World Cup Platter

So, I am being dragged into World Cup fever despite myself. This always happens. I grump on about how boring football is, how over paid the players are, how jingoistic the whole enterprise is, all of which I completely believe, then receive an email saying a group of us are going to the pub to watch it on the big screen and think sod it it's an excuse to leave work early and am there cheering away with the rest of them. I have the will power of a slug and obviously would be no good in torture situations - they would just have to threaten me with being left out of a party and I would be spilling my guts, telling them everything they wanted to know. Although I will say that I secretly wanted Trinidad and Tobago to win last night as I always have this weird post-colonial guilt thing when we beat a country we formally brutally oppressed.

Anyway we were watching the game and at half time L and I decided to share a 'World Cup Platter' which is basically a heart attack on a plate (garlic bread, chicken stick thing, breaded mushrooms etc - I think the pub has bought in Tescos party food for the duration) so I went and ordered it and a pint. Half an hour later no sign of platter! Meanwhile D and J had ordered their food after us and it had arrived at least ten minutes before. They forgot us in effect. I went and asked two seperate people to chase our order and they both came back and said it would be 'two minutes.' In the end I went (with J acompanying me, though she shrank back!), and went up to the open kitchen area and collared a young boy. Our platter was under a hot plate thing. I said "that's my order isn't it" and he said yes. I then asked to speak to a manager. To cut a long story short, the manager (aged all of about 22!) said "well all I can do is apologise". I said "there's a lot more you can do than that. You can refund me my money." So she did! Not just for the food, but the pint as well!. I had no idea I could be so forceful. L might feel nostalgic to know I asked her if she thought a forty minute wait was acceptable and told her when she disbelieved me (she finally checked her till and had to acknowledge I was right about the wait) that she was being incredibly rude for daring to doubt my honesty.

London Underground

Raaaaa! Blood pressure is sky high! Have just suffered the injustice and indignity of being stuck on bloody Northern Line tube in tunnel for TWENTY minutes in the sweltering heat. And apparently on the Central line, passengers were stuck in a tunnel for 90 minutes. Of course, there was NO communication from the driver, NO apology, and NO explanation for the delay.

Ironically, F sent me a link this morning to a cheeky song about the crapness of London Underground, and asked me to post it on the blog. I told her that I thought we should wait until it was relevant (eg strike/delay), and, true to form, we didn’t have to wait long for the latest f*ck-up.

Enjoy this amusing song, everyone.

The Hamiltons on Pimlico Road

Went to fantastic event last night, to promote the Pimlico Road Association’s campaign to preserve their street’s cultural and historical identity, and promote independent retailers and arts and antique dealers. As 2006 marks the 250th year since Mozart’s birth, and he wrote his first 2 symphonies while living in house in Pimlico Road, whole event had Mozart theme. Was superb - shops all serving champagne and canapés, and musicians in "authentic" dress playing violins. Also, a group of actors, all dressed as Mozart, circulating and being v amusing. Evening was roaring success and v enjoyable.

However, most amusing of all was presence of Neil and Christine Hamilton as guests of honour (apparently, according to all the press there, the Hamiltons will go to the opening of a letter). She in 2-toned shocking pink ensemble that had me reaching for my sunglasses (despite the rain), and he being dragged along for the ride. They stayed for hours. The highlight was when one of the Mozarts got up to make a speech, and announced with great excitement that Neil and Christine Hamilton were about to cut the "magnificent" cake. They were so busy posing (with me laughing in their faces and attempting to take photos, in usual over-the-top manner) that it took about 5 mins to drag the knife through the cake. I have always thought the Hamiltons are an interesting example of how the notion of “celebrity” in Britain has been blown out of all proportion.

Some great links:

• Amusing pics of the Hamiltons and the Mozarts at the event
• Fun Mozart quiz

United 93

Went to see United 93 on Sunday night. It was awful, and I simply cannot imagine why it has had such rave reviews. Although the (British) director deserves credit for deviating from some Hollywood stereotypes (eg 1 – not including a nauseating and overly sentimental probe into the private lives of each of the passengers; eg 2 – not presenting good and evil as polar opposites, but rather problematising the relationship between the two [eg by humanising the terrorists], although perhaps not enough), this film was yet another gratuitous insight into American suffering and American bravery.

