And so we're kind of back in normal operating times. And we did record a special podcast about Elizabeth, which went out a few weeks ago. And then yesterday, actually, we just published a podcast that I had recorded back in August that I ended up delaying the release of because of death. And so the biggest change that we're implementing after her death is we are launching a Royal News-only newsletter called Royal Topia. We're not starting a new publication or a new website.

It's an extension of Anglotopia as it is. And it's a specific email newsletter that will be just news about the Royal Family, the British Royal Family, I should clarify. And our stance is that previously there wasn't, we only really covered the big major royal events because they were the most interesting things. But there was a lot of opportunity for things we didn't cover. Mostly because of the Queen's advanced age, she didn't do a lot on a daily basis that was worth publishing an article about.

But now Charles is much younger, and so he'll be doing a lot more kingly duties that are interesting and historical. And this being the beginning of a new reign. There's going to be a lot of things happening that haven't happened in 70 years. It's a historical and unprecedented time. So it's a good time to sort of break out our coverage of the royal family and cover it more than we used to. And a corollary to that is now the new Prince of Wales, William and Kate, they're going to be doing a lot more things that are worth writing about as they take on their new roles and continue doing the things that matter to them before.

So there's a lot going on in the Royal Family now. in the next couple of years, it's just going to be interesting. And people really want to know about. And so Royal Topia is going to cover that. So the Royal News goes across our regular website feed, like any other thing, goes across to our Facebook page and our Instagram and all that. That will continue. But since we're going to be publishing more of it, and it doesn't necessarily appeal to a lot of people, we'll be more selective about which Royal News gets pushed to our Facebook page.

So if you want all the Royal News we're putting out, you need to subscribe to this free newsletter. And we'll put a link in the show notes, or you can go to Anglotopia.net slash Royaltopia. And you can subscribe there. And you'll get an email every day that there's Royal News, which so far has been pretty much every day. And it will be a digest of all the articles we've published about the Royal Family. Some days there will be half a dozen articles.

Some days there will be one. And occasionally there will be a day where nothing was... came across our feeds and we didn't cover anything. So it's been really popular so far. We've got over a thousand subscribers. So and people, we've gotten some great feedback. And one of the key things that we want to get across is that we're only really interested in publishing news. And we're only interested in publishing historically interesting news. We are not interested in becoming a gossip site about the royal family.

We're not going to post speculation about who doesn't like who, who's behaving in a certain way. We're not going to be covering Harry and Megan because they left the royal family and then their official roles and move to America. So we're not going to cover them. And that's what's going to be different about Royaltopia than a lot of what the other publications out there are doing is they're breathlessly covering everything related to Harry and Megan, everything related to the interdynamics.

in the royal family. And we are just not interested in doing that. And it's just, it's exhausting to keep up with. And we don't, we don't want to chase the headlines and the clicks to, you know, for that. So we're going to focus on the news. And, you know, you're not going to hear about the nasty things that's about the royal family. And we're not going to ignore everything possibly bad, but I want to leave a caveat.

it there. But for the most part, we want to create a positive and interesting space to cover the royal family where you can learn about them and learn about the things that they do on a daily basis and show your support for the British monarchy, however deep that goes. And so that's that's Royaltopia. So like I said, I'll put a link in the show notes at the bottom and I'll put a, if you can go to Anglotopia.comia.com.com.com.

and you can sign up there. It's perfectly free. And then if we can get, you know, several thousand subscribers, we can spin it off and commission long-form articles about the royal family and history and British royalty and whatnot and, and make it a, make it a, make it its own thing and a new thing that we're doing. So we hope you sign up and we hope that you've enjoyed what we've put out so far. And I encourage you all to do that.

So moving on, Another thing that we need to announce is that we are sort of reopening our British imports product business. So we, during the pandemic, we, like, greatly reduced the product, because it was very difficult to get the imports, because it costs so much to ship. The global shipping industry went nuts during the pandemic. and I mean, when we imported our normal shipment of Cornish tea earlier this year, the shipping cost three times what we paid for the tea.

