29 November 2006

Instant Celeb Spot Report


5 minutes ago

In the line at the cloakroom at the BL

just behind me handing in his coat...

Jeremy Paxman!

24 November 2006

Happy Bus Story


On Saturday I went for a walk to my local park. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and I wandered about, happily enjoying the range of colours, the pink trails the setting sun was leaving in the sky, and the crisp, fresh feel of the air. I then went to get the bus back home. I was a bit tired, and just stod at the bus stop day -dreaming when suddenly I looked up to see my bus, the 271, hurtling down the hill at about a million miles an hour. "Shit", I thought, "I've missed it." But, ever the optomist, I stuck my arm out wildly, and to my great surprise, the driver slammed on the brakes and the bus came careening to a halt. The driver opened the doors, and I ran the 20 yards or so from the stop to the bus. When I got on, the bus driver had opened his little cabin door, and was sat there, with his cheek facing me, tapping it! So I went up and gave him a kiss for having stopped the bus! This girl on the bus burst out laughing and asked me if I knew the driver. "No, " I replied, "this sort of thing happens all the time!" Alas, loads of people got on at Archway, and any hope of an urban romance was killed.

More Than The Sum Of Its Parts


I am going to give, of necessity, a v brief precis of my activities over the last week. They have been rather curtailed due to a bit of a money crisis (pay day on Thursday!)
Thursday - met my friend Marty and various others in his favourite pub the Cittie of Yorke. As I was wandering there from the BFI library, I walked down Lamb's Conduit Street, and discovered the Persephone books bookshop (see their website link as one of my favourite things). There, stacked about higgley piggeldy were many beautiful, wonderful books, a veritable treasure trove.
Friday - Met P in Notting Hill. We gossiped wildly, amused other people in pub, and drank copious amounts of wine.
Saturday - Went to local park, which was wonderful (and had amusing bus driver adventure, which will be subject of another post). I went to see a new French film in Soho with L, and then to my fantastic local, El Commandante
Sunday - Met D for brunch. We deconstructed our various neurosis, then headed off to see some great art at the Hayward, with my friend Marty.
Monday - Hmmm. Stayed in library til eight.
Tuesday - Went to water aerobics with L. Felt v virtuous.
Wednesday - In library til v late again, then got home and watched loads of This Life
Thursday - to my friend C in Highgate. She cooked roast chicken and all the trimmings, we had mucho red wine, and I didn't leave til 1:45 am staggering about the road and was only person on bus home!

Fascinating at this minutae undoubtedly is, I had a sudden blinding realisation as I got into bed last night. Nothing spectacular or amazing has occurred in the last week. All these activites are part of an average existence. And yet I am so happy here. Most tellingly, I don't feel lonely, and indeed relish my own company, whereas in Belfast, where I am thrown on to my own resources far more, I find this far more difficult. I haven't felt discontented for so long, I've even forgotten that sense of frustration and hopelessness that characterises the beginning of yet another boring Sunday to be gotten through. My life in London is so much more than the sum of its parts.

17 November 2006

If I Were A Rich Gal...

Sigh. If only I could win that Euro Lottery thing. This is my latest Topshop wish list. 20 items, at a total of £729. And that's only because they didn't have any of the other items I wanted in stock in my size. I dream on...
http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SharedWishListView?langId=-1&storeId=12556&catalogId=19551&listId=188393

