Americans in London 2012 - The USA Wuz Here

Simple plan: Head to Westfield Shopping Centre, wait at entrance to Olympic Village, take pictures of patriotically dressed Americans for blog. Complications: five year old son, could work to advantage as strangers always warm to a child with a winning smile. 

On the penultimate day of the London Olympiad. 

Given that I wrote ambiguously to disparagingly about how we wear our colours abroad a couple weeks ago in this blog, I thought I'd do a little photographical essay on us supporting Team USA, resplendent in all our 'Old Glory' red, white and blue. 

And here we are, our true colours proudly, unashamedly displayed for all and sundry. 

Above is my first victim, Ashton from California, whose cape turned out to be quite a fashion among Americans abroad in E20 (as I suppose we must call it from now on. Isn't E20 where Eastenders is set?). Ashton was a great sport seeing as how I disturbed his lunch in the food court in order to take his picture. Excuse the 'Shaky Auteur' style if it's not to your liking. I was still a tad nervous about approaching people to take pictures of them, about which I learned a lot and became more comfortable with as the afternoon wore on. 

Bonnie, from the Washington DC area

Funny thing is that people can get awfully paranoid about strangers stopping them in the middle of the mall. Probably happened enough times before. Initially, they probably all thought I was after money, or trying to sell them The Big Issue, or worse, about to rob them blind of their Olympic tickets like the famed historical highwaymen of Angle-land. But once I told them what I was all about and that I wanted to take a picture of them for my blog, there was such a softening. Almost a thrill to feel the sensation of fame running at the fingertips. Bonnie here was keen, though her husband, not dressed nearly as patriotically, didn't seem to want to be snapped at all. I suspect he thought I was stalking his wife, a suspicion that I shared with my son afterwards, perhaps wrongly, because it put me in the position of explaining rather too loudly what 'stalking' meant to a five year old within earshot of many equally suspicious looking Olympic fans who looked like they might have social services on speed dial.

Mind you, some were especially hostile to being approached. We'll put those people in a category that I'll call 'the British who I mistook for Americans'. One of them was wearing an American flag t-shirt and carrying a plastic bag labeled 'NBA'. Isn't that like wearing a neon sign emblazoned with 'American as Apple Pie' on it? I think our English cousins are just a bit more closed and jaded than we are and I think the few who fall into this category were decidedly not Londoners. 

Steve, from California 

Steve was great. He really embodied one of the things that makes me proud to be American. I told him about my limited and sheltered northeastern existence, having never been west of the Mississippi in my life (True. All true. I know. Hard to tell with my worldliness). 'Really?' He said, 'That's a such a shame because as you go west the weather just gets better and better,' and from Steve with that wonderfully honest American smile, I believed it. Because it's true and also because there is a sincerity that goes beyond simplicity or literal-mindedness, which is what the Brits generally call us. There is an untranslatably beautiful honesty in a smile and pure delight in the sun shining every day. Steve's never had Seasonal Affective Disorder and clearly no Scandinavian homicide drama could possibly have anything to say that would relate to his experience. And because of that American sincerity, that delight in the simple pleasures, I just felt like taking a trip out west, just to visit Steve and see the weather. Alas, were there time to exchange numbers in a heaving mall, but here in London, we live by a faster pace. 

Virginians Abroad (Read that carefully, will ya?)

This family taught me another one of those lessons about approaching the public, a heartwarming one this time. The teenage son in the foreground had been exchanging words in a tone of mild irritation more than matched by his mother. They seemed to be arguing about how to get where they were going, but I was desperate to get a couple more snaps of Americans so I decided to disturb them. At first the young lad had no interest in being in the shot, but I cajoled him and he looks somewhat reluctant, but a poised reluctant, as though he's turned it into a modelling pose. The mother was only too happy, as you can see, to smile for the camera, as was the cute little girl. As I walked away I could hear, just within earshot, milder tones of concordance between mother and son and a general harmony between the three. Being approached by someone asking you to pretend you're happy can have that effect. Pretend for long enough and some of it spills over into reality. You forget the bagatelle that you were annoyed with and move on. Quite a lovely, uncomplicated moment.

