Day 33 (Round IV) "In the trenches": jiggity-jig edition

Puddle-jumper flight from Lubbock to Houston, long, long (9-hour) overnight Houston to London Heathrow. Heading on up outta this joint for a conference, at which I'll present yet more stuff from the minstrelsy project, and then follow up Tuesday with a colloquium/guest-lecture shot for an old friend's department.

Right now, sitting in the London-Heathrow coach station, and skyping onto the free wireless, and diggin' it all the way. The wrinkle is that I keep getting kicked off and having to reconnect to a different (free) wireless network, because--get this--I'm getting that wireless signal from the buses waiting to depart, and every few minutes a given bus--and wireless router--will pull out of the station and I'll have to reconnect. Yes, folks: in England--a nation with a really very good bus service, and top-notch rail service--even the buses have free wireless.

I don't have much use for their imperial history, and their heritage of class & privilege makes me want to vomit--but their concept of broadband access as a citizenship right makes us seem like a bunch of fucking Neanderthals.