Tall tales on the Cam
“And that wooden bridge there,” he said, pointing with confidence as we glided
through the centre of Cambridge, “was built without using a single nail.” We
duly ooh-ed and ahh-ed. Isaac Newton had constructed the glorious
“Mathematical Bridge” without joints, using the pressure of its wooden parts
alone to hold it up, said our tour guide, hamming it up as we asked
questions.
He said that students overcome with curiosity had dismantled it decades later,
but failed to reconstruct it without nuts and bolts — the very ones that we
were looking at hundreds of years later as we sailed underneath on our punt
tour.
It made a great tale but as the website for Queens College puts it: “Anyone
who believes that cannot have a serious grasp on reality.” It was built by
James Essex the Younger in 1749 and as the site says: “It is necessary to
point out that Newton died in 1727.” Well, that’s told us. Personally, I’ve
believed it for at least 20 years, and the myth has drawn me back to the
river again and again. So, that Newton bloke, not just good with apples, eh?
I’ve passed on the story to visitors — and done my bit to twist the tale even
further — but in doing that original tour, I got to see my home town through
the eyes of a tourist. On your own turf, it can mean the difference between
travelling and commuting, and what a (semi-fabricated) treat it was.
www.visitcambridge.org
Kathleen Wyatt
Low spirits in York
I was in York with a few hours to kill. I wandered down to the Minster and
found that choral evensong was about to begin. I spent a sublime half hour
inside one of the world’s great churches listening to a wonderful choir
singing Bach and Tallis.
At that point I should have retired to one of the city’s fabulous pubs, but
instead I made the mistake of going on a ghost tour. I thought it might be a
fun and interesting way to see the city. I would pick up some history,
savour the atmosphere of the medieval streets after the shopping hordes had
departed and maybe even return home with a couple of decent spooky yarns.
There are a number of rival ghost tours in the city. It was my misfortune to
choose Ghost Hunt of York. Around 30-odd people were hanging around in the
Shambles, blissfully unaware that they had made the same mistake.
A bell started ringing and a man dressed as a Victorian undertaker, complete
with top hat, fake moustache and ghostly grey make-up strode into view. He
led us up the lane, relieved us of £5 each and then pretended to run off
with our money. That was about as funny as it got. Unfortunately, trying to
be funny was the first priority, with ghosts a distant second. I was singled
out early on for a lame “you should have gone to SpecSavers joke”. Others
received much less welcome attention. He told us he was called Richard
Rigormortis or “Dick Dead”. In Grope Lane he pretended to fondle a member of
the audience. When he invited an American woman to have her personal space
invaded in similar fashion she declined and pointedly added that she
wouldn’t be any help because the zip of her jacket was broken.
Standing beside a Roman pillar outside the Minster he asked another audience
member: “Pippa, have you ever seen an erection as big as that?” Given that
three quarters of those on the walk were primary school children, it all
felt inappropriate and a bad misjudgment of his audience.
There was a half decent story about a girl who is said to appear at the window
of a former plague house several times a year. But most of the stories were
vague, lacking the names and the historical context that would have lent
them authenticity and avoided this ghostly experience becoming truly
ghastly.
www.visityork.org
Damian Whitworth
Playing with the Bard
I found myself on the Shakespeare’s Birthplace tour in the company of a
Shakespeare scholar — let’s call him Malvolio. He knew more than the guides,
and that was embarrassing. Though no more so than standing in a room
bombarded by simultaneous birdsong, mooing and Greensleeves, and
being told that “William Shakespeare was a country lad at heart”.
After three rooms and a big picture of David Tennant (don’t ask), we were
allowed to join the queue for the building where Shakespeare was born.
There, in a room that featured many pairs of gloves, Malvolio asked: “Why,
when so many scholars believe that Shakespeare’s father was a butcher, do
you think he was a glover?” Because that is what academics believe, the
guide said. A lot of them don’t, Malvolio countered. That is what the
academics who advise the Birthplace believe, the guide said grandly. The
trouble with Stratford-upon-Avon is that no one knows much about its son. So
Stratford speculates and employ actors to do a bit of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream. Well, one happy visitor signed the guest book: “I love Willy!”
Then the exit door led us into the shop. What did I like best ? The £1.99
gingerbread with Shakespeare’s face? The £8.99 Shakespeare swearbox? Or was
it the Shakespeare collage made out of dyed carnations? It’s a tricky one, I
can tell you.
www.shakespeare.org.uk
Penny Wark
Peace and hope in Belfast
Billy Black has had some interesting folk in the back of his cab — his next
booking is a delegation of Palestinians and Israelis — but none of them are
as interesting as what he’s had in it. “The IRA once put a bomb in the car,”
says our guide, as our taxi tour passes the Europa hotel. “It’s the most
bombed hotel in the world. I blew it up myself.”