And so that was not sustainable from a business perspective. So there were just a lot of things that we couldn't acquire because the shipping was too high. However, now that, you know, the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. It's not over, but it's things have changed. We have sort of. figured out the math to start importing products again affordably, thanks to some new marketplaces that we have access to working with a fulfillment house in the UK.

I'm not going to board you all with the details of this. But basically, so basically we are going to start importing British products again, and we're going to be pretty aggressive about it and the buildup to the Christmas holiday season. You'll see if a few weeks ago we did the commemorative queen timelines, which we sold completely out of those. So we're going to buy more of those in a couple weeks because I think there's still demand for that.

And then we brought our imported more tea, which should be here any day now, and we'll ship it out to everybody who already ordered. And then this week we launched Bodleian Library Christmas cards and Advent calendars and wrapping paper, which we have limited stock of, but it's beautiful, good quality Christmas stuff. And we've got a lot more coming up. that people are really going to like. And so I would encourage you to keep an eye on the Anglotopia store, subscribe to the Anglotopia store email list so that you can be notified as soon as there's new products and just keep an eye on the website because we desperately need to rebuild our imports business and start selling more things.

There was a over the summer, over the last like six months while we weren't really selling imports, it really hurt the overall business to evade that it is Anglotopia. So and we had, we had, to stop mostly because we did a cross-country move. Now we're settled, where we're going to be for a while. I can start rebuilding our inventory. So please consider subscribing to the Anglotopia Store list so you can hear about new products and we'll post about it on the website and on our social media channels and whatnot.

So I'm sure you'll hear about it. But we're very excited to begin doing this again and hope that it's a big success. So moving on. I'm going to talk more about three experiences that I had on my trip this past July. I may mention them briefly in the previous podcast, but I want to talk about them in more detail simply because they deserve it and they all kind of work together because it's, it concerns visits to major tourist attractions and the experiences I had there and doing this podcast will help me collect my thoughts for the articles I still need to write.

I'm behind on all of my writing. So please forgive me. So one of the special things I wanted to do while I was in Oxford was visit Blenheim Palace. For those unfamiliar with Blenheim Palace, Blenheim Palace is, I would argue it's Britain's greatest stately home. It's also the only non-royal, non-eclesiastical, stately home that has the title palace. And it was built over 300 years ago. It was the reward to the Duke of Marlborough for his in the wars in Europe during the reign of Queen Anne.

And the palace was the reward of a grateful nation for his victories. And so they built this massive, beautiful, baroque, stately home that is still home to the Marlboro family and the Dukes of Marlborough. But it's also a special place because it's where Sir Winston Churchill was because his father was the second son of the Duke of of Marlborough, and he was born there. And so he had a connection there and the current stewards of Blenheim like to play up the connections of the two Churchills, you know, the first Duke and Winston Churchill, because they're these great warriors who saved Britain in their respective wars.

And so I don't need an excuse to visit Blenheim Palace. I've been there several times before. It's one of my favorite places. But I haven't been there in five years. So any opportunity to go is good. And so And despite it being there for several hundred years, a lot changes every few years between visits. Just before my last visit, the previous duke had died. So there was like a change in the guard and a change in, you know, a change in how things operate at the palace.

And so I was very keen to see what had changed since my last visit there, which the last time was in 2017. I visited twice in the same trip. I visited the house. And then later that day, I came back to just go to a concert, battle proms concert, which was a lot of fun until I got too cold and had to, because it was raining and I had to leave. But the story for that is in my book, Adventures in Anglotopia.

That was an interesting evening and taught me that even if it's July, you should bring a waterproof coat to Britain to keep you warm, which I did on this trip because I went in July, so I was very careful. So anyway, I'm getting off track here. So Blenheim Palace is a glorious place to visit. And so I wrote their PR press people and was like, hey, I'm nearby visiting Oxford. Can you arrange a press pass to me so I can check out all the new amenities and everything?

So full disclosure, they gave me a free mission ticket, which was like 30 or 40 pounds these days. It's a very expensive attraction. It's worth every penny. But. And so after my last course and the last day I was in Oxford, I packed up. I packed up. I got my bag, my day bag, and took the bus to get to Blenheim Palace. Now, Woodstock, where the palace is, is not far from Oxford, but it's a good eight, 10 miles.