16 November 2006

Overheard at the Ballet


Last night, suffering from a self-inflicted terrible sore throat, I left the library early and took myself off to see some modern dance at Sadler's Wells as a treat. It was the Rambert Dance company and they were as always awe inspiringly fantastic - athlectic, graceful, sexy, beautiful, heartbreaking, skillful beyond belief... At the end of the fiest section, the people behind me began to talk. "Well I quite enjoyed the ovewrall effect" said posh man number one. "Euh really?" trilled posh man number two. "I'm leaving, it was god awful." This left posh man number one to invite some young American girls who had been in cheaper seats to come and join him, I presume, because post interval, they were sat behind me. Posh man number one. "Oh yes, I totally love the Holy Land. I quite quite miss not going". Girls giggle. "Oh, I'm a Christian you see, so it's very important to me." The girls say something else. "Oh, you MUST call it the Holy Land. That's what it is to me. I'm a Christian." Girls murmer and giggle. "I say my David's psalm three times a day, you see I'm Christian, and I pray before I sleep...I'm sure I do more than you.." Girls say something. "Oh I adore Jerusalem, shame about the Frummers, but I'm sure you shouldn't call them that" (at this point thank GOD the curtain was raised and he stopped).
The two girls proceeded to comment on the dance all the way through, trying to 'interpret it', giggling, sighing, asking when it would be over. He joined in every now and again. I turned round at one point and hissed "would you please be quiet" in my best teacher tone. This worked for ooh 3 minutes and they were off again.
To my delight, as the curtain went down, and the lights came up for the second interval, a v trendy looking man near me turned to them. "It's very distracting of you when you insist on talking all the way through".

The girls at least had the decency to look a bit shame faced, and mumbled sorry. The man protested that they hadn't been talking all the way through!

I turned and said "Yes you were, and it was extremely rude, especially after I asked you to stop. Just because you don't like it, doens't mean we don't."

The man chuntered "We weren't talking all the way through, how dare you blah blah"

"Yes you were, mate" said trendy man.

"Why don't you just go and stop ruining it for us?" asked his girlfriend.

The Christian and the Americans left, and didn't come back. What a shame one of the commandments isn't thou shalt not be a complete arse at the theatre!

14 November 2006

Lost...And Found



My friend J came to stay with me for a few days from Belfast, and I took great pride and joy in showing her all the wonderful things to see and do (and drink and eat) that there are in London. However, our most memorable experience was probably also the least pleasant. J arrived on the Weds afternoon, and after a happy chat with L over gingerbread lattes we headed back to the house. J dropped off her case, and we headed to my wonderful local pub, El Commandante. There is indeed a shrine to Che just off the Holloway Rd, and it is run by two South American guys, who are always very enthusiastic when you turn up and very laid back about how long it takes you to finish your beer. Then my flatmate L joined us, we went to Gallipoli for food, and then J asked to go for (yet another!) pint, so we headed to the Keston Lodge. We sat on a leather sofa and chatted away, then suddenly, J lent down to get something from her bag, that had been at her feet, and that was it. It was gone. We didn't see anything, although the people opposite us had (in hindsight) been suspisciously friendly so maybe that was a distraction technique. But who knows? J lost her make-up, her phone, her wallet, her cards and...her passport. Her only photo ID to get the plane back home on Monday!!

We spent the next day ringing round various places, talking to the police (who couldn't investigate the CCTV footage at the pub because "we don't have the resources" - they actually asked J to look through it herself, if she could get the manager of the pub to let her!!!) and finally trundled down to the passport office at Victoria to get J her replacement passport. Or so we thought. We got stuck in a ridiculous bureaucratic nightmare. First of all, they only agree to give you an appointment to obtain an emergency passport if you can 'prove' your need to travel. J had no proof she lived or worked in Belfast, as hey, guess what, that had all been stolen. (Also the stupid man seemed to think Belfast was abroad!!!!) Then he said that he couldn't get my passport number for the countersignature off the system (though he could locate J's ENTIRE passport) as "it was against data protection. That means it's illegal", he said, as if we were dimwits who didn't know what that meant (and actually if I'm there I can waive this and give him permission, as I have a right to see anything written about me and held electronically under the same piece of law). Then he said the only way to get an appointment was not to talk to him, who was actually in the building and had all J's details on the screen in front of him, but to ring a call centre(!) where they give out appointments for the London office! Un fuckingbelievable! By this point J asked him how she was meant to get home, and he just shrugged and said "I dunno". I wanted to HIT the man, but knew that was not a good idea, so I resorted to my usual tactic, and began to cry (not ostentatiously, just a few tears). At this point, another, older man, not a callow youth, emerged. He was wearing a suit rather than some horrendous UKPassport fleece. It transpired this older gentleman came from Belfast (the whole world and his dog has an NI connection, it sometimes seems), and he suggested to us that we went up to the Coach Station and investigated purchasing a coach ticket, and if that didn't work, coming back, and trying to get an emergency appointment for 7:30am(!) the next day, where you just queue and queue until they can see you. We managed to buy J a coach ticket, and she will get a new passport back in Belfast (part of the UK, if anyone from the passport office is reading this blog, though I expect they are too stupid to read).