Fellow Expatriate Americans

I end with this adorably sweet couple because I know neither their names or where they are from. So astounded was I when they told me that they live not anywhere in America, but in Bury St. Edmunds and in such a rush were they to get to see Athletics that we didn't have time for niceties, but I was elated to find two kindred intrepid spirits, fellow expatriates abroad, supporting the home team in all their glory, as we can't help but do when we support our compatriots and separate ourselves for just a moment from the darker side of this Olympiad. Objectors will say that this act of forgetting is just what perpetuates a world run by megaconglomo-corporate entities and believe me, I'm on your side, which is why enjoyment is all the richer if you can celebrate the good in things while, with a fine sense of balance, understanding the underlying cost of all of our joy. Here's to Rio in 2016. Well done, America in London 2012. 

Celebrating The Olympics: Hackney Style

This was supposed to be a rather different blog post, an in-depth and personal probing exploration into whether it is possible to separate corporate sponsorship from the purity of enjoyment of sport in the middle of 3 fenced off big screens in Victoria Park, East London. That post may come, but my material changed very suddenly today when I innocently sought to take a picture of what looked like some garishly dressed, golden-bedecked hairdressers, styling a young girl's hair to the backdrop of thickly pumping hardcore/trance, and was very quickly with coy and at the same time grandiose gestures, invited up to experience the 'styling' of Osadia, a street theatre group based in Barcelona since 1996 striving to push the boundaries of interactive, street entertainment and the extent of participation and ownership in that art through their performances.

Especially in the last few years, I've been trying to be more confident and let my inner-American out. We are to a great extent defined by how other people react to us and how we provoke those reactions and I enjoy sometimes exceeding the expectations of the kind of American people think I am. So instead of shrinking into a corner with my plastic bottle of what will remain an unnamed Dutch beer, I decided I was game. What I was game for I didn't realise until about 20 minutes of styling, a round of applause and a crying child who wanted to know why I had changed so much later. I will admit, along with that brazen American stepping up to the plate or stage as it were, there was wild anxiety, which got slightly wilder with each step this fascinatingly fetishistically dressed performer took, because if you want hair this good, believe me, it is a long and involved process. I thoroughly enjoyed the result though as I became a part of the continuing artwork with various Park-goers striding up to take my picture or have a picture taken with me. 

Ah, the price of celebrity. Pictures don't lie. I felt like someone or something different. Wicker Man crossed with Puck the mischievous fairy via Ziggy Stardust. Alas, I would have loved to have kept the look for longer, but the wonderful and lamentable thing about the carnivalesque is that you can only transcend your identity and the boundaries of it for the duration of the carnival. Leave it and you become a spectacle on a Hackney street, with some awed, some cat-calling, some scoffing, and some speechless. 

That was my Olympic experience today. I saw Katie Taylor, from Bray in Ireland, the same town my wife is from, win gold in women's boxing. And I left Victoria Park, East London, blazing loud green and pink.   

                              

My 13 Minutes Of Fame - Lessons I learned from being on the radio

Journeyed far into the unknown west on Saturday. 

West London. W6. Hammersmith to be exact, to be interviewed by David Michaels from OnFm in the lovely Riverside Studios overlooking the Thames next to Hammersmith Bridge. 

Fascinating experience. My first radio interview. We chatted for a little less than a quarter of an hour about how I came to move from the states to Dublin and then to London, my blog and my writing and what I hope to do with it, and my views on The Olympics. I really enjoyed myself and I felt it went really well, but I also learned a lot, the key points of which can be summarised into the following kernels: 

1. Assume nothing about your audience -  I went with certain expectations, but felt I talked as though everyone listening already knew me and what I was about. Make as much known about what you do as possible, starting from the beginning. If that's the wrong place, a good interviewer will guide you to the right one. 
2. Make a plan - It might seem like a casual chat with someone who works professionally for radio every day, but it's orchestrated to appear that way. Have a plan as to how to present yourself, pick the two or three coolest things you want your audience to know about what you do, and angle every one of your responses to somehow tie in with that. 
3. Keep talking - I cut myself short a few times thinking I was going on too long, but it seems in radio, there is seldom such a thing. If you're going on too long, the presenter will tell you, but just keep talking about what you do and don't be afraid of repeating yourself. Like in a classroom, the people listening will only remember about 2 minutes of what you say. Reword the same cool stuff about what you do every two minutes. Can't go wrong. 

