Germaine Greer thinks that Stratford-upon-Avon is "the worst kind of tourist trap". It certainly must be a disappointment to foreign visitors, and considering its world-wide importance it is indeed a bit of a dump. After spending an afternoon there, it's hard not to agree with Greer that visitors are left "...with nothing better to spend their money on than McDonald's, KFC or overpriced, mass-produced sandwiches and vile coffee". At least they're seeing the contemporary Britain that the rest of us have to put up with, and not some illusory costume-drama mock-up. But all the same...

But hey, it was a beautiful sunny day, and we had a top-notch performance to look forward to, which didn't let us down. The birthplace museum is good, mainly because the house has miraculously survived more or less intact, and walking on the same flagstones that the man himself must have walked on is quite something. Ian Mckellen's Lear was superb.