But! the story does not end there. We spied a pub on our return from the coach station, just opposite the passport office and called (appropriately enough) The St George. So we went there, got a table, and were amused by the sight of harried people at the bar filling in passport forms and saying things like "Do you think my hair covers my eyes too much?" "What's the date today?" etc etc. Gradually the pub filled up with young men in their 20s, 30s, 40s, mostly in suits. Some of them sat next to us. I turned to the one sat next to me, just my type (shy, slim, boyish looking) and screwing up all my feminine intuition said "I don't suppose you work for the passort office do you?" Ha! Correct first time! J and I regaled them with how much we hated them, and they bought us many many pints as consolation. J was particularly taken with the older, rugged, grey haired one (how fortunate, both our types represented - at least the passport office has some taste in choosing its employees). The older one had a mean line in filthy jokes that were v amusing. The younger one told me how his job, travelling the country investigating passport fraud, takes him often to Belfast but makes it hard to have a relationship, meaning he is still single. The younger one left, them came back. I went outside to take a phone call. He came outside. I hung up on my phone call. He said "I only came back to speak to you, and you were outside." He gave me a hug. Then he said "I tell you what, here's my phone number. If you want to go for a drink, give me a ring. It's your choice." Then he disappeared into the night, and J and I went for curry.

Should I ring him?

10 November 2006

The Ultimate Celeb Sighting



Went to Tatler's annual Little Black Book party last night at TwentyFour. Lots of tall, shockingly young Hooray Henry types, accompanied by fresh-faced Size 00s in long-sleeved shift mini-dresses. And guess who put in an appearance alongside the usual models, socialites and heirs? Why, none other than Princess Beatrice.

Sorry F, but I think this beats your sighting a while back of Maggot from Goldie Lookin' Chain!

09 November 2006

The "C" Word

Just a few (rambling) thoughts on L’s post the other day re children (which has inevitably turned into one of my feminist rants…):

I TOTALLY get what you are saying, L. I think you’ve tapped into a very pertinent point that few people admit: that sex-for-erotic-pleasure and sex-as-reproductive-function operate on 2 different levels. Children are clearly a reminder of the sex-as-reproductive-function type, so it naturally follows that your erotic perception of Freddy (and thus your own erotic pleasure) will be severely compromised (to put it mildly) by any reminder of his having reproduced.

I remember once reading an interview with Gordon Ramsay, in which he said he had refused to be present in the delivery room for the births of each of his 4 children, as he had felt that witnessing his wife’s labour would have destroyed their sex life. The interviewer appeared mildly outraged by this, but I thought he was making a pertinent point. A friend of mine recently gave birth, and at the last minute, decided she did not want her partner to be present, as she thought it would ruin their sex life. By not reducing her body to reproductive function, but, rather, used it to carry a child, she has been able to retain the dynamic of mutual sexual desire between herself and her partner.

Although: I do think that once you have children, other things in your life necessarily take on a different meaning, and cannot be separated from the fact of parenthood. Your body IS different, and DOES take on new meaning and function. Also, examples of 2 friends, both desperate for a baby. One is about to turn 40, and despite a demanding career, is dragging her husband with her on a business trip to China, because she will be ovulating for the duration of the trip. Hardly the hot sex that these newlyweds should be enjoying. The other, aged 37, approaches all new relationships in an almost militant manner. Gone are the days of enjoying someone’s company and seeing where it might lead to; every new man is a potential father for the child she is anxious to conceive.