Also, having got the recording already from OnFm, just listening to myself was enormously instructive. I think everyone should listen to themselves more often - teachers, parents, Mitt Romney - but so many don't take the time. 

Have a listen and feel free to offer your honest critique. 

My Interview 

Don't Tread On Me - America The Branded

Taken from The Daily Mail's website

I am on the District Line, traveling west, sitting across from a stocky young man who's just boarded at Whitechapel. This corn-fed meal with tanned skin, mirror sunglasses, loose fitting jeans and chunky sneakers wears a t-shirt with the words 'America, The Beautiful' in red, white, and blue on top of a vertical star spangled banner, behind which seems to float the diaphanous image of a woman's face that I can only assume is a feminine representation of 'America, The Beautiful.' I resist the urge to lean over to him and say, 'You know, people would have known without you announcing it on your t-shirt like that. And another thing: It's neither of the things you think it is - vaguely, subtly artistic or stylish.'

One is put in mind of the Irish poet Louis MacNiece: 'Why,/ Must a country, like a ship or a car, be always female,/ Mother or sweetheart?'

Why is it that as a nation we feel a desperate compulsion to label ourselves?

It's as though no one listened to Springsteen carefully enough to read irony into him.

Or as though we are still worried that someone might mistake us for being from somewhere else or belonging to some other cultural group.

No one will.

The minute we begin to speak, they know. Everybody knows. And it's no bad thing. What is a bad thing is trying desperately to label it and somehow make it chic or cool and pretend it's some artistic statement.

Here's what I like: on the same tube journey, an individual boards the train in jeans and plain, off-white t-shirt, sits down and starts tapping his feet to the rhythm of whatever tuneful track is playing away in on his MP3 player. It's then that I notice, his Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars, faded, worn, ragged, but clearly patterned with Old Glory, stripes on each side, stars down the tongue. A cheeky treading with the flag, not on it, naturally, not flashing, not waving, but toe-tapping with a wonderfully tacit acknowledgement of nationality as a simple, softly spoken part of who you are.

On the tube back, a heaving, humid, flesh-wall-cramped train car. A short stocky man of some sort of East Asian heritage squeezes on (melting pot significance, not passively racist. Swear). He is wearing red Bermuda shorts, a plain blue top, red, white and blue star-shaped sunglasses, a soft, fuzzy looking Uncle Sam style top hat and a red and white striped draw-string bag slung over both shoulders with a little American flag poking chirpily out the back. This too strikes me as utterly and completely appropriate. It's too loud to be obnoxious. This man is America personified, wearing the country, proclaiming the preamble like a big flamboyant flamingo shouting to all and sundry, 'I am the U. S. A!' without saying a word.

Taken from the Scavenge Costumes website

I'm not given to wearing my national colo(u)rs very often, the 4th of July being an exception some years, but I think what bothered me about the first man's shirt, aside from the inherent and age-old sexism and the mixture of telltale labels, was the pretension that there was some conscious art in declaring your national heritage, as opposed to treating it as some part of you that is as natural as your shoe size, as innate as a sexual orientation. We are Americans and intensely proud of who we are, but I'd rather we all avoid standing in odious uncritical hand-on-heart reverence to the flag, not in front of the foreigners, most of whom have a bit of a sense of humo(u)r about their homelands.

So, bundle of contradictions that I am, that's what I think we all need: more pride, less reverence. 

The London Olympics: A Survival Guide For Visiting Americans

Photo taken by Paula Hughes

1) Avoid talking out loud. There's not enough space in the whole of England.

2) Sew a Canadian flag into your backpack.

Only kidding. We never pretend to be Canadian anymore.

