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England’s a blast
- del.ico.us
- digg this!
- Last edited: 5:50, Jul 16 2007
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Terrorism, flooding, whinging and irony. Reality happens here - but summer doesn’t.
The English have two prevalent personality traits: politeness and whinging. I heard the word sorry from the airline crew of British Airways (an awful airline by the way) in the flight from New York to London more than in the entire month in the U.S.. Even the buses are awfully sorry when not in service. The politeness is actually a ruse, the English are just masters at disguising their true meanings in irony and sarcasm, which is hilarious if one can follow. 
My cousin Wilma has a translation sheet of work place English-isms for Dutch business at a loss when confronted with doublespeak. If an English person says ‘I’ll take that into consideration’ it means they will ignore it, but the Dutch incorrectly assume that it will factor into the equation. ‘Maybe’ means no and ‘that’s an interesting idea’ often means ‘where on earth did that come from - are you crazy?’.
The Poms whinge for a reason which I discovered as soon as I got off the plane. I was met with rain, cloud and dirty beggars - what a welcome. Yes English weather is crap, but apparently this July is worse than usual. A comedian the other night talking about the town of Hull where there has been massive flooding said there were ‘reports of broken fridges and television sets on front lawns - and then it started raining really heavily’. The flooding has caused millions of pounds of damage, but more importantly I am going insane with the endless gray cloud. Doesn’t the weather know I am here for a summer vacation? I can’t wait to visit tropical Scandinavia for some good weather.
Whinging and sarcasm have combined to hilarious effect in regards to the latest terrorist scares in London and Glasgow. The media has mercilessly taken the piss out of the Glasgow airport bombers. One of the bombers lying bandaged in hospital has been quoted as complaining “But I was promised 72 virgins!” The nursing angel of mercy leaning solicitously over him replies: “Then why the f*** would you come to Glasgow?”.1 Reading news reports from New Zealand I had the impression that the whole world had gone to hell in a hand basket since 9/11 (or 9/12 if you are on NZ time), but once here, and in the U.S., it appears that life goes on with the same amount of melodrama as before.
Kelvin, an old friend in Hackney, kindly let me stay with him at his mother’s place. I spent only four days in London where I proceeded to walkabout again, this time following my cousin Sean around. At the end Lauren bussed down from Harrogate and we travelled onto Lewes where we stayed with the Druids, Philip and Steph and their daughters Sophie and Charlie.