I, too, strongly dislike children, although I do reserve a certain affection for one or two of the offspring of some very close friends of mine. I can’t do the cooing thing, and that whole show-off thing that children do seriously irritates me (eg “look at the latest Barbie I have got to add to my pointless, spoilt, over-indulgent collection of 8 identical dolls”). Last weekend, I attended my friend A’s daughter’s 8th birthday party, to whom I am deemed sufficiently close to (a) have to endure being called “Auntie D”, which makes me feel old and suburban, and I can think of few worse sentiments, and (b) be summoned to the party to help make beaded necklaces (it was a jewellery-making party) and generally supervise and entertain. Predictably, the whole event was a 3 hour long contraceptive. I mean really, the likes of the Daily Wail would have you believe that 8 year old girls are out there getting pregnant, but really, they are selfish, demanding brats with no social graces, who insist on being served before anyone else.

My friend A’s children are particularly manipulative, and I cannot believe she falls for their transparent tricks. The youngest, aged 3, has a cunning habit of literally screaming every time she wants A’s attention, regardless of what A is doing at the time. She could be on the ‘phone, or talking to someone or cleaning up someone’s spilled drink, and this child will screech “Mummy! Aaaaagggghhh!” until A gives her her full attention. If that were my child, I would seriously have to rethink my staunchly anti-smacking position. The other child, aged 8, whose birthday party it was, is the biggest hypochondriac I have ever come across. I recognise that I am sometimes unfair about this sort of thing – I disapprove of anyone taking time off work for illness unless they are either (a) dying, (b) in hospital or (c) so ill they physically cannot get out of bed, stay awake or realise proper brain function. Anyway, A’s daughter, V, had a jolly old time at her bday party, and the second the last guest had left, she burst into tears and informed A that she had chest pains. Clearly she was hardly having a heart attack; it was obvious she was trying to get out of going to school the following day so that she could play with her new presents, but A went into panic overdrive, and insisted her husband cancel his plans (he was trying to close a business deal he had been working on for weeks), to go out and buy medication. V of course perked up when she was allowed to open her presents, but suffered a relapse when told to put them away and go to bed. Bloody children.

However, one thing I will say in defence of some children: some of them, even the most irritating ones, are actually easier to communicate with than some adults. Example: I am unfortunate to work on the same floor as a miserable, socially inept, intellectually incapable, show-off-to-compensate-for-vast-inadequacies of a prick (male). Although I am very much a “people person” and get on with everyone, very occasionally, someone will appear in my life whom I simply cannot tolerate, and this runt of a man is one of these people. His basic level of intelligence is so low, it is off the scale, and it has now reached the point where I refuse to communicate with him, as I simply cannot bear to waste my time in that way – he doesn’t understand simple instructions. Of course, as he is so incompetent, he ends up having no work to do; he has already pissed off 2 of my clients and countless members of staff, and proved himself so incapable, it is easier and more effective for him to not be given any projects to work on. And so I am forced, day after day, to see this pathetic little sod trawl the internet, check his Hotmail account and draft long, rambling letters to those people unfortunate enough to be deemed his friends (in Word; he then copies and pastes his essays into an e mail). The previous person in his role was female and about 30 years younger than him; of course about 5 of us sat in on her interview as she was grilled on every area of her personal and professional life and the relevance of her degree. This guy managed to land the job (a) because his manager knows him from years ago – and assumed that because he is a man – albeit a stupid, unlikable person – he would be able to do the job, and (b) oh, um, let me think – because he has a penis. Of course he is being paid exactly TWICE as much as the previous (female) person in this role.

