Pete - the whisky, agreed (most of my summer holidays are spent less than a mile from Scotland's newest distillery, on Arran) but the beer... ! Is there supposed to be any difference in taste between 70 and 80 shillings?

Will - don't mention trains in Wales. I went to a meeting in Aberystwyth (sp?) last December; the heating didn't work and the thing was 3 hours late, including a stop in some dank hole for 20 minutes while a woman got off and walked her dog! If I ever go back it'll be the politically incorrect way - by car. If you're ever in the UK again there's a massive railway museum in York, which BTW is only a short train ride from Bradford and the film museum... Another good reason to visit York is that there are 367 pubs within the city ring road, meaning that you can go to a different one on each day of the year - but at Christmas and Easter you have to do two!

YES!

A friend of mine who was stationed at Upper Heyford and who lived in the barraks had relations in Greece. Anyhow, he got his hands on some of the best home made wine. After having our fill (one of us was a designated driver-not me)it was decided that we should go to Oxford to get up some grub. Somehow, we managed to land in a American Southwest/Mexican restraunt called the Blue Coyote. After having some more spirits with dinner we somehow managed to do some sightseeing around Oxford and ended up in one of these punk-rock underground clubs So what happened to yours truly, thats right, had a nice nap in the corner while my compatriots partied

There used to be an excellent Middle Eastern restraunt in Oxford right across the street from the Synagouge.

Pete: You're right, most of the beer I've had in Scotland is of pressurised container/gas pumped variety. I guess the thinking in the islands is that if you put conditioned cask ale on a Calmac ferry it probably won't be in very good nick after being thrown around in the Kilbrannan Sound/Minch/North Atlantic...

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Although I've never been there, reports I've gotten from some friends in the past seem to confirm this. FWIW, a restaurant in Burlington VT opened in the 1970s, serving "authentic midaeval English cuisine." They went out of business within a year, and most of the stuff I tried out there was err... not to my liking.

One friend did put me on to fish-n-chips on the Times though.

And this from a native of a country that gave us grits,country gravy and chitlins to name but a few.

Give me a break

Tha' shud noa we don't hold wi none of them namby pamby southern lunches up ere in Gods given country !!

Imperial War Museum
Cabinet War Rooms
Tower Bridge
HMS Belfast
Duxford
Stratford on Avon
Blenheim Palace
Warwick Castle
Didcot

I have some interesting photos that I took at Duxford. If you are interested, I can try and post. Got some of their Spitfire almost wiping-out on landing and almost took out the PBY Catalina with it!

On one of my trips to London, I experience the soccer (football) madness. I was visiting on a day off-weekend morning and the streets were still empty. But there was this echo of AY-OH reverbreating for quite a distance. What it was- at a major intersection there were pubs on opposite street corners, obviously each pub supported a different team. Huge mob w/the police seperating them! I got the hell out of there fast!

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