There is no escape from geekiness.

The past week has been a giddy whirl from one effusive and welcoming relative to another. They couldn't do enough for us, from insisting we check our email (something I deeply appreciated, as I'm waiting for a document from a client who can't seem to tell me with any certainty when it will arrive) to feeding us lavish meals and plying us with cake and tea. Not to mention giving us beds to sleep in.

We did squeeze in a bit of tourism, and geeky tourism at that, along the way, though. For instance, we spent a day in Belfast. We started the day at the Linen Hall Library, founded in 1788 and quite gorgeous to look at:




We wandered around looking at ornate Victorian buildings, busy streets, and sparkling new shopping malls (Margaret decided to splurge on the aerial view from the giant Ferris wheel that Belfast now glories in). Houston was a bit dazed at the magnitude of the change from the Belfast of his childhood. What had once been a grimy, miserable, literal war zone full of terrified and furtive people has become a buzzing city where people have the emotional and economic resources to once again enjoy a bit of whimsy:




There's also a massive performing-arts center (a mark of health for any city). Here's Margaret on the waterfront next to it:




On our way back to Ballymena, we stopped to look at St. Anne's Cathedral, which boasts an edifice that ranks as one of the most horrific examples of ecclesiastical architecture I've ever seen:




It was so excessive that I thought at first it was Catholic — but no! Research reveals that it is Church of Ireland (i.e., Anglican)! Whaddaya know: Catholics do not have a monopoly on this sort of thing. I do not know whether I find that comforting or alarming.

The Geek Factor for that day was provided by a visit to the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University, Belfast, where a colleague of Houston's showed us around all the incredibly geeky sound labs and performance spaces. I got about a dozen ideas for stories in the process.

We also spent a few hours in Dublin during the days spent en route to and from the North. We refused to pay what they were asking to go into the Viking Museum and the cathedral, but at least taking funny photos was free.




Houston (and, by extension, Margaret) is descended from Vikings. You can tell it's bred true, can't you?

On our second day in Dublin (and our last in either of the Irelands), we had a coffee and a nice chat with another relative, which was a lovely way to while away part of an afternoon.

We also wandered around the almost unbearably picturesque and quaint Temple Bar area, and vowed to return at more leisure.




But the highlight of the day, and one that definitely qualifies it as a stop on the Geek's Tour of Britain (and Ireland), was seeing the Book of Kells, something I've wanted to do all my life. They prohibit photo-taking, as a few careless flashes can make a thousand-year-old manuscript feel mighty sick mighty quick; plus, they'd sell fewer postcards in the shop. Anyway, there's lots of information about it on the Internet, so I'll leave it to you to go look for photos.

They can't show more than a few pages, of course, but those they do show are jaw-droppingly beautiful. And there's a really good interpretive exhibit built around it. And just to up the Geek Factor, you emerge from the exhibit into the Long Room, which is every book weenie's idea of heaven.

I will leave you with a poem (printed in the exhibit brochure), which was written — originally in Latin, presumably — by a ninth-century Irish monk living in Switzerland:

Pangur Bán

I and Pangur Bán my cat
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will —
He too plies his simple skill.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night,
Turning darkness into light.