Anyway, after my long rant (sorry; my anger has been inflamed this morning by watching him walk in late and proceed to waste time, paper and ink by printing out colour pictures of his inane family), it really struck me last weekend, as I was looking after A’s 3 year old child, this child is not the most intelligent or intellectually stimulated child. And clearly, I am not the most tolerant person (see above!) and certainly not child-tolerant. However, it still shocked me that I was actually able to communicate more effectively and engage in a more intelligent exchange with this child than I am with this dreadful man at work. And I bet that in 70 years time, when A’s 3 year old is at retirement age, she will not have managed to get as far up the career ladder, or earned as much money as this inadequate, incompetent man – simply because of her sex.

I dearly hope I am proved wrong.

08 November 2006

My Favourite Public Service

An excerpt from the online customer complaint form I have just filled out on the Transport for London website:

Incident No 1: Saturday 4 November 2006: The bus driver operating the replacement service between Edgware and Hampstead did not know the route. He missed out all the stops from Hendon onwards, and ended up illegally doing a u-turn on the Finchley Road near Swiss Cottage, thus endangering the lives of his passengers. He then had to be directed by passengers to Golders Green. This is dangerous and UNACCEPTABLE. Your representative was most unhelpful (when I called the travel helpline while still on the bus). Please retrain your staff, as their response to any type of complaint, whether made calmly or angrily, is defensive, dismissive and patronising, thus inflaming customers' anger. I KNOW the disruption will ultimately improve the service - I EXPECT this, as I pay vast sums of money for the service. I look forward to a full and reasonable explanation for the shambolic service I received on Saturday, and your full assurance that you will never again let down your PAYING customers by putting an untrained, unsafe replacement bus driver with no sense of direction or map on the roads again. I also await your assurance that where you know in advance that there will be delays, you will do everything you can to minimise further delay and disruption. As you will see from this and the following 2 complaints, you did not reasonably take actions to this effect last weekend. Any protestation to the contrary would be quite alarming, in terms of what you regard as reasonable service. I would also be grateful for monetary compensation.

Incident No 2: Sunday 5 November 2006, around 11.05 am: Before descending to the underground at Hampstead station, I asked a member of staff how long the wait for trains realistically was. He assured me it was “every 6 or 7 minutes”. On the platform, the information board said 5 minutes until the next train. This information remained for 5 minutes, at which point all times disappeared, and customers were once again left stranded with no information – most reassuring in this age of heightened terrorism alert. I eventually located a group of London Underground staff sitting around socialising on the opposite platform. When I reminded them that as paying customers, we were at least entitled to the basic courtesy of information, I was once again met with the infuriatingly patronising and defensive response that all London Underground staff seem to be so proficient in. In my own line of business, I am considered a representative of the company for which I work. If a customer complains to me about another business unit, it is my job to take responsibility, rather than inform them rudely that it is “nothing to do with” me. This is a basic principle of good customer service, and it is time for London Underground to teach this to its staff.

Shortly afterwards, the announcement was made that due to an engineering fault, Hampstead station was closed, and customers were told to leave the station. I asked a member of staff at the exit about replacement transport (there was none) and alternative bus routes, to which his helpful and articulate response was “Um, I THINK there MIGHT be a bus stop OR SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE round the corner, going down to Camden OR SOMEWHERE”. It surprises me that given the frequent delays, engineering works and engineering faults on London Underground, coupled with the advance notice of severe disruptions to the Northern Line last weekend, your staff are apparently completely ignorant of alternative local public transport links. I would be grateful for your assurance that staff will be trained immediately to improve their knowledge, so that they are able to help paying customers, rather than standing around redundantly and sharing their unhelpful attitude with paying, confused, delayed, inconvenienced customers.

Incident No 3: In general (but in particular, at Belsize Park this morning), it is disconcerting to arrive at various Northern Line stations in the mornings, to discover NO staff, but a sign – usually supposedly written 5 minutes ago – reassuring customers that a “good” service is in operation. Especially when the train then takes in excess of 7 minutes to arrive, and then stops inexplicably between stations in the freezing cold, sometimes with no update or explanation from the driver, while other members of staff march self-importantly up and down the carriages, clutching walkie-talkies and ignoring customers. I would be grateful for your reassurance that your staff will be visible and available at all times, and will ensure that ALL travel information is up-to-date at ALL times.

