I am taking tea at Claridge's Hotel. I ordered my tea — Assam leaf — and a young man better-dressed than I pours it. I have had finger sandwiches. I have not broken myself of trying to order à la carte from table d'hôte menus. And I have misapprehended the nature of scones, though it seems there is nothing really wrong you can do with clotted cream.  
 
A harpist is playing Norwegian Wood. They have dimmed the lights with the coming evening. I know of no ritual so calculated to assure the participant that all is as it should be.  
 
I'd take a picture, but that would involve flash. 
 
Here is where the men (mostly) wear ties.  
 
I came here by the second-nearest tube station, Green Park, because I wanted to walk through Mayfair. The street I walked (Berkeley, because it was reputed to be the home of Bertie Wooster) was less in townhouses than I'd expected, and more in bespoke tailors, discreet offices, and well-kempt dealers in luxury goods and property. I saw a scale model of a three-decked 75' yacht that looked as though it would be pricey even among three-decked 75' yachts.  
 
More souvenirs, from Stanfords: a book of flags of the world (though I am by way of a vexilologist, I haven't had a new flag book in 20 years, and I was behind); a better street-map booklet for London; and an Underground tea towel. Stanfords floors each level with gigantic maps. I took a picture.  
 
Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress the Tower of London. I love saying that. The Ceremony of the Keys. I was worried I couldn't navigate, but once I was fairly out of the station, there was White Tower. Just over 30 minutes, door-to-gate. Yay TfL.  
 
They assembled us right up against Traitors Gate. Traitors Gate, right there! And they use active-duty soldiers (plus a warder or two). When the young man (just back from Iraq) in the bearskin hat and the red tunic points his automatic rifle at the key group, and demands to know who goes there (the keys!), he isn't kidding around.  
 
The Yeoman Warder in charge of us was great fun (I gather they are selected to be personable). A young woman from Texas went beyond his instructions early on, and he was beset by Texans the rest of the evening. He spoke darkly of the Alamo. He put her in charge of the Escape Committee, after someone quite reasonably asked how we were getting out, if all the gates were locked behind us. I suppose someone always asks.  
 
Saturday, on the way to Oxford. Low clouds and a light fog. The long-range forecasts used words like "beautiful." Britain is hard to forecast. The farmland is not quaint to my untutored eye, but I doubt they run farms for beauty. I am too late for the extended Bodleian tour I'd signed up for, and I've purchased one of those get-on-get-off bus tours.  
 
It has since cleared up, and the pictures look promising. I am sitting in the King's Arms pub at the north-west corner of Catte and Holywell, waiting for my steak braised in Guinness, and nursing a sparkling (hard) cider. I essentially don't drink — my family has had bad luck with it — but I'm in a pub: I have to have something drawn for me. The signage promises authenticity, which may be a bad omen, but I'm just starting out.  
 
Pound coins make sense, but only because they are much thicker than the fractional coins. The American scheme of giving a gold hue to a large quarter does not work. My guess is that vending-machine makers won't tolerate thicker coins, but the things have to have some heft. I can identify £1 or £2 in my pocket. I don't trust myself to sort out fractional coins, so I am accumulating them.  
 
A half-pint into the cider, and I am making double the typing errors. I'm a lightweight.  
 
I lasted about five hours in Oxford before my feet gave out. It's the standing — in this case at the Museum of the History of Science — that did me in. The three hours walking were no trouble. The last of my Oxford photos are from the top of the sightseeing bus. Disappointing, given that I couldn't line them up or clear obstructions. But I think I did 80% of what there was to do. 
 
I did see one college, Pembroke, in detail. A properly ambitious tour would have taken more in, but Pembroke is a little jewel. I stopped in the chapel a while, then looked in on Hall. When you read about a school's hall, you never think of steam tables.  
 
I stopped at Blackwell, the 160,000 bookseller on Broad Street, and found that Neal Stephenson's next book 
was at long last out. I bought it without hesitation, but I have no idea how I'm to fit a Stephenson book in my luggage.  
 
Somehow, on the way back, in the sunlight, the countryside became prettier. The weather is beautiful.