I thought that the (factually unfounded, apparently) portrayal of the German passenger as a pacifist who favoured negotiation over revolt was a gesture of hollow liberalism, almost as though the director was consciously trying to subvert Hollywood conventions of good and bad.

One mildly interesting point in an otherwise quite frankly boring film (throughout much of which I admittedly had my eyes shut, as I hate the site of blood and knives), was the shocking absence of a functional system of communication on the ground, which, the meticulously-researched film implies, might have prevented the hijacking of AA93.

Ultimately, though, there is no discernable message to the film. It contributes nothing to our understanding of events, beyond that which has already been reported. Unfortunately also the effects of the more commendable aspects of the film were lessened by the following comments made by the director on the film’s website:

1. “United 93… dramatizes and symbolizes everything that we face today.” Um, how exactly? Unless he’s saying that we are all touched by war and terror – it’s perpetrated by those among us; it’s on a United Airlines flight; on the London Underground, etc. To which my response is, yes, it is in those places, but war and terror are also committed at the bloodied hands of Bush and Blair – if you really want to say something of value, Paul Greengrass, why don’t you teach us something about that?

2. “[9/11 was] a day that changed our lives forever.” A very dramatic statement, designed for powerful impact, but again, you can’t make this sort of assertion without qualifying it. It was not the events of 9/11 on their own that “changed our lives forever” (which I think is overstating it somewhat anyway), but our collective realisation of what our world has become – and the part we have played in this – that so greatly impacted on us. 9/11 has to be looked at in this context, and alongside many other issues about fundamentalism in general and British and American foreign policy.

LOTS more to say about all of this. Another time…

Come On England!

My Oceanic Feeling

I have been trying to articulate a response to F’s great post below, but cannot somehow find the words – largely because the question she poses at the end is virtually unanswerable.
In the end, I remembered an e mail I wrote to The Girls last December, when I was on a business trip in Israel. I think this piece best encapsulates my thoughts on the issues of identity and otherness. I have been debating whether or not to post it; if I am honest, I don’t want to be pigeonholed or misinterpreted, and by posting this, I am leaving myself wide open to both of these charges.

However, re-reading my words, I think they express the dilemma of modern identity; of accepting and rejecting your past, present and future (and of being accepted and rejected); of belonging everywhere and nowhere at the same time; of being variously and simultaneously self and other. Most of all, this reinforces for me how even if you reject a constituent element of your identity, it still exists, if only by virtue of that rejection. It can lie dormant, but it informs the very core of your being. This is my post-modern identity crisis:

As soon as I step on the ElAl flight to Tel Aviv, I feel it.

This is my final business trip of 2005. I have travelled the world, opened my mind and my heart, let new people, cultures, nationalities and races into the centre of my life - and in the process, walked away from my own community. I carry my otherness everywhere with me, but I don't surround myself with my own.

I am so used to travelling abroad now that aeroplanes are like trains or cars to me. I am comfortable everywhere; in large, unfamiliar cities, I travel on the underground (Hong Kong), in small, alien towns, I use rail and bus links (rural Italy). I am comfortable, but I am still in unfamiliar
territory. Even outside of London, people adopt that much talked about glazed, detached look, so that they don't have to communicate with strangers.

The ElAl flight is different.

Full of North-west London Jews, no one can sit still. Every stereotype is on the flight, and I recognise them all: giggling girls, hand in hand, run up and down the aisles; Hassidic men store their black hats (in boxes advertising the Brooklyn store in which they bought them) in the overhead lockers; a jovial, well-rounded woman keeps on bumping into people she knows, offering her entire itinerary to everyone (Netanya for a week, followed by Herzliya, then on to Eilat for a batmitzvah party). The Eilat crowd are all staying in the Royal Gardens; a group of French lads, early 20s, on a new year's break; a very Anglicised, snobby, middle-aged couple; the husband completely demasculated by his helmet-haired wife; the modern-Orthodox man trying to mobilise a friend he has bumped into, into joining the group of men at the rear of the aircraft to help to form a minyan [group of 10 men required to pray] for mincha [afternoon prayer service]. An argument breaks out between an aggressive Israeli woman and a random man (doubtless over something irrelevant and minute), both of them uninhibitedly shouting at each other. I catch snippets of familiar, generic conversations, typical of the NW London Jewish community: whose child has won a scholarship to which top London secondary school, GCSEs, A Levels, Universities, which gap year programme in Israel their prodigal child is participating in... I recognise these people because I am all of them... and none of them.

