York amid the tourists

To York for a course from work. Walking from train station to the venue, part of the Theatre Royal that dates from the 13th century and used to form part of the cellar of St Leonard's Hospital, the way kept being blocked by group of Japanese tourists. They were intent of capturing all the city with a digital camera - on a tripod, which they placed on the pavement at regular intervals, slowing everything to a crawl. I was too polite to get in the way of the shot - even though for many of them I couldn't actually see any merit in the view - so that the five minute stroll turned into a fraught stop-start meander.

On the way back to the station I was approached by a middle-aged woman with an eastern European accent wanting directions to the National Railway Museum. I offered to show her, as it was on my route before realising that - at 5.05 pm it would be on the point of closing. The look on her face when I told her, allowing for the time lag in translation, was one of utmost disappointment. Turned out she was doing York in a day. Hard work sightseeing, apparently.