In Volume 1, Bill remembers his first unpromising night spent in Dover, then interviews London cabbies over lunch. Moving on, but before exploring subterranean Liverpool, he visits some of Soho's less famous historic buildings, recognizable by the oval sky-blue plaques placed into walls by the Greater London Council. Finally, he samples some of the many ways in which Brits amuse themselves: the Highland Games, a pipesmoking championship, ballroom dancing, cricket, bingo, fell running, rambling, 3-wheeled cars, and seaside holidays.
In Volume 2, our guide revels in the whimsy of English place names, then visits the Victorian model village of Saltair and the former seaside resort of Morecambe. Prior to making landfall on Scotland's Western Isles, the last outposts of Gaelic, he comments on the differences between American and the Queen's English. Next, he focuses on the Industrial Revolution and the British genius for invention: the city of Ironbridge, that self-proclaimed cradle of the country's technological rise, the archives of the London Patent Office, and the creation of the now-classic route map of the London Underground. Lastly, he goes exploring in the Tube's "ghost stations" and Bunhill Cemetery, the latter London's first Non-Conformist burial ground.
Volume 3 has Bryson investigating British notions of class, aristocracy and wealth: a conversation with the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace, trooping the colors on the Queen's birthday, clothes shopping with a very rich - read "very spoiled" - young woman, and the Young Model of the Year Competition. Then, on to less frivolous destinations: the Sellafield nuclear power plant, the renovated city of Glasgow, the Ffestiniog railway in North Wales, and the quicksand of Morecambe Bay. Finally, before closing in the Yorkshire Dales, Bryson's home of 8 years, he ponders the venerable art of doing nothing while on a seaside holiday in Llandudno, views the world's oldest electric clock, and visits the most northern mainland town and place, Thurso and Dunnet Head respectively.
At no time does Bryson tarry at those places that would otherwise be on the average tourist's must-see itinerary. Rather, he skips around - perhaps too rapidly - to those odd locales and eccentric events that endear themselves to the island's residents, and which are there to be discovered by those non-natives willing to invest the time (such as expats from The Colonies). It's obviously a heartfelt labor of love, albeit an admittedly imperfect one. In the last scene, as he stands in the foreground of a vista that encompasses the shadows of wind-driven clouds chasing themselves across rippling Yorkshire fields, he says quite honestly, "I can't tell you how much I love this place." This struck a cord of recognition deep within myself, one that has spent an aggregate of perhaps 7-8 months in Britain over the past 27 years. Like Bryson, I love the island more than I can possibly express. (My wife thinks it an unreasonable obsession.) Every time I return, I feel that I've come home. Sitting here now in Southern California, I can feel on my face the wetness of the rain blowing in from the sea at Tintagel, and hear the flutter of the rooks nesting amidst the arched ruins of Fountains Abbey. Or, smell the acrid coal smoke on a damp, cold day in Southsea, and savor the rich combination of real butter and orange marmalade on toast at a B&B in Caernarvon. As if it were yesterday, I can see in my mind's eye the fishing boats as they depart Portree on Skye into the dissolving darkness well before dawn. I wish I could sit with Bill over a pint, and just talk about these things. He would understand.
As an American who lived in Britain for 20 years and who married a British woman, Bryson is well placed to affectionately poke fun at the absurdities of British life. As a Brit who has moved to America, I could identify with his slight feeling of homesickness for the place. It's not all nostalgia though, and I learnt things about my own country that I never knew, but then I think that is one of the highlights of all Bryson's work - it's always well researched and well presented. This video is no exception.
