Isaac Newton, Donald Trump, and Beef Pie
I left the hotel this evening with all the intentions in the world of crossing the road to theother pub – the one I have seen from a distance throughout my stay here. Half-way across the car park of the hotel I changed my mind, turned 90 degrees, and wandered back along the footpath to the bar next door. The reason the universe caused me to turn was evident the moment I sat down.
Wednesday night is pie night. Or at least it is in the pub next door to the hotel. I sat at the same table as last night, and had drunk perhaps a third of my drink before the waitress noticed me staring into space on my own.
“Are you waiting for somebody?”
“No”
She immediately took my order, and blustered off around the corner. Steak and Kidney pudding, with seasonal veg, and seasoned chips. I read my book while waiting – a very odd history of the Royal Society by Bill Bryson. One page made me laugh out loud in the middle of the pub. Whenever that kind of thing happens, I always imagine the rest of the pub will have become silent, but then realise that if the army of serving staff didn't notice me, nobody else in the pub is going to either.
It's going to be interesting to see what Bryson writes about Isaac Newton – he hints at his true character early on, but I'm hoping there is more to come. If you only know of Newton as “the gravity guy”, you're missing out on all the best bits. Yes, he was brilliant, and yes, he did work out how the planets move pretty much single handed (replying on data gathered by Kepler and Brahe, but still...). He also inventedcalculus at the same time as Liebnitz, and did his best to destroy Liebnitz during his own lifetime. In modern terms, Newton was kind of Donald Trump – an expert self publicist, and a deranged enemy. He wasted the greater part of his life messing around with alchemy, but his early work (and getting published first) had already sealed his name in history.
ANYWAYreasons.
While standing there I thought “It must be heading towards 8pm by now at least”, and glanced at my watch. 6:45pm. My how the sands of time slow down when you don't have a house full of washing up to return to. So now I find myself – a little while later – writing yet another mind-numbing blog post in the comfort of my little hotel-room world, and wondering what movie to watch while consuming my own body weight in peanut M&Ms.