So it's not like, I mean, you could in theory walk, but like it will literally take all day to walk and do the thing and then walk back. You can get a taxi. I opted to take the bus because there are, let's see, I have to confirm the name, so it's precise here. Bear with me. It's the Stagecoach Bus 7, and it runs. It runs. from Oxford City Center four times an hour, seven days a week.

So there are direct buses to Blenheim Palace, and the buses literally drop you off in front of the palace gates, which is you can't get more convenient than that. And it takes about 20 minutes on the bus. I think it was five pounds for the bus. It was air conditioned. I think the windows were open. It was nice. And it was very convenient because, you know, you can, you don't have to, like, call and schedule a taxi.

Like, when you're done, you just get on the bus the next time the bus. The bus comes and you're back in Oxford. So I highly recommend taking the bus. It was very easy. So one of the things that I wanted to try was their new quote app. It's not a true mobile app. They're calling it an app, but it really, it's a mobile website that you pull up using their free Wi-Fi if you don't have a mobile phone signal.

And it's just a mobile website you interact with, and it gives you the audio tour of the house. So they used to do. like hourly guided tours of the house, but it seems that they've gotten rid of those in exchange for doing the audio tour, which you do at your own pace. They still have guided tours of like the private apartments and the kitchens and stuff. And I highly recommend doing those. I have done those. They're very much worth it.

But this is just for the tour of the house and the state rooms and everything. And so, you know, being familiar with the overall history of the place and the people who lived there over the, over its history. I was quite keen to see what the app would cover, if it would be any good, because sometimes these audio apps can, cannot be very good. And so I, you know, I log on to their Wi-Fi, put my AirPods in, and started the audio tour.

And if I was to review the audio tour, it was great. You follow that your own pace. You, you know, there's, it's in your ear the whole time. You pick the room you're in and it gives you the, you know, the couple minutes brief thing that you need to hear about that room. Sometimes there's an extra thing you can opt to listen to if you're interested. And then it allows you to see the house and the state rooms at your own pace.

And so I'm overall was pleased with the new audio tour. So if you do go, be sure to have headphones or your earbuds with you so that you can listen to the tour privately because they won't provide anything for you to do the tour yourself. You have to, the tour is free, but it's in the app and you need to bring your, basically bring your own, bring your own device to listen to it. Another thing I wanted to see is a couple Winston Churchill-related things.

They have currently, I don't know now because it's October, but they had a bunch of Churchill's paintings on view in his birthroom. I appreciate British art, and so I also appreciate that Churchill was actually a really great painter. And so any chance to see his paintings, I will take. And so I did, I was very pleased to see the exhibition of his paintings. They also had exhibition paintings of another artist who Churchill, who was a contemporary of Churchill, and I believe they were friends.

It was great. I was very happy. It's nice to see the paintings. My only criticism is that the Churchill rooms are very popular and so it gets kind cramped quick very easily. But I highly recommend seeing the paintings if you can. If they're no longer on display and you want to see the biggest collection of Churchill paintings, go to Chartwell and Kent, which was his house, and go to take the time to see his artist's studio, and then they've got dozens of his paintings on display.

And they're very much worth seeing. They were new cafes and restaurants on site. I had lunch in one of the cafes and tea. It was fine. I don't have any complaints. They were very busy. But they were also very cool because it was a very hot day. There's still like renovation work going on around the property, but it's very unobtrusive. And then there's another new Churchill thing as well. new exhibition that's in one of the basements.

You kind of have to go out and then back in and then you can get into it. And there's a bunch of, it's like an overview of Churchill's life. There's some artifacts from the family archives. There's facsimile artifacts. It's neat. If you don't know anything about Churchill, it's neat. I kind of know the broad strokes and in details. So it was, it wasn't of much interest to me. But it's very much worth seeing and doing and then yeah.

So after that, I'd seen the house and like I've seen the house several times before. I wanted to see the gardens a little bit. And that's the thing about Blenheim Palace is that the place is so big and there's so much to see and do that I visited it half a dozen times in 20 years and I still haven't done everything that's on offer. So there's always a reason to go. But I decided to walk around the grounds, got lost a little bit, which is, is there anything better than being lost in the grounds of a, in the great park of a stately home?

