London and OxfordDecember 3–4, 2013 It’s not so easy to get to the Falklands. LondonMapOch, you really have to keep an eye on those Englishmen. As soon as you turn off a central street, where everything is pretty and neat, you end up in Moscow. Chaotic parking, footpaths through the mud, bleak bitumen boiler room roofs.  OxfordMapA sign on the door of the train station bathroom warns you that the cleaning lady could be male.  The city is very charming, compact and old.  A bench that’s fairly comfortable to lean on, but completely impossible to lie on.  The University of Oxford actually consists of 38 colleges. So if someone claims they went to Oxford, and they can’t name a specific college at a moment’s notice, they’re a fraud. Ten minutes outside the city is the Brize Norton Royal Air Force Station, from which you can catch a military passenger plane to Ascension Island and the Falkland Islands. Curiously enough, there are slot machines here amongst all sorts of commandant’s offices and military phones. Her Majesty’s Ministry of Defense clearly has no scruples about making a few extra bucks off the weaknesses of its charges and their family members. So you could swing by the military base and hit the jackpot.  |
