Bill Bryson on Stonehenge and travelling abroad

Phil you're you're next and penultimate object is a paperweight but it is a picture of Stonehenge what is it that you like about Stonehenge and is it the obvious mystery of it well it's not just it's not just don't engines it's the antiquity of Britain and that then and the abundance of antiquity everywhere the fact that there's so much I mean coming this I do from a young nation I I'm just constantly even now after all these decades bowled over by just how much there is I did a little calculation and if you if you made it your hobby starting now to to visit just medieval parish churches in England and you decided to do one new one a week for the as long as it took do you have any idea how long it would take it would take 308 years to see them all if you tried to do just the archaeological sites it would take you 11,500 years to do them all that's just known ones now more zumbawee would be discovered in the interval and but there's just that richness of stuff the fact that there's just so much everywhere absolutely love that idea that wherever you are in the country you just stumble across things that in where I come from in Iowa people would really travel hundreds of miles to see I mean if you had a thing like Stonehenge in Iowa I believe me everybody you know would travel from all over to see have a job to explain to them how it got there of course but but but you know anything any medieval object would be just venerated and hear all these Paris churches are completely taken for granted there's because there's so many of them it's both a curse and a blessing because one of the problems is that because you do have so much in Britain people do tend to take them for granted and so when things get knocked down or swept away they tend not to be lamented as they might be in a younger country so do you feel that you are the unofficial curator of all of this to show us the way I actually if you're asking seriously I feel as if I'm unofficially in charge of the whole planet but no but I mean don't we all do much for you everybody don't you go through life thinking you know they really ought to put me in charge of everything because you know I really think I wouldn't do a better job of it than they're doing yeah if you could offer one piece of advice to American tourists visit the UK what would it be learn that it's not a bird I don't know I I mean I'm actually the thing is I think the thing for a lot of Americans is would be just to you know don't expect it to be America though you know just relax and try and just allow it to sweep over you I had a genuinely when we were living in New Hampshire quite I thought were quite a sophisticated next to a neighbor world they and they'd gone on a cycling holiday they've gone from I think was from Vienna to Prague and all he talked about was the how much power they had in the showers every morning and I decided is that really what was important to you and it clearly it was so I think there's a tendency among Americans I mean I've seen this with my own family my parents when they used to come here of just trying to replicate American conditions wherever they were here and obviously that's that's there's no point traveling if you if that's all you want to do

Channel: Waterstones

Views: 11,148

Rating: 4.951807 out of 5

Keywords: Books, eBooks, bestsellers, Waterstones, Waterstones bookshops, Waterstones.com, internet bookshop, Stonehenge (Tourist Attraction), Bill Bryson (Author), Richard E Grant, Travel (TV Genre)

Id: cPJ9jpbVmEk

Length: 3min 20sec (200 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2015