We land at Ben Gurion airport, and everyone spontaneously and unselfconsciously applauds. This happens on an ElAl flight. In the 80s, they also used to play the song "Halleluyah", which won Israel the Eurovision Song Contest one year, back in the 70s. With the distance I have, I can see how curious this is; it's so pioneering, and not something one expects to see in 2005. Israel - with all its problems - is a modern state. I was angry with Julie Birchill for saying it, in 1996, after the assassination of the then Prime Minister, Yitzchak Rabin, but she was right. You only need to see the newly-renovated Ben Gurion airport to prove it. Until 2 years ago, you stepped off the plane and had to be bussed to the terminal. You could imagine this archaic building welcoming groups of downtrodden Jews from around the world at different times: Russian refuseniks, Ethiopians... Now, you step off the plane and walk through a large, modern, airy building with shops, bars and restaurants - much more modern than any American airport I have ever been to. So what - in 2005 - moves us all to a heightened emotional state when we touch down in Tel Aviv?

I have so distanced myself from all of this in the last year that I am shocked at the extent to which I had forgotten this feeling. I am British-English-European, I am a citizen of the world, I won't define myself by a small community, I am not a Zionist. I loathe and despise my fellow passengers for gaily and thoughtlessly running off to Israel for some winter sunshine, when elsewhere in the country, there live another people for whom there is no daily sunshine. My oceanic feeling flies in the face of everything I believe democracy and freedom to be; it defies logic and reason, and I am ashamed. I had to mask this holiday as a business trip to avoid the problematics and guilt of coming to Israel for a holiday without any other reason or purpose. I think of standing at the kotel [the Western Wall in Jerusalem; the only remaining bit of the holy Temple; the most holy place for Jews in the world]; I remember each visit there, from the age of 4. I also remember how, on the 3 occasions I have been to Jerusalem since my father died, I have burst into floods of tears on the drive up the hills into Jerusalem. It's not just the memories; it's something else - something more that I can't describe.

And here it is again: just as I reach passport control, I bump into T, one of my oldest friends. I forgot she was making aliyah (emigrating to Israel). Today is the day; she is standing with a small group of other aliyah makers she has just met. I hug them all and wish them luck.

Stepping outside the posh, modern new airport, the familiar smell (thankfully minus the stifling summer humidity) hits me. The motorway - modern, developed, unrecognisable from how the roads in the 80s - is like any other, in Hong Kong, Brazil, Italy, the US. But there is the diamond bourse on the right, and that signpost to Jabotinsky Street. And there is that newsagent I remember. The strip of road with all the bars and cafes. And finally, the road by the sea front, housing all the hotels. Inside the hotel, I step out onto the balcony. I look at the ugly apartment blocks, damaged by the sea air, the other hotels, the beach. I could be anywhere. I am used to stepping off planes and arriving in different places.

I have come home.

identity and nationality --- thoughts

As always, my trip abroad has prompted musings on the nature of our identities. I had many many talks concerning the difference between America, Britain/Ireland and Europe, from the trivial (no Europeans like root beer; they loved it when I ordered an 'ice lolly' at the zoo, or complained about the 'queues') to the devastating (the effects of 9/11, still incredibly powerfully and movingly experienced by people in the city, and Bush's disastrous foreign policy). However, what really struck me was little moments which seem to reveal the deep nature of our culturally constructed identities and the emotional resonance they have for us. 2 cases in particular really struck me.

