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Sunday, April 20, 2014


Just in case anyone's interested . . .

Thursday, 17 April

Drove from Leamington Spa to Dorchester, arriving an hour later than expected. No time to write the How Spain is Different piece.

Friday, 18 April;

Walked along the beautiful Dorset coast with an old friend from law school. Saw the fascinating Durdle Door 

19.00: Arrived in Newton Abbott, to find myself in the only house in the UK without internet.

Saturday, 19 April.

Thanks to my old Anglo-German friend, I learnt that toilet paper makes an acceptable alternative to filter paper for coffee. Or kitchen paper, if you're fussy.

Visited Exeter cathedral and then went into a nearby place offering free internet. It didn't work and, when I asked them to switch the router off and back on, they refused on the grounds that their till was connected to the internet. Then they added 12.5% service charge to the bill, even though 10 is the UK norm. But tourists are their main custom so I suppose they don't give a damn that I won't be going back there

Exeter cathedral, though, was worth the money. It's possibly the lightest cathedral I've ever seen, thanks to the brilliance of the 12th century architects. On the way in, we passed a couple of men exiting via the entrance. One of them was saying to his rather resigned looking colleague: "If it was free to enter, I'd probably chuck 5 quid into the donations box but I'm not willing to pay 6 quid when it's compulsory". As he was old enough to pay the 4 quid Senior rate, I guess we can regard 'probably' as the (in)operative word of his complaint.

Sunday, 20 April

Finally found somewhere with working internet - McDonalds in the centre of Plymouth, where they charge you for parking even on Easter Sunday. Heathens.

Spanish Differences will have to wait until Tuesday.

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