steepholm

Yesterday the Cotswold project took me back to Fosse Farmhouse, the model for Alice's house in the Kiniro Mosaic anime, in which its homemade jam actually gets a sly bit of product placement on Shinobu's breakfast table...




I was there to talk about the project with Caron, the owner, but happily my visit coincided with the arrival of a group of young Japanese students studying nearby in Bath, who had come to learn the ancient art of baking scones. Here they are, doing just that, in a scene reminiscent of Alice's and Shinobu's lesson in Episode 1 (that took place in the room next door, but the Homepride flour men are prominent in both):



Admittedly yesterday's students weren't making names in dough, but here are some Caron made earlier:



Anyway, the end result was very good, and didn't taste like a cartoon at all:



The homemade jam was plum, not strawberry; Caron can't grow enough strawberries for the purpose, but has a very productive Victoria plum tree. I point that out purely for the sake of scholarship, but research is seldom this delicious.

Last semester's marking has just touched down in my in-tray, so I'm likely to be preoccupied over the next two or three weeks, but to keep my spirits up I've begun making arrangements for my research trip to Japan in May (which is, for the first half, a tour of resorts, malls, etc., inspired by Britain, and particularly the Cotswolds). First up, I've booked two nights in the B&B at Dreamton, near Kameoka (not far from Kyoto). There I will enjoy a full English breakfast in a country cottage with whitewashed walls, but also potentially be disturbed by the cry of frogs at night, according to the information I was sent on booking. This the kind of cognitive dissonance I particularly appreciate. (Of course, we have frogs in England too, but as I found last year Japanese ones sound quite different.) "京都の英国カントリーサイド、静かに流れる時間を存分にお楽しみください", says the booking form: "Enjoy time flowing quietly by in Kyoto's British countryside." I can't wait.

I've tried to contact British Hills, too, but so far no reply. Yufuin Floral Village is next on my list, where I hope to meet up with my good friend Chiho. Watch this space - or the next one.

I've often seen old anthropomorphic maps of England, Britain, or even the British Isles - stuff like this:



But check out the anime-style versions here (you need to scroll down some way). Are they not considerably more appealing than a sour-faced Britannia who has turned Wales into her chair-back?

In vocabulary news, I've long had difficulty remember the Japanese word for aquarium: suizokukan (水族館). I've seen it several times, but not often enough for it to stick. Now, I've just realised that kanji-by-kanji it can be translated as "hall of the watery tribe". Given that, I think I won't have any further difficulty. I'll just imagine it was coined by a minor eighteenth-century poet.

As you know, I've been watching The Ancient Magus' Bride as it's been broadcast, partly for the folklore and partly because I've been looking out for definitive proof that it is set in the Cotswolds. Yesterday, with Episode 9, I found it. In this episode, Chise and Angelica take a little bus trip, during which they come to this rather distinctive place:



I've only been there once (a rather disastrous birthday treat with my son) but even I know Bourton-on-the-Water when I see it, and sure enough here's the same view in reality:



So, that's very pleasing. However, I would still welcome help pinning down this street scene:



And this church, set distinctively on a hill as it is:



The other thing to note about the church is that the animators have coloured the (normally) stone tracery of the west window brown, as if it were made of wood. Of course, it may be that the church in question really is like this, but perhaps it's a case of what Gombrich called the adapated stereotype?

Once we pay attention to this principle of the adapted stereotype, we also find it where we would be less likely to expect it: that is, within the idiom of illustrations, which look much more flexible and therefore plausible.

The example from the seventeenth century, from the views of Paris by that well-known and skillful topographical artist Matthaus Merian, represents Notre Dame and gives, at first, quite a convincing rendering of that famous church. Comparison with the real building, however, demonstrates that Merian has proceeded in exactly the same way as the anonymous German woodcutter. As a child of the seventeenth century, his notion of a church is that of a lofty symmetrical building with large, rounded windows, and that is how he designs Notre Dame. He places the transept in the centre with four large, rounded windows on either side, while the actual view shows seven narrow, pointed Gothic windows to the west and six in the choir. Once more portrayal means for Merian the adaptation or adjustment of his formula or scheme for churches to a particular building through the addition of a number of distinctive features— enough to make it recognisable and even acceptable to those who are not in search of architectural information. If this happened to be the only document extant to tell us about the Cathedral of Paris, we would be very much misled.

Find that church, and the truth will set us free.