I don't think so. So that was nice. I just really enjoyed my afternoon there. It was nice and sunny. I wasn't too crowded being, you know, being a Friday afternoon. Yeah. And then I walked back to the entrance and took the bus back to Oxford. So if you are a Churchill nut, he is buried nearby in village of Bladen, which is like the village next to Woodstock. You can actually walk to it from the palace if you're in the mood for a long walk and you can pay your respects to Churchill's grave where the whole Spencer Churchill family is buried.

So that's cool. So the other thing I wanted to talk about is we, as part of my Nelson course at Oxford, we visited Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. I visited once before 10 years ago with my family when we stayed about a month in Britain over Christmas. And so I was quite interested to see what's changed since then, what's different. When I visited there last time, the rigging of HMS victory had been taken down and it wasn't really in its full glory.

So I was hoping to see, well, is it back? What's changed? Quite a bit has changed, but the restoration. work is still ongoing. Now, Portsmouth is easy to get to from Oxford. I mean, we had a private bus take us. If you're, you can get there by train. And if you're in London, you can easily get to Portsmouth by train. It's easy to get to. The train station is literally within walking distance of the dockyard. Now, the dockyard is like two elements.

There's the historic dockyard, which is for the, you know, where the Georgian Navy would do its vittling and for ships to be fitted out. And it's still a working dockyard. And then outside the historic bit is still a Royal Navy dockyard. And so when we got there, we were delighted to see, and keep in mind, everybody on this course is a bit of a Navy history nerd. So we were all delighted to see that both of Britain's new aircraft carriers were in port.

So we were all very excited to see those massive, huge aircraft carriers. Amazing to see in person, the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Queen Elizabeth. So that was neat. And so our primary purpose of our visit was to see victory because we were doing a Nelson course. So we were going to see, the plan was we would see victory first. We would go next door and see the Mary Rose because that, even though it's not the same era we were studying, that's still very much worth seeing.

And then we would visit HMS Warrior, which is the sort of the generation after Nelson and see how the Navy developed then. So there was, like, a lot, there's a lot of history there to see. So the first thing we did was we went to the HMS Victory Gallery, and that's like a little miniature museum dedicated to the victory and its life as a ship. And so that was really cool. They have, you know, actual, they have the mast that was at Trafalgar and had a cannon shot through it.

Like, it was so cool. I've been to that gallery before, but I appreciate it. appreciated it much more having our tutor with us who could explain everything, and it was great. And so next was victory. Now, I hesitate to say I was disappointed with seeing victory because it's still amazing in its current state, but victory is not in her best order right now. So that renovation work that they were doing 10 years ago is still ongoing.

And the main mast is gone. There's no rigging at all. And most of the ship is not covered in scaffolding. So you can't even see the ship from the outside. You barely see the ship. So if your goal is to go there so you can get pictures of victory, like you're going to get pictures of scaffolding. Now, this is not a criticism because the work they're doing is very important. It's saving the ship. It's preserving it for another 100 years.

And it needs to be done. So, you know, in a few years, hopefully it will all those scaffolding will be gone and the restoration work will be done. Now, the cool thing about the scaffolding and everything is they set it up so that you can actually watch them doing the restoration work, which some of my favorite British TV shows are the shows about restoring British historical stuff. So it's fascinating to be able to watch the restoration conservation teams do their work and fix victory and get her in a fit state.

Another big change is victory is a different color now. So they used to be like a yellowish color, but after they, when they repainted it a few years ago, they realized that they'd actually been painting it the wrong color all these years. So that's more of a peachy, a pink color. And so that was kind of neat to see the new, the new old color of victory, which they figure out doing pigment tests and, you know, things scientists do.

So now, while this work is ongoing, the ship is still open to visitors because they're not really doing work in the inside, the most of the work is on the outside and the fabric of the ship. And so you can still tour the ship. Now, when I went 10 years ago, you had to book a time slot and you were on a guided tour. The currently, they don't have the guided tour anymore. Rather, they give you an audio device and it's more self-guided.

