The ocean comes to you

Right, so back in May I was in the UK staying with my aunt and uncle and now my aunt and uncle are over here (we went out in celebration of their 45th wedding anniversary, just after they arrived, 2 weeks ago). One of the things I did then was return their "Wee Book of Calvin", which I'd borrowed to enjoy a bit more (and which I did enjoy 'cause Christ Knows I grew up being told the sorts of thing in it a la "stop that greetin' or I'll give ye somethin' tae greet about!"). It's the sort of book that goes perfectly with a solid breakfast on a gloomy Sunday (and none of you will recall that this was the name of my last post about that UK trip).

That line is Orwell from the Lion and the Unicorn and it goes like this:

"But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece?"

And what does the Britain (he really is talking about Britain here even if he doggedly and very specifically and insistently says England while insisting it's a synonym for the whole) of 1980 have in common with the one of 2015? A shocking great deal in my experience and not just in impressions (like seeing the child in the man) but in the actuals. As I said in the last paragraph of that post:

"The last thing I've accidentally been consuming a lot of is pop culture but that I'll save for its own post since it'll be a big enough thing on its own. The indicator of how that's going to go is easily illustrated by what my Uncle and Mum are currently watching on the TV (I have headphones on): a variety show in honour of VE Day taped earlier this month. If being here I feel like I'm retreating back to the green, back to the flavours of childhood, it's also easy to feel like I'm going back in time culturally as well with ridiculous ease."

Now of course the problem with this post is that so many of those actuals have slipped off in my memory and become impressions but to quickly summarize some of the ones that have stuck:

- As indicated in that quote they're still singing the war songs of the 1940s (just like they were in the 1980s when I was made to stick a cloth on my head and sing the lot; I know piles of them from memory to this day)
- Casualty still hasn't been freakin' cancelled (someone made a joke & I just assumed they were ridiculously dating themselves but noooo)
- They're still showing that guy with his performing budgies on variety shows (to that point: there's still an abundance of variety shows!)
- They're still showing stuff like 'Allo 'Allo (and not on their equivalent of the TV Classics channel but right up there on BBC2... and I see they're now showing Bergerac!)
- Countdown also lives on!

It was so bizarre. It actually became disorienting to me. I really felt like I was occupying some weird timewarp.

One last thing that stuck out for me that I wish, wish I could remember the last element of was actually from an ad. It said something to the effect that unlike the rest of the world which has typical motivating emotions like sadness, happiness, anger Brits have embarrassment, nostalgia and X.

(How embarrassing to not remember X). ;P

*Annnnnd* best of all a couple of days before I encountered that ad I was gifted a 50p coupon for herbal tea which I then couldn't bare to part with as it featured the line that it must not be used for anything other than the stated product as it 'may cause embarrassment and delay at the checkout' which I could not stop being amused by.

Incidentally, I did try to find what the heck that ad said more than once and failed on all occasions. This time I found an article (which will immediately drive one of you absolutely insane) which pointed out that the problem with Britain is something somewhat embarrassing for what it then turns out to be and that the one with Canada is that it's boring (and I, personally, have always very much liked that about the place). ;)

There! Finally freed of all my owed posts (assuming the occasional series I intend to post for the rest of my life over This Changes Everything doesn't count). Next up I'll either tell you about how Nuit Blanche went this year or what kind of soap is in my bath (or something else entirely since that's how it usually works).