They're awesome though I hear they gave ships some trouble in the past. Getting hungry now we ate dinner at King George III Blue Crab Restaurant so of course I had to endure conversation for 2 hours about how “naughty” our colonies were to abandon the great British empire.

British humor could best be compared to the carnivorous hunting strategy adopted by the Venus Fly Trap. They put a short statement out there, usually dressed up innocently as something else, wait for ages (several awkward moments), and then finally close down on you making you look like a food in front of everyone else. On the way home I was witness yet again to this relentless sarcasm. As we were nearing a dead end with either a left or right turn Paul’s wife asked him which way to turn and he simply said, as we’re bearing down at 60mph, just don’t go straight. Offering no other assistance we had to slam on the brakes until we acknowledged the disguised humor. Only then did he tell us which way to go.