So they're a little Bluetooth speakers that you keep up to your ear. And then when you walk around the ship, there's waypoints where you wave your audio thing and it gives you the spiel for that bit of the ship. And then throughout the ship, there's still subject matter experts who are happy to talk to you about their subject matter expertise. So while it's not guided by a tour guide anymore, you have the audio tour guide guiding you.

and then there's key people along the way to show you everything or explain things. And so it was, the tour was great. We kind of stuck together as a group in the course. And so we all enjoyed seeing everything. The ship is in good order on the inside. The audio guide gave us great insight. Our tutor from Oxford gave us great insights. And then a few of the people that we encounter along the way. gave great insights and, you know, I, just, you have to experience these places in person.

Like, you can't just read about them. Like, the smell of the ship is incredible. The creaking of the wood beneath your feet, the having to duck so you don't hit your head. And you get a real sense of what life was like on these ships of war. And it's, you know, Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies. movies. So I just, I love being inside these ships. It's incredible. And the scale of the ship is mind-boggling.

You just, you don't realize how big they are until you get inside and how many decks there actually are. And at one point, I'm like, is how much, like, how many more decks are, is this tour going to go through? Like, it just, like, you, and you go all the way down to the bottomless possible level where the ship's ballast is. And that's where you exit. That's where the gift shop is. Exit through the gift shop.

It's like, you know, what would Nelson think of the gift shop selling hats and pens at the exit to his ship? That's amusing to think. But while you can actually currently, when you get out of the ship, you can walk down a flight of stairs and then walk under the hole and along the hole and see like the scale of the thing. And it's just, it's amazing, truly amazing. And I'm, I really should have some more adjectives, but I just, I just don't.

It was, it was incredible. It's my second time there. And so I'll give it a few years. I'll give it me five years and I'll go back and see how the renovation work and conservation work has progressed. Maybe the scaffolding will be gone. We'll see. I, I hope that one of these days, they can put the full rigging back on so I can see it in person, because I've not seen the full rigging, and I've heard it's quite incredible to see.

So the next door to victory is the Mary Rose Museum, which opened a few years ago. For those unfamiliar, the Mary Rose is a Tudor Navy ship that sank in battle right in front of King, Henry the 8th. I believe it was a flagship. And about 30 or 40 years ago, they found the ship in the Solent and remarkably preserved. Not the whole ship, it's like a third of the ship. But they found like a third of the whole preserved in the mud and then thousands upon thousands of artifacts that were on the ship, you know, skeletons of the crew, things that that belonged to them and cannons and everything that a ship needed to operate in was found.

And so it was an incredible archaeological find for a very key time in naval history. So the, there was a massive project to raise the remains of the ship and put them in a museum. And I visited the Mary Rose Museum 10 years ago when we visited the first time, and the ship was still being sweated out. And so the whole need to be, they need to get all the, they need to get all the moisture out of the hole and then replaced it with a special compound that would preserve it so that it wouldn't decay anymore.

And so that process was still going on 10 years ago. It went on for like 20 years. I'm not joking here. Like it was in this room for 20 years and this was happening to this and it was a very gradual process. And so you couldn't actually get in, get in parts of the museum where this was happening. So you like had to watch. You could just look at the ship in the darkness and it was kind of barely lit because it was very sensitive to light.

And so, you know, we saw it and then you saw the artifacts. And then it's kind of a ghostly place, a little morbid in a way because you feel like you're kind of trotting on a grave of hundreds of men. But since I saw it the first time, now the sweating out of the moisture and everything has finished. And so it's now preserve, you know, for eternity. And so there's a new level in the museum now where it's vacuum sealed, but you can go in.

There's like an airlock. It's kind of neat. And then you can walk along the top level and you can share the same airspace with the ship. And it's a very cool space with temperature controls and you can, you know, get a good look at the ship. So that's the biggest change there. Another big change is they've started a kind of a light show on the whole where they project videos of what of life happening on the ship in people in period costume and sound effects and what that.

It's very cool. Highly recommend it. If you're going to visit the victory, you might as well visit the Mary Rose. It's very much worth doing. It's on a timed entry system. We had to actually wait in line outside even though we had tickets because there's a, there's a new multimedia introduction that that wasn't there before where they kind of heard you in this room. Then they explained the history of the ship and Henry the 8th talks about the ship and like a little hologram.