And in point of fact, since 2008, our likeability capital has increased significantly enough so that we don't really have anything to fear in public anymore.  I've been overseas long enough to remember the dark days when Dubya's simian visage was the face of America to the world and we were seen internationally as a rampaging, war-mongering cowboy. Gone are the days when sympathizers and descendants of Churchill would secret us away under floorboards so that we could say the pledge of allegiance in dark corners. No longer do we find ourselves hiding in abandoned junkyards patriotically playing baseball and furtively eating Crackerjacks. Thankfully, since a cool, worldly dude became president, the foreign exchange rate in popularity and positive reactions is quite favourable.

Having said all that, we may be fans of Downton and Doctor Who, but we are not yet a nation of world travellers and try as McDonald's, Coke and Westfield Shopping Centre might to make the Olympic village into USA lite, there are probably still some Olympians, their families and other visitors who still might want to travel out into Londontown. It is in this intrepid exploratory spirit that I offer a few tips and pointers to help you get through the next couple weeks.


Beware of Sarcasm

You make friends with some Brits. You get along rather well with them. Splendidly. Famously, in fact. So much so that they invite you out for a night on 'the razz' and you're not quite sure what that means but it could  involve neon and fetishes or it could just be a few drinks and a few laughs. You meet your new mates and as you are about to step on the tube to head to the West End for your first stop on what promises to be a night of frolics and fun, you check with Gemma/Nigel to make sure your dress or shirt looks fab or sexy or 'all right' (in the case of Nigel) and your new Anglo-Saxon friend turns to you and says, 'yeah' and walks onto the waiting tube train. It could be a short, clipped yeah, or it could be a nano-syllable too long, but it's a noncommital yeah, a clearly ambiguous affirmation, the kind of 'yeah' delivered with a half-smile enough to convince you that you've got lipstick on your teeth or a major cliffhanger, but I couldn't be bothered to tell you. Just strike out all night and then wonder why at the end of it all; this noncommital 'yeah' is not delivered with exaggerated Chandler Bing emphasis. No one's said to you, I'm sooo  not liking that top or you should sooo  go back to the hotel and change right now. It's much more subtle and something so tiny that it leaves doubts in your head so niggling that they grow and grow until Oxford Circus when you are either ready to claw your friend's face or give the guy a good bite of a knuckle sandwich and set him straight.

Before you do, slow down. Cool your jets, tiger. Remember that you are in the United Kingdom. Sarcasm and Irony are the official languages of state. You don't get off the plane at Charles DeGaulle without so much as a 'Parlez-vouz Anglais?' and you shouldn't walk around merry old England of Madame George and roses without expecting the most deadpan sarcasm you've never heard. Chances are, your friend just wants to get on the tube quickly because he or she fears that if it begins moving it will not stop and will mercilessly rip part of his or her body as it passes into the next tunnel and chances are you look fabulous, but you will find yourself in a plethora of situations in which you have to be a bit more acutely aware of context than you might otherwise be on the other side of the pond.

Hearts, Minds and The Danger of Assumptions


Try to avoid remarking to locals about how much good the Olympics is doing for the area, for London and for Britain in general. It's a bit of a sore point. The Brits do love to complain, bless 'em, but this time you might forgive them for it. The official drink of the Olympics is produced by an American corporation; the official caterers to the Olympics are an American fast food chain and corporation; the official chocolate of the Olympics is British owned by American multinational, Kraft; the official beer of the Olympics is Dutch. It appears to the British public as though either the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG), have gone out of their way to intentionally and perversely ignore British business interests. British businesses are finding their deliveries of stock are getting later and later, their customers are drained by Westfield and one local bookshop owner has stated that she has made more from the Anti-Olympics publishing boom than the games themselves. These events are not benefiting the British or local economy and British business owners will not thank you for it.

