England - a foriegn land
I had not considered writing about England, mostly because I like to write about travel and the exploration of the new, but I have discovered that what is familiar, or at least seems so becomes more foreign with time.
Not the friends and the family occasions, all of which were wonderful, warm and quintessentially English, a trip on the river, a lunch at the pub, a play in the West End, not that, but the shocks of returning to a place and a society that has undergone considerable change.
I left in 1984 as Margret Thatcher was doing her bit to provoke war and there was a sense of oppression in the air, riots on the streets and too much nihilism.
I returned briefly on the wave of New Britannia as Tony Blair took office and the coolest couple - believe it or not- were Liam and Patsy - now it is William and Kate and the pendulum has swung back and forth many times over and Britain feels almost middle aged rather than cool. The lack of healthy protest at Glastonbury was one indication, but on the other hand there's something still edgy about the place.
May be it is living in Asia but the overt displays of public affection, the casual swearing on the tv, the amount of nudity exposed on billboards and commercials, the sexual innuendos and the frank nature of people's conversations on trains caught me off guard, not to mention what on earth was going on in EastEnders..
I think what shocked me most was on the escalator going down to the Picadilly Line about 8 in the morning, when I was struggling to balance a suitcase and a bag, a couple directly below me starting a passionate exploration of each others oral cavities. Amongst the heave of commuters, the metallic smell of the underground, the sharp sounds of metal on metal in complete oblivion to all this the two of them indulged in the longest escalator kiss. But why not, if in this great land where the news is often about the failure of policies, the neglect of the vulnerable and the destruction of the environment, the supermarkets are full slogans exhorting you to eat healthy food that comes wrapped in layers of plastic and on the streets people with knives make life a game of chance. A kiss maybe the last comment you get to make that day before you dissolve into a future that writers like Will Self and Martin Amis had not so long ago only imagined.
Not the friends and the family occasions, all of which were wonderful, warm and quintessentially English, a trip on the river, a lunch at the pub, a play in the West End, not that, but the shocks of returning to a place and a society that has undergone considerable change.
I left in 1984 as Margret Thatcher was doing her bit to provoke war and there was a sense of oppression in the air, riots on the streets and too much nihilism.
I returned briefly on the wave of New Britannia as Tony Blair took office and the coolest couple - believe it or not- were Liam and Patsy - now it is William and Kate and the pendulum has swung back and forth many times over and Britain feels almost middle aged rather than cool. The lack of healthy protest at Glastonbury was one indication, but on the other hand there's something still edgy about the place.
May be it is living in Asia but the overt displays of public affection, the casual swearing on the tv, the amount of nudity exposed on billboards and commercials, the sexual innuendos and the frank nature of people's conversations on trains caught me off guard, not to mention what on earth was going on in EastEnders..
I think what shocked me most was on the escalator going down to the Picadilly Line about 8 in the morning, when I was struggling to balance a suitcase and a bag, a couple directly below me starting a passionate exploration of each others oral cavities. Amongst the heave of commuters, the metallic smell of the underground, the sharp sounds of metal on metal in complete oblivion to all this the two of them indulged in the longest escalator kiss. But why not, if in this great land where the news is often about the failure of policies, the neglect of the vulnerable and the destruction of the environment, the supermarkets are full slogans exhorting you to eat healthy food that comes wrapped in layers of plastic and on the streets people with knives make life a game of chance. A kiss maybe the last comment you get to make that day before you dissolve into a future that writers like Will Self and Martin Amis had not so long ago only imagined.
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