Horsham, England

Today, we reached our fourth - and final - country.  I'm proud to say that I've finally made it to jolly old England on this tour.  The time it took to get through customs at Heathrow Airport was horrendous.  They have increased the inspection time for all foreign passports, as the security for the 2012 Summer Olympics has begun.  I can't even imagine how bad it will get in a few months....

Our first stop in the UK is a sleepy little town called Horsham.  In fact, it's not classified as a "town" but rather a "village".  A game developer started his business here 25 years ago, and never left for a larger city.  The developer makes some interesting strategy games that are based on historical events.  They specialize in a genre called "real-time strategy" where you control large numbers of military units in a battle.  They've done editions based on the Napoleanic wars, English/French wars, Japanese Shogun battles, and are right in the middle of their sequel to a Roman legion-based game.

While in their offices, I found this little game system, sitting on a shelf with other "classic" videogame systems:



It's a Dreamcast machine.  It's one of the game consoles that I worked on in my career, and one that I'm most proud of.  It's nice to see it honored at a modern game development studio ; )

For lunch, they served us some lovely sandwiches.  They also provided some potato chips (here they're called "crisps").  Hidden among the chips was this gem:

It's a flavor of "Kettle Chips" that I've never been able to find in the U.S.  Not just "salt & vinegar", but salt and balsamic vinegar.  YUM!  I wish I had another suitcase, so I could fill it with bags of these chips ; )

Taking a 15 minute break in the afternoon, I quickly walked a few blocks away from the developer's offices, to try and see a little of Horsham.  What I found was a very cute, typical English village:

Right next to the offices (literally 20 ft away), I found this interesting structure:

It's called St. Mark's Spire.  I believe it's about 150 ft high.  It was only built in 1870, so a "young" building by European standards ; )  The sad thing is that they built the office complex around it, which is a real shame.  I know that space is at a premium in the UK cities, but it would be nice for this structure to stand alone and be appreciated.

That's it from Horsham.  Tomorrow will be the last day of meetings...and when I get to head HOME!!!