PS, please sort out this online form, which is flawed; I was unable to select the subject of my complaint as you do not have an "other" option. No doubt this will further delay any action you intend to take to improve the inadequate service I have suffered.

07 November 2006

How to watch fireworks: a guide


On Saturday night, I indulged in my top top activity of all time. I went to see some fireworks. I have very few things that I am anally retentive about (you should see the state of my bedroom!) but how one watches a firework display is very important. Here are my viewing rules:

1 It is a communal event, necessitating a crowd. It is not the same watching from your house, by yourself. You must be able to 'ooh' and 'aaah' in all the right bits, and enjoy feeling part of some primeval human response to loud noise and bright colours.

2 Linked to this, you must be outdoors. Watching through a screen of any kind, such as a glass window, takes away from the purity of the experience. An ex-boyfriend of mine, whom I will call Jean-Claude (he was French, I'm not being madly poncey), once tried to avoid taking me to see fireworks by arguing we could see many displays from his (high rise) flat. Yes, as small, dull lights in the distance, through a window!! Not the same AT ALL. I yelled and cried and FORCED him to take me to the Eiffel Tower to see a proper display.

3 You must be able to see the whole display. Arriving late, hurrying along, watching sideways, all detracts.

4 It is preferably cold. I will indulge in fireworks anywhere (and am v keen on seeing the NYE ones in Sydney) but fireworks in mid-summer does feel strange to me.

5 The whole experience is enhanced by the following: sparklers (monster ones!); flashing lights; toffee apples; mulled wine.

6 Watching fireworks on TV is anathema (see point 2). It simply reminds you of what you are missing. Better one solitary green rocket in a back garden than a £1,000,000 display on television (as I had last NYE in fact).

7 While not all firework displays are equal, all of them should be appreciated for their inherent aesthetic beauty and thrilling appeal. At a post fireworks gathering, Steve opined he thought Blackheath's fireworks rather disappointing this year. No such thing. They are always fabulous.

8 Having said that, the ideal display should be a mix of high flying fireworks and ground ones. We never seem to see Catherine Wheels or those flaying head ones any more.

9. I slightly drunkenly opined at gathering that watching fireworks is better than sex. My friend Marty whom I had been watching the fireworks with suggested that I should try having sex while a firework display was going on, and see how I coped with that particular combination. It would have to be a position where I could see the sky, obviously, but maybe I will try this next year! (though see point 3: I don't know if I would enjoy it really). Actually I have in the past chosen fireworks over sex. Yet another ex boyfriend Bertrand wanted us to stay in bed togther and have sex to mark the Millennium!! As if! There were fireworks going on. I went to see the fireworks with some friends, and I don't know what he did, and quite frankly, it wouldn't have been as good.

Why I Wear my Poppy With Pride

I am opposed to war in general, and fiercely against the illegal war in Iraq, and do not see war - or pointless deaths – as something to be celebrated. However, the poppy reminds me of where I come from, particularly thinking of my paternal grandparents.

My grandfather lost a leg fighting in WW2, and the poppy simply makes me think of him. I think about how he overcame the prognosis of never being able to walk again to walking, driving – until the end of his life – and even playing football with his sons. I really admire that stoic drive, determination, ambition and absolute refusal to be beaten, which he passed on to my dad, and I try to let that live on in myself, and I think there’s something very transcendental in that.

