Left to my own devices

It was the mid-1990s. I walked into the record store (aptly-named Record Service), and took stock of where I was. It was situated in an old building on Green St., in campustown. The immediate thought I have when remembering it is 'brown.' I remember the walls as being brown, the shelves were brown, it was just... brown. It felt cozy. There was a sign on one of the walls for a place upstairs called Figaro's. It specialized in classical music. My heart fluttered slightly, as I was partial to classical music, and so seeing that there was some place devoted to it seemed pretty awesome. But, I didn't go there, as I wanted to primarily focus attention on what was on offer at the main record store. It was my first time in that shop. I was familiar with classical music. I was not, it turned out, familiar with what a lot of what Record Service had to offer. There was so much to take in. A few items I remember that stood out were: the greatest hits collection (the best of...

"And look at the view from your balcony  the sunset is searing the sky  and how proudly you are pointing out to me  London through your eyes"  - Pet Shop Boys, The view from your balcony Those who know me know I'm an Anglophile. From novels by Agatha Christie, Peter Lovesey, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell, to television shows such as Inspector Morse, Fawlty Towers, Doctor Who, Black Adder , and Midsomer Murders , to following Instagram accounts that are nothing more than photos of various British locales, from a young age I've been a fan of (nearly) all things English. Heck, I even used to regularly watch Prime Minister's Question Time on C-SPAN during my teenage years, and listened to the book-on-tape of Margaret Thatcher's The Downing Street Years memoir. You can imagine my exuberance when, in late spring, some friends asked if we'd like to join them on a trip to England this summer. I was able to get the time off of work for it, as was Ashley. The final r...