And then the ship, the battle starts and then the room, the room stays still with the video around you makes it feel like you're on the ship as it's sinking, which is pretty horrifying when you think about what's actually happening. But it's a very neat multimedia experience. And then you're let into the actual area where the ship is. So definitely do it. So then the final thing I want to talk about is my visit to Rousham House.

Now, as part of the Oxford course, you're given options on excursions or tours you can do. Some of them had already done previously. And so one of the options was Rousham House. So this is a last minute edition. It was originally supposed to be Waddesdon Manor, a National Trust property. which I really wanted to see. So I was a little disappointed that they changed it at the last minute. But I never heard of Rousham House. And so but I was like, well, I mean, it's a stately home with gardens.

I mean, what's not to love? And so we went on an afternoon excursion. It's an interesting place. Now, it's one of those stately homes that it's still been in, it's in the same ownership of the family that built it in 1635. It's the same family that owns it. So it's a private stately home. Tours of the house are only open by appointment, which we obviously had an appointment because we were a tour group. But like you can't just, it's not like a National Trust property where you can't just wander in and have a wander around.

like, no, it's a private home. And they only do tours on certain days, certain of certain months and has to be planned in advance. This is mostly because it's more famous for the gardens, which were mostly by William Kent, who, a bad anglophile. I had not heard of him until, until he was explained to us on this trip. So the house is a, was built in this, the current house was built in the 17th century in the sort of free new Gothic style.

It looks like a very English daily home when you look at pictures of it and I'll put pictures in the show notes. And then the house itself on the inside, It's not a grand stately home by aristocratic standards. It's very small on the inside. I mean, it's still a beautiful, interesting, architecturally significant building. But it's still very much a private home. Like, you know, I ought to take pictures inside because it's somebody's house. So I was not able to, I had one picture of the entry hall, and then I was told to stop taking pictures.

So that was unfortunate. But the house is, was used recently, the grounds and the house. house were had been used in productions of Lewis, the Morse spinoff, and most recently, last year in the BBC miniseries, The Pursuit of Love, which is great, a great series. And now that I think about it, I definitely recognize the house. But the house is sort of the secondary attraction. Like I said, it's a private home and it's not really open.

So the place is more famous for its garden. The English horticultural's Monty Don considers Park, his favorite garden in England. And so there's, there's, there's two gardens. There's the walled garden that you can have a wander around. And there's a bigger, like, park that you can wander around. And so we had sort of free run of the place. And the gardens were beautiful. It was a cloudy, overcast day, but the garden, you know, it was July, and the gardens were lush.

It kind of wasn't necessarily affected by the drought because they have, it's by the river Charwell, so they have their own water source. But the gardens are beautiful. And the grounds are beautiful. And we had a couple hours to wander around. And it was really, I mean, I'm at peak happiness and I'm wandering around the grounds of a stately home, especially one that's sort of semi-private. And there aren't a lot of tourists at. So we kind of had the place to ourselves, which is really nice.

Now, a place like Rousham House and the park, like, you need a car to get to it. Like, you can't get to this by public transport. It is in the middle of nowhere. And it's not, it doesn't have the facilities of a National Trust or English Heritage property or a Blenheim Palace. There's, there's a self-servant ticket kiosk, there's a bathroom, and that's it. And like I said, the house is not open normally. You have to book a private tour of the house.

So it's kind of very much come and go as you please on the certain days that the gardens and parklands are open. And if you are a aficionado of English Gardens, I highly recommend visiting Rousham Park. It's very much worth seeing kind of off the beaten paths as far as tourist attractions go. A lot of history there. The grounds are beautiful. The house is beautiful. If you can manage to get on one of the tours of the house, I highly recommend doing it.

There's a lot of interesting history there. And some of the rooms are really beautiful. And they're from an English design in our architecture perspective. Some of the rooms are very significant. It was just a lovely afternoon out. I would love to go back. So those are the three things that I wanted to talk about. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email. And thank you for listening to the Anglotopia Podcast.