Liverpool, a Bus, and Faeces

Saturday we journeyed across the Mersey to Liverpool (sadly we did not ferry across, but bussed across in a tunnel). Our sole purpose was to view the famous Liverpool Docks -a site from which over 9 million people emigrated during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among those 9 million were B's ancestors: Baldwick and Crane, K's ancestors: Lewis, Wright, and Meickle, and my ancestors: Harris, Parkinson. We stood at the dock overlooking the Mersey and the Atlantic Ocean in the distance awfully glad that we get to fly, not sail, across the pond. We had our own taste of interminable journeys on the bus journey to and from Liverpool. On the way there we were delayed by the bus breaking down and, once we got on the replacement bus, getting stuck behind a Roma horse-drawn wagon. Then once we wanted to leave Liverpool, the bus, which was supposed to come every 20 minutes, didn't come for an hour. We were entertained, however, by the increasingly drunken football revellers making their way to the pubs to watch the England-US World Cup match. The trip home was also slower than expected. Once again we were glad to be on modern conveniences because if this had been the 19th century the Donner Party overtones would have been disconcerting.

Now for the feces (faeces in British) portion of our story. At the Maritime Museum at the Albert Dock they had a display on customs officers. One station demonstrated how customs officials must be very vigilant in deciphering pure imported goods from those cut with cheap materials. For example, the difference between genuine tea leaves from grass clippings often mixed with tea leaves to increase, illegally, the profits of the seller. Well, apparently some clever smugglers mix legitimate goods with fecal matter. But that's not the best part. The best part is the fact that the museum chose this item, not grass clippings, to use in the display - with the encouragement to smell the faeces to determine if you could tell the difference between that and coffee. Really? We abstained from participating in this demonstration; we decided that learning we couldn't tell the difference between poo-poo and coffee would be a distressing things to learn.