1) I went to the Whitney Biennial, a kind of 'compte rendu' of the contemporary American art scene. One v interesting part of the exhibition concentrated on African American artists and the whole issue of black rights. For example, one piece had a dummy wearing a flak jacket, with the jacket filled with books by Malcolm X and similar. Another piece was a KKK outfit 'reclaimed' by being covered in slogans and urban graffitti. A third piece was a poster proclaiming 'Black Pride Week'; which had three little girls worshipping an icon that was dressed as an athlete. What was most striking as I wondered through this piece of the exhibition was that all the gallery visitors were white, without exception. All the gallery security guards were black, without exception. A black security guard stood by, but not really looking at, the flak jacket. So black artists can now enter the gallery space, but they seem to exclusively address a white audience... the only black faces in the space were in the marginalised position of gallery attendant. I really wanted to ask the attendant what he thought of the works of art and how they spoke to him, if at all, but I wasn't brave enough - and I'm sure he would have thought I was patronising him.

2) On the plane on the way home, I was sat next to a mother and daughter - the mother 67 (she looked older, I only know cos I saw her landing card), the daughter in her late 30s. I asked the daughter if she'd been to Belfast before and she told me she loved Ireland, got engaged in Belfast, and was bringing her mother over as a treat as 'her people were originally from Ulster' and her mother had never been to Ireland before. Of course I felt that typically sneery thing of thinking it was ridiculous she could identify as Irish as she was clearly American, as was her mother. However, as we landed at Belfast and the landscape became visible before us as we broke the cloud cover, the mother began to cry, silently, tears rolling down her cheeks. She was choked with emotion. "Oh Mom", said the daughter, "I didn't know this would get to you so much." "I've always felt I belonged here, and now I know I do", came the reply. I felt strangely moved by this, who have never identified that strongly with a country, not even the one I was born in!

All this to say that who and what we are seems so incredibly complex --- deconstructing our identity is more than proclaming this as an empty discourse designed to position us in a certain way --- we feel and sense these things at quite a visceral level. How do we acknowledge this and at the same time work towards a non assimilationist and respectful tolerant, non-patronising attitude towards the Other?

be a mother, not a martyr

Ooh, I have many thoughts about this, and am now going to respond as a "potential breeder" (though having just looked horrified at how ENORMOUS my chin is on the photos of me in NYC, and considering the last boy I snogged was 23, I somehow feel this an unlikely path). Basically the appeal of children is a strange one. For example, I have just spent a glorious week in New York with my very good friend who I will call Gaby. She was always adamant she didn't want children, to the extent that a previous boyfriend of hers and she split up over the issue. She told me that when she and her current boyfriend, the lovely G, started dating she told him on their third date that she a) didn't want children and b) because of her career she couldn't leave NYC, and that if this was a problem for him, they ought not to bother (she is 37 and told me there is no point not being very direct at this stage). She said that now she is 37 she has finally been liberated from people telling her she will change her mind, and because of her decision not to have children, she is free not only to pursue her career, but a happy and fulfilling relationship, a good social life, and her other passions (namely horse riding, foreign travel, eating out in Ny's many varied eateries etc etc). I would totally reject people who claim this lifestyle choice as selfish, and less worthy of pursuit than raising kids. Also the idea that having children automatically makes you a better and more giving person is a load of crap. And, on the employment front, I always seethe when colleagues leave meetings early to pick up kids from school and think well I never ask for meetings to be held later to accommodate my hangovers, which is a product of my lifestyle and what I choose to do with my time. All this to say having children involves many sacrifices - financial, emotional and professional - and the only point in doing it is if you really want to. Be a mother, not a matryr - do it because selfishly you can think of nothing more wonderful than holding a little baby in your arms, or having a silly conversation with a toddler, or taking a four year old to feed the ducks, or introducing your recalcitrant twelve year old to an activity that will become their passion, or simply to have someone in your life who is such a tangible connection to the future, to experience a new kind of relationship you couldn't possibly have any other way, but don't prate on about it as if this is something you are doing for the good of mankind (or indeed as if this is a disability - offensive concept: it's a choice!). In other words I guess I'm saying that if Amanda decides having children is more important to her than her career in venerable academic institution, then she has to live with the consequences of that decision. It is of course unfair that men seem to be able to have it all - the family and the job -but I don't think the solution lies in making mothers some kind of sick victim who have to be given hundreds of special allowances. I agree with D - cheap, accessible childcare, and a more realistic approach from mothers AND fathers is needed: kids are time-consuming and selfish - they are designed that way. And loving them and wanting them despite this is the only way to give them a good start in life.