Bath

Back from a weekend in Bath amongst the young people and old buildings; we were staying in Hannah More's old digs and I can't imagine a Puritan would approve of the new tenants. I'd been to Bath before, but not for well over a decade, probably getting on for two, and the first thing that hit me now was, this is like someone took a cutting of the streets around Regent's Park, and then found a fertile spot for them to grow without competition. Quite by chance, the Simon Napier-Bell book I was reading on the bus back confirmed that yes, they were both by Beau Nash - so it turns out I can recognise an architect's work without even knowing who he is [edit: or not; see comments]. See, another talent which ought to have employers fighting for me [oh, the bitter irony]. Anyway, most cities are just aspects of London run riot; Paris, for instance, peppers a few London monuments afflicted with gigantism over the general vibe of Euston and Edgware Roads. Bath, on the other hand, chose pretty areas and grew them well. The Parade Ground takes the spirit of London's private squares and applies its definition of 'resident' a little more generously. The place does have a lot of tourists, but not so much so that it doesn't feel like it has a life of its own. And while it's tempting to mock the local accent, one could easily say the same of Landan's, innit? I like Bath. I could see myself living there, if I were older, and richer, and there are few enough places past village size where I can say that.
Of course, there is that one tediously polite fly in Bath's ointment: Jane sodding Austen*. But walking past a museum outside which a disturbingly jolly man waved his stick at us, I worked out the solution. My problem was always that Austen wrote comedies in which a likable character is compromised by dullards, rather than tragedies in which this happens, or comedies in which the protagonist triumphs. The best model for the latter being, American film comedies. You know, Knightly standing in for the Principal, Dean or other stick-in-the-mud who gets taken down. As such, I know what needs to be done: National Lampoon's Emma. Starring Will Ferrell. As Emma.

*"``You say I must familiarise my mind with the fact that "Miss Austen is not a poetess, has no ``sentiment''" (you scornfully enclose the word in inverted commas), "has no eloquence, none of the ravishing enthusiasm of poetry"; and then you add, I must "learn to acknowledge her as one of the greatest artists, of the greatest painters of human character, and one of the writers with the nicest sense of means to an end that ever lived".
The last point only will I ever acknowledge. ... Miss Austen being, as you say, without "sentiment", without poetry, maybe is sensible (more real than true), but she cannot be great.''" - Charlotte Bronte