However, if you do want to win over the hearts and minds of the indigenous peoples of this island, there is something you can do. Hop the train to Hackney Wick, Homerton or Hackney Central (there isn't anything in Stratford unless you are from New Jersey and you like that gritty, industrial, Mad Max sort of thing, which I can say being from New Jersey and must clarify as 'humour'). Get off and walk down the street. Having trawled through the archives of my blog first, you will already know as you are walking that there is an array of fine eateries and coffee shops that will serve you a nicer soft drink than Coke (Victorian Lemonade or Elderflower Cordial?) a superior coffee and finer lunch than you will find in McDonald's (Apricot chilli jam and cream cheese on toast or crepe filled with goat's cheese and walnuts?) and a finer pint of British beer at a local pub than Heineken will serve any day (East London Brewery is particularly nice, found on tap at The Clapton Hart). You don't have to go to Hackney just because I live here and I like it, but be careful to avoid assumptions about the coziness of familiar brands.


Londoners Stand on The Right

When I first moved here, I was amazed by the fact that Londoners use escalators for the purpose for which they are built: to increase the speed of your ambulatory movement downwards or upwards, which is brilliant. I get the impression in recent years that people think the same does not apply to escalators in shopping centres, but it does. And I would have thought that with a nation of health-obsessed gym members like us, we'd take full advantage of a free public stairmaster, but I tried to start the trend in America of continuing to walk on an escalator without stopping or letting yourself laze like a human mannequin on display, but for whatever reason it never took. I kept getting the dirtiest stares when trying to pass others up mid-conversation. Like good drivers though, Londoners walk on the left and allow a slow lane for tourists, but use the slow lane and stand on the right and do not be surprised if you are trampled for not doing so.

Remember, London is Still Keeping Calm and Carrying On

School's out. It's true. There are no teachers attending work or students attending school. But bankers still carry briefcases dutifully into the City of London. Nurses still don their scrubs when they get into London Bridge or The Royal Free. And estate agents (someone has to do it) still do up their Eton Knots and don their pinstripes in the hopes that the economy will pick up. But Londoners like to get to work efficiently and they like for you not to obstruct the progress of their city as it forges on in daily toil.

So if you have not mastered the ticket machines at tube stations, step aside and ask an attendant. Don't try and be a hero. Do not try and figure it out at rush hour with the trader behind you seething because he is already 33 seconds late and on his second machiatto. If you do play at these heroics, do not be surprised when you turn round, triumphantly pleased with yourself at having figured out how to purchase a zone 1 single only to find a hulking green monster who's just ripped genuine Armani and is now ready, with the rest of the commuters, to rip into you.

I would say this applied during peak times, but in the next few weeks, peak times are twenty four hours a day. So, be mindful of others around you.

Get Off The Beaten Path For Once

There are some obvious things you are looking forward to doing on your London bucket list: seeing men in large funny hats swap shift, paying too much for a black cab, gawking at strangers from atop a double decker bus, that sort of thing. Think for a second though. This city wasn't planned out like most American cities, grid-like and structured, it evolved and sprawled and reached out and stayed where it was or kept moving or got bombed out of existence only to rise like the phoenix all new and mansion-block like.

London is a savage beauty. I love it for its raw, gruff, bracing multicultural sense of 'live and let live'. One thinks of the line from Yeats: 'A terrible beauty... Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.' That unapologetic, Londonness is also its charm. Bit like New York that way. Don't expect saccharine. Expect frowning and friendly.

There are so many hidden nooks and corners that if you allow a day or two just to get lost, the dividends are amazing. When they ask you if you saw poet's corner, you can say, 'No, but I walked around the Catholic Church in central London used by the KGB as a dead-letter box during the Cold War and wrote the opening chapter to my first spy thriller.' When they ask if you stood in front of Big Ben and took a picture of yourself smiling, which is something no one in London ever seems to do, you can say, 'Yeah, but I found walking around a recreated 17th Century Huguenot house, with a narrative that ascends with you through five floors, way more enthralling.' Again, it doesn't have to be The Brompton Oratory or The Denis Severs House, but find some corner of this city that few others have bothered with and find some memory to cherish and take back with you. You're traveling over a thousand miles, some of you for the first time, perhaps some for the last. Make sure you do something that will stay with you, not something you could have done if you stayed at home.

