Places:

England

Quick remarks:

• Oxford is insanely crowded on weekends. Stay away.
• The Intercity trains are worth the price; they're quite fast.
• If you haven't visited London, you can have a surprisingly fun time trying to see everything in one day. Just buy a one-day Underground ticket, and run like crazy! You can always come back later to see things in depth.
• St. Paul's is nice, but it's in an ugly part of town (faceless office towers).
• The Underground ranges from very modern to quite old; there are stations with metal spiral staircases inside -- I mention it because, if it's raining, you'll have water falling on your head from the shoes of the people above you. Ick.
• I understand that they're getting rid of them, but the old wooden escalators are pretty cool.
• The district around Paddington Station is relatively pleasant, though boring. My hotel (the Colonnade, I believe it was) was in that area, and I wasn't dissatisfied. Apparently Alan Turing stayed there once, or something.
• Birmingham has a fairly nice downtown district, although it's not very large. It's nice enough to pass through, or to kill some time until your train arrives.
• Birmingham itself is not offensive, but it's not exactly a "destination". They do have some pretty good Indian food there, however. Definitely try the Balti, if you can. There is a decent selection of B&B establishments.
• The British have some interesting flavors of potato-chip; I was especially fond of the Bacon and Worchestershire flavors, although I'm told that the Prawn flavor is OK if you like seafood (I don't). The packages are a bit small, but I suppose that's probably for the best.
• The British simply don't know how to build a decent shower! I don't know why, but in almost every place I stayed, the showers were microscopic. In two instances, I couldn't stand up straight (I'm 6.4 feet tall). I was also constantly smashing my elbows into the glass while trying to soap up.