It also makes me think of my grandmother (happily still with us; quite the social butterfly in her retirement home). Her escape from Nazi Germany, via many alarming but fascinating adventures, culminated in her eventual relocation in the UK. She never tires of telling me of how, having had all her possessions taken away from her – twice – and forced to share a single outfit with her sister, one day she was in Selfridges (I have never quite understood what a penniless teenage German refugee with only one shared set of clothes was doing in Selfridges, but whatever), using the loo, and she saw another woman putting a roll of toilet paper in her bag. She confronted the woman, who reasoned that as a penniless refugee, she could not afford to buy toilet paper, and this roll would go unnoticed, so she was taking it. At this point in this often-recounted story, Oma launches into a long monologue about how she would never have taken the toilet paper, despite having no money, because that would have been theft, and it was important to recognise that this country let her in when other countries had turned her away, and she feels forever indebted to Britain for this.

So the poppy to me is a symbol of how my grandparents fought hard – in different ways – to survive and to enable their future generations to live, teaching them the values of hard work, humility (I need to work on that one) and cultural and spiritual betterment. The fact that I sit here today, university-educated, independent, with a decent career (writing this blog post, free to practise my religion, and with a bright future ahead of me (I’m sure it’s out there somewhere), is testament to the fighting spirit of my grandparents’ generation. None of us celebrate this or appreciate this enough, and that is why we should wear the poppy.

Now, apparently – according to my grandmother – all I need is a nice husband to share my life with…

On Customised TV Viewing


I’m not a big TV fan – largely because I am rarely at home to watch it, and by the time I eventually stumble home around 11pm, laden with bags, dirty gym laundry and files for the following day’s meetings, I am so exhausted, I fall straight into bed. I only really ever watch political programmes and then I pick one trashy reality TV programme to watch religiously each season (Big Brother is my absolute favourite, and when it’s on, I am so addicted, I even watch the live feed of the contestants sleeping), and maybe a good series, such as Desperate Housewives. Happily, though, Male Model, being a typical bloke, is well into his TV, and has installed Sky Plus, which you can do all sorts of clever and exciting things with, including recording all your favourite TV series.

I’m not that into the X Factor this year, though. Laura Craik, in her column in Grazia Magazine a couple of weeks ago, was v amusing: she made a v funny comment about how annoying it is to hear all those teenagers tearfully proclaiming how getting through would mean the world to them, all edited to the strains of Westlife’s You Raise Me Up. Makes me want to gag.

06 November 2006

Wearing your Poppy with Pride?


I first started noticing the red blooms on people's coats and jackets about two weeks ago. It struck me once again, the small idiosyncracies that mark out life in Belfast from life here. In N.I., wearing a poppy is so fraught with symbolic associations (with Empire, Imperialism, the disputed and debated role of Ulster soliders during WW1 and WW2, the Easter uprising in 1916 deliberately taking advatnage of WW1 etc etc), that as an English person, I don't wear one. Plus they are very hard to find! Last night, I ended up discussing poppies with my flatmates, L (a friend who has also lived in Belfast) and C. C said she never wore them, as she found them militaristic and jingoistic, and her sympathy for present day soldiers was v limited, although she did think WW1 was different, and the men who fought there had little if any choice. I thought about how, all through my childhood, I had unquestioningly bought a poppy every year at school, never really thinking about its wider connotations. I thought about how just because I am back in London, all the unfortunate meanings of the poppy that inhibit me wearing it in Belfast don't just go away. Yet when I walked into the BL and saw some for sale, I popped a pound in the box and bought one. I don't know if I will wear it on my coat. I hate the hypocritical political rhetoric that claims our 'freedom' is dependent on highly powerful weapons, a standing army, and a nuclear "deterrent". I hate the fact that we are prosecuting an illegal war in Iraq and threatening to do the same to Iran because these countries dare to (want to) have those things too. Does my poppy symbolise support for this? On the other hand, I am profoundly grateful that I live in a country with freedom of speech, where I have been highly educated, where I have the right to vote, where we have a (reasonably) tolerant attitude towards diversity, where we have freedom of conscience. People have sacrificied their lives for me to have this. So I buy my poppy, and let it sit at the bottom of my bag, a symbol of my own conflicted attitudes towards these issues.