A couple good places to look for the unusual and out of the way in London are:

@UnusualLondon

Insider London

and

Secret London

Enjoy your stay.

Stars and Stripes Proud: How to be confidently American without being the obnoxious American

 

I used to be ashamed to be American. Used to hide my native colo(u)rs like a dirty secret, ape accents around me (a habit I think I still have a tendency to do) in order to blend in. Used to avoid my compatriots like the plague anywhere and everywhere they were to be found. 

When I first emigrated overeas, eleven years ago, then to Dublin, I used to duck and run at the sound of the Southern twang, beat a steady retreat at the waddle of the Bermuda shorts, carefully conceal myself from conspicuous Californians, and make mild noises of disapproval at Midwesterners. 

Sometimes with good reason. 

'EX SCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO TRIN-IT-TEE COLLEGE?' I'd often overhear, cringing on the DART line. 'YOUR LAST NAME IS O'BRIEN? DO YOU KNOW THE O'BRIENS OF CORK?' As if there's only one or even as if it could ever matter. 'WHERE ARE THE THATCHED COTTAGES? THEY MUST BE HERE SOMEWHERE!' Overheard walking down O'Connell Street, one of the busiest streets in Dublin. 

The best example though of wonderfully embarassingly American behaviour was in the elevator (lift) coming down from the top of The Eiffel Tower. Having just experienced the majesty of the greatest of French cities from the zenith of that monumental edificial tribute to high modernism, I was still lost in the reverential afterglow of the moment when the over-sized t-shirt, aforementioned Bermuda short, baseball cap-clad retiree sharing the elevator with us pontificated to his similarly telltale dressed wife, 'WELL. BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. GOT THE T-SHIRT.' Which wasn't even true. He hadn't bought the t-shirt yet. Yes, for a nation of mostly passportless citizens, we sure do seem to get around.

However, just as the French Postcolonial Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon writes about the phases of development of the native intellectual, so I have seen my feelings towards my homeland evolve in different ways to reflect a sort of reconciliation. Oddly enough, it took an exchange with a couple of Irish colleagues, one of whom had said to me, 'Yeah, but there's no such thing as American culture is there? Just Disney and pop music.'

And just as I was shrugging my shoulders in shame and accepting resignation, it was another Irish colleague who sprang to my defens(c)e. 'Rubbish! The best novelists and poets are American. Jazz, The Beat Generation, The Hudson River School. Don't let Irish bedgrudgery cloud your vision of a country rich in culture.' I started not to after that. We do come from a rich and diverse cultural background that I declined to acknowledge for a large part of my life. Sometimes it just takes an outsider to help you see what has been hidden from you for a very long time. 

I have since tried to correct this remission on my part, with some success. I'll never go around blindly celebrating the stars and stripes, chanting, 'U!S!A! U!S!A!' but my nuanced appreciation of America has helped me to reconcile myself to my national cultural identity. I've come around to helping confused Americans now instead of avoiding them and slipping them a few local survival tips while I'm at it (Don't say 'freakin' out loud, Avoid the black pudding if you know what's good for you, 'Mind The Gap' is a safety warning, not a sale announcement, that sort of thing).  

So, to celebrate the fourth this year, here are five things (in reverse order) about/from our nation of which we can all be very proud.

5. We mind our bloody manners. Having taught in English schools now for eight years, I think I have some authority to say that Americans' politeness, our pleases, our thankyous, our general respect for decorum and for human decency is ingrained in us from the get-go. It may be puritanical and protestant of us, but common decency is important and shouldn't be underrated by our dismissive cross-Atlantic cousins. When was the last time a Londoner asked you where you were trying to get to and then gave you specific, step-by-step, diagram-aided directions? Yet, if you so much as stop on a street corner in Manhattan, your likely to start a competition between locals and soon have a plethora of directions to choose from guiding you to Starbucks on 103rd and Broad. 

