This and that...: The Saturday

Today was a Saturday with a difference. Because the internet connection at home was not functioning, there was little I could do at home. I decided to roam around Cambridge. Cambridge was not without incident - I saw this fellow, dressed in black standing on a chair with a display board next to him, berating scientists and evolution and arguing that everything was designed intelligently by God. He even had a reason - Boeing 747 and 777 are similar, but they were both independently designed by a man; therefore just because scientists observe similarity between species at the molecular level it should not be taken as proof for evolution; in fact, as the Boeing example illustrates, every form of life is an independent creation! There was some crowd around him, and to them, this was good entertainment. There was laughter - they were laughing on Mr. Black's face! But Mr. Black was determined to put his point across. There was an elegant looking Englishman who walked up to him, tap-tapping his cane on the pavement and asked him, "are you being serious?", and walked away, with a mischievous smile on his face. There was this totally shaggy fellow, with a beard that resembled the hair of an electrocuted cartoon character, who chose to argue openly with Mr. Black. Mr. Black was showing a 3D drawing of a eukaryotic cell and saying, "scientists describe that this is how a cell looks like", offending me, a bacteria man, and continued, "but they dont know how it came about because it was put there by God!". Our Mr. Shaggy was not to be deterreed - he said, "this evolved from cellular forms that were much simpler". Mr. Black asked, "how do you know that?". I was tempted to retort, but the man standing next to me said, "common sense mate" and walked away and I followed his example, moving on!

And then, once again, I had to decide what I wanted to do. I had a brain wave. I walked along to the railway station, looked at the time table and decided to go down to Bury St. Edmunds or St. Edmundsbury in Suffolk, a forty minute train ride away. This place is known as 'Shrine of a King, Cradle of the law'. Shrine of a King because this was where King Edmund, the last king of East Anglia was buried; Cradle of the law because this was where, in early 13th century, a resolution was taken to get ratified the Magna Charta, the fore-bearer of today's English legal and democratic systems. This little town has a ruined Abbey, where the above event took place, located in a supposedly beautiful garden and I decided to see this place for myself. And that is what I did. I must confess that this town is very pleasant. The market is exceptional; for the first time in England, I saw shopkeepers shouting their voices hoarse to advertise their wares, akin to our Indian markets. And I even managed to buy a massive bowl full of green, seedless grapes - should have been around a kilo - for a pound! Cannot imagine getting such value in the Cambridge market! The abbey itself, as said earlier, is in ruins. All that remains is a series of bits of stone walls sticking out of the ground; and in some instances, these bits were large enough to form recognisable shapes. There is a little wall on which was posted a board saying, "Lecture room". I wonder!!! The garden in which this abbey is located is beautiful and is a colour riot, with a large variety of flowering plants aesthetically arranged. This meant that I had a good time with the camera before returning home to find that the internet had started working - a pleasant surprise!