Black witnessed 32 people murders during The Troubles but he is keen emphasise
that, thanks to a peace process driven by younger, smarter people than
himself, Belfast is now “the safest city in Europe”. The Europa is no longer
the only hotel that dares open its doors, and our route takes us past the
sleek new Fitzwilliam and the baroque Merchant. They are part of a makeover
that has seen the sprucing up of the Cathedral Quarter, the construction of
a new shopping centre, and the erection of The Wheel of Belfast, a mini
London Eye.
As we cruise the city in the comfortable cocoon of Black’s immaculate
Mercedes, the driver points out new landmarks and historical hotspots such
as Queen’s University and the Botanic Gardens, which inspired Kew.
He also delivers a fascinating commentary, taking in everything from medieval
religious hideaways to Victorian sewers and the city’s old tanning fields
and shipyards.
Plans are also under way to develop the Titanic lock. We stretch our legs in
the drizzle by the watery berth for the fated liner, overlooked by the twin
cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company. These imposing iron
giants now stand silent but Black tells us that the wind turbine industry is
bringing work back to the docks, alongside new, non-sectarian white-collar
businesses that are vital to sustaining a lasting peace.
Although our guide’s vision for Belfast’s future is full of optimism, he
doesn’t shy from the underlying schism that runs like a fault-line between
tectonic plates. He reveals that he was once a sectarian bully, and admits
that he occasionally misses the wild times.
“It’s awful to say but I quite enjoyed it.” Black says that it’s important for
us to see “the hard stuff”: the infamous IRA and UVF murals along the
Shankill and Falls roads which provide parallel political histories of the
city.
As we pass on the IRA’s “International Wall”, we spot a lone tourist taking
pictures. Not for the last time our driver points out that even here, away
from the bars and boutique hotels, outsiders need not fear for their safety.
As for the locals, there’s the “peace” lines; Black shows us Belfast’s answer
to the Berlin wall from both sides.
Despite the hopeful messages daubed on it by tourists, the structure was
heightened last year, and Black predicts that it will take a decade before
being dismantled.
“No one’s in a rush,” he says. “You still have mischief-makers who like to
cause trouble.”
Shaun Phillips
The strangest and funniest questions asked at the City of London
Information Centre.
1. How can I have tea with the Queen?
2. Could you recommend a good plastic surgeon?
3. Are there guided tours of M15?
4. When do the clowns come on at Piccadilly Circus?
5. What number in Oxford Street is Oxford University?
6. Where can I buy paraffin for my lamp?
7. What time does “evil song” start at St Paul’s Cathedral?
8. Which side of the river is London Bridge on?
9. Where can I hire a banana boat?
10. Is it a long walk to Times Square?
11. Where abouts is the Eiffel Tower?
12. Which way to the beach?
13. When does Tower Bridge move?
14. Where can I see the buildings destroyed in the Second World War?
15. Where do the Spice Girls live?
Tours with more
Nuclear bunker tour in Essex The “secret” nuclear bunker in Kelvedon
isn’t off-limits these days, so you can go undergound and see where up to
600 military and civilian personnel would have lived and worked had the
Ruskies pressed the little red button. Adults £6.50, family ticket £16;
01277 364883; www.secretnuclearbunker.com
The Beatles' Liverpool Board the bright yellow and blue bus for a
1¾-hour tour of the Fab Four’s childhood homes and places that inspired hits
such as Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever,
ending at the Cavern Club. Tickets £13.95; 0151-236 9091; www.cavernclub.org
Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow An hour-long walking tour that focuses on
the architecture of Glasgow-born Mackintosh, beginning at the Lighthouse
Mackintosh Centre and ending at the Willow Tea Rooms. Tickets £6; 0141
9466600; www.crmsociety.com
Search for the Loch Ness monster A one-hour tour of Loch Ness in a boat
equipped with a sonar device designed to detect unusual happenings in the
depths; it takes in views of the remains of Urquhart Castle. Tickets £11;
01463 233999; www.jacobite.co.uk/ cruises-tours
Jack the Ripper tour of London Loved by American tourists — worth it
just for the puzzled looks as visitors from Chicago and Miami ponder why ye
olde Dickens’ London seems to be populated mostly by 1960s tower blocks.
Tickets £7; 020-8530 8443; www.rippertour.com. Not recommended for under
14s.
Cardiff by open-top bus For a more general view of a city, try these
50-minute tours that take in the new developments in the Bay including the
National Assembly Office, as well as the Millennium Stadium, the castle and
the National Museum of Wales. Tickets £9; 020-7193 8320,
www.city-discovery.com/cardiff
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