4. Optimism. As Henry Rollins once remarked, you wouldn't get Morrissey in America. We believe in the fact that things can always get better and that we can change, improve and be anything we want to be (all part of the American dream). It might not be true, but it keeps some people going and gives millions hope. Actually, Russell Kane sums it up pretty well in the latter half of this clip. 

That's right, it's the blind confidence that enables us to keep copulating. The rest of the world might think it's sacchariney, but America is the home of that undying belief in the potential of tomorrow. 

3. Mark Twain -- And the never-ending attempt to write the great American novel, or rather top the great American novel, The Adventures of Huck Finn. But let's face it, from the tall tales of Washington Irving to the intense psychological explorations of Donna Tartt, we are a nation that produces a rich belles lettres and are spoilt for choice when it comes to book club material. Let us continue to bust this myth that just because the English language came from England that English literature is innately superior to American. Some might argue we innovated on and improved it. Come back to Twain for instance. He invented a Mississippian character and took him seriously enough to painstakingly research and give him his own distinct voice and then used him to rewrite Paradise Lost set against the backdrop of the American South and issues of slavery, law and morality. 

2. Woody Allen -- And David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, and Jerry Seinfeld and the much derided American sense of humour. It is a great pity that Friends became one of our most successful exports because it brought with it the idea that we are all cosy, coffee-swilling morons who can only do sarcasm through histrionic gestures and tones. Oh, Chandler Bing, what a lot you have to answer for. Go out and look up Bill Hicks or Sarah Silverman or read some Bill Bryson and then tell me we don't do understatement, self-deprecation, irony or funny with adeptness and ease. 

1. Everyone wants to be us -- It's true! I've been teaching in England and Ireland for over a decade and sooner or later someone in every single one of my classes always comes around to the same question, 'Sir, (yes they say sir) why did you leave a brilliant place like America for a rubbish country like England?' Problems though I may have with the assumptions in the question, the fact remains that we have a huge influence on the rest of the world. Ordinary Britons and Irish people see Sex and The City, Entourage, 30 Rock and they want that glamour, they want that optimism, the want that American je ne sais quoi. It may be the Chinese and Indian Century, but it's the American influence that remains over both those countries and the rest of the world. It's the American sense of optimism that reigns in New China, it's American simplicity, speed, and power that fuels the drive behind 20/20 Cricket, it is American R & B that makes Leona Lewis' sound so popular and so familiar and it is American hip hop that influences so many British acts and unfortunately has provided Tim Westwood with a career. It is the culture of American college radio that enabled bands like Radiohead and Blur to break across the pond and catch on. Love it or loathe it, the influence of our country on the world is ubiquitous. When Europe disparages it, does it reveal more about the disparager than the disparagee? 

I leave you with a poem that emphasises our connections to the Old World and to Britannia, Robert Burns, 'Ode For General Washingon on the Occasion of his Birthday, 1787'

No Spartan tube, no Attic shell, 

No lyre Aeolian I awake; 
'Tis liberty's bold note I swell, 
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take! 
See gathering thousands, while I sing, 
A broken chain exulting bring, 
And dash it in a tyrant's face, 
And dare him to his very beard, 
And tell him he no more is feared- 
No more the despot of Columbia's race! 
A tyrant's proudest insults brav'd, 
They shout-a People freed! They hail an Empire saved. 
Where is man's god-like form? 
Where is that brow erect and bold- 
That eye that can unmov'd behold 
The wildest rage, the loudest storm 
That e'er created fury dared to raise? 
Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base, 
That tremblest at a despot's nod, 
Yet, crouching under the iron rod, 
Canst laud the hand that struck th' insulting blow! 
Art thou of man's Imperial line? 
Dost boast that countenance divine? 
Each skulking feature answers, No! 
But come, ye sons of Liberty, 
Columbia's offspring, brave as free, 
In danger's hour still flaming in the van, 
Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man! 

Alfred! on thy starry throne, 
Surrounded by the tuneful choir, 
The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre, 
And rous'd the freeborn Briton's soul of fire, 
No more thy England own! 
Dare injured nations form the great design, 
To make detested tyrants bleed? 
Thy England execrates the glorious deed! 
Beneath her hostile banners waving, 
Every pang of honour braving, 
England in thunder calls, "The tyrant's cause is mine!" 
That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice 
And hell, thro' all her confines, raise the exulting voice, 
That hour which saw the generous English name 
Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame! 

Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among, 
Fam'd for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song, 
To thee I turn with swimming eyes; 
Where is that soul of Freedom fled? 
Immingled with the mighty dead, 
Beneath that hallow'd turf where Wallace lies 
Hear it not, Wallace! in thy bed of death. 
Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep, 
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, 
Nor give the coward secret breath! 
Is this the ancient Caledonian form, 
Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm? 
Show me that eye which shot immortal hate, 
Blasting the despot's proudest bearing; 
Show me that arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate, 
Crush'd Usurpation's boldest daring!- 
Dark-quench'd as yonder sinking star, 
No more that glance lightens afar; 
That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.

And a recipe for this festive dish.

And some advice on some cool stuff going on to celebrate Independence Day here in London. 

The Ben Franklin House are having a fourth of July party. Were I not working during the day, I'd definitely check it out. Worth checking out this building dedicated to the most inventive of Americans anyway. 

And in the evening, The Old Red Cow, which I have blogged about before, is celebrating with a host of American handcrafted beers. For more check out the Red Cow's website. 

Happy Independence Day!

Blurring Boundaries in The Dennis Severs House: 'You Either See It Or You Don't'

'It may feel a bit strange at first,' warns our host, Mick Pedroli, 'because you have to be completely silent, but as you make your way around, you'll find yourself immersed in the magic of the house.' And indeed, it is hard not to feel strange at first, as you enter a candle-lit front room, full of opulent smells and curious sounds as though you are eavesdropping on a lively conversation taking place through the wall in the next room; or indeed as you descend the stone staircase to the basement and the invitingly warm hearth of the Jervis family's kitchen.

By the time you ascend back up the stairs in order to make your first foray upstairs, it is hard not to become immersed in the magic of The Dennis Severs House, and enveloped in the narrative of this family of silk weavers who rose to wealth and prominence  around the year of our lord, 1724. The family itself is fictional, as you will no doubt find out if you visit. You will also forget this fact as you wander through hallway and drawing room following in the footsteps of their mercurial fortunes.

My particular favourite was 'The Hogarth Room', in which hangs a print of the painter's above the mantelpiece depicting seventeenth century ribaldry of the most raucous sort, with men in expensive wigs and breeches debating, halfway towards fornicating, and falling over themselves with upturned chairs, pipes and glasses of brandy and port wreaking all sorts of havoc. The image itself is mirrored in the room, with furniture arranged meticulously, ash arranged in half-strewn perfection spilling jauntily out of the floor. But clearly, the room would not enchant if it did not fill your nostrils with the rich earthy mixture of fermented fruits and scented tobacco which appears to be wafting up from lazily left punchbowl and pipe hither and thither. The chamber is an olfactory sea of scents, with the faint echo of debauchery and rising tempers echoing in the walls.




Elusively, the experience defies categorization. Clearly, some of the rooms in which you sense the fictional family members' fates are quite morbid, such as the room on the third floor in which Mr. Jervis' son hanged himself, and the Dickensian rooms upstairs, sparse and empty, indicative of the decline of the Jervis family and their exodus to the country as they rented out the rooms of the house, but to call it spooky would be to trivialise, since this house builds no expectation of unseen ghosts, except for the unseen phantom of history, appearing to surround us for the passing moments we spend inside the four walls of this Huguenot residence.

In exploring this place, I follow in the footsteps of eccentric compatriot Dennis Severs, who bought the house in the 1970s, and promptly decided it needed a narrative. Thus the Jervis' came into being. He called his medium 'still-life drama' and as many note cards dotted around the house tell us, his mantra was 'You either see it or you don't.' It feels like, 'You either sense it or you don't' would be more accurate, but less catchy.

The Dennis Severs House has slightly odd hours, so it is worth calling ahead. Open Mondays from 6-9, so long as you book ahead and every Sunday afternoon from 12-4.