Afraid?
My neighbour rang up a few days ago and said that they had some friends staying .. and one of them was vaguely related to the family that originally owned this house. He would be so interested to see it so could they come over? By bizarre chance I had actually just cleaned the kitchen and put some flowers around so was able to say 'Yes' with the casual charm of the practised hostess. 'He knows quite a lot about their history and he's specially interested in the suicide.' 'But why? It was about two hundred years ago.' 'Oh no, not THAT one ... the other one.' 'EEk .. the other one? Well, whatever it is just DON'T tell me which room it was in .. I am mostly here alone you know.'

They turned up with a pleasant looking man and hung about the kitchen, drinking. After a bit, 'So, we'd better get on and look around', said my neighbour, 'You wanted to see the ballroom where the suicide took place didn't you?' 'WHAT! HOW COULD YOU! I said on the phone that you must NOT tell me which ROOM it was.' 'Oh, whoops ... but you don't really mind do you?' 'Actually, I do ... as that room is now my BEDROOM.'

The only good thing was that we worked out that there was only one suicide - about one hundred years ago. He was the younger son of a local grand family, who never married and was given the house for his own. He lived here alone except for the farmer in the totally separate but
joined on section, whose wife cooked and generally looked after him. We think he killed himself out of loneliness .... in my bedroom.

The thing is that I have never felt that my room is spooky, even in the depths of winter darkness. The only time was when it had first been converted back from a ruin and there was no proper electricity and no TV reception. For my first nights in there I made my son sleep in a bed next to me and we played cards for hours. It seemed a little unwelcoming and every time one of us swore, which was very, very often, I sensed a vague air of disapproval and told my son not to. But that has all gone now.

I will say the worst thing ... before they replaced the last coating of the ceiling I noticed that in one of the huge beams supporting the attic floor, and just over the bottom of my bed, was a large, ancient hook .....

Last night I was roused in the early hours by the sound of someone in my room choking to death. For F.ck's Sake, I thought, still asleep, I CAN'T be frightened by this ... because it's NOT REAL. And I lay there slowly waking up and so pleased that somehow I wasn't petrified and was dealing with it. And then the noise cleared and revealed itself as that infuriating crow which comes every morning in the dawn and sits on the windowsill making low, guttral croaking noises. Exactly like someone CHOKING TO DEATH. So, maybe it's a coincidence or maybe it is the reincarnation of the younger son. But either way it doesn't seem to upset me, weirdly, and perhaps having me in his room makes his spirit less lonely. But if that's the case why is he mean enough to wake me at five o'clock every single f.cking morning?
- posted by Iris @ 7/27/2005 09:15:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Raisins.
In an article I was reading they mentioned, casually, 'Of course the '75 d@rk-ey3d v1rgins' described as the reward for su1c1d3 b0mb3rs has also been translated as '75 dark ra1sins''. Oh please, please let that be the case. That as they enter the aft3r-life they are just handed a plate.

It has been a tense week - on my part at least. Both my daughters, jet-settily, had gone abroad .. separately .. for the WEEKEND. To me in my out-of-touch world that still seems amazingly glamorous. One had gone to the S. of Fr@nce to stay in a friend's palatial v1lla which was about to be sold as the father had made one too many unwise investm3nts. And the other had gone to the S. of It@ly to stay in a friend's palatial v1lla. Multi-cultur@l Britain does have a few plus points in the form of old schoolfriends.

But this meant they were TRAVELLING on trains and buses to various airp0rts ... scarily. I left telet3xt news on permanently in every room and made them ring me at every stage. 'I'm HERE in Italy and I'm FINE'. 'Oh, thank god, well, have a lovely ...' 'No, there is one thing .. they closed the road behind us as we drove out onto the peninsula. And now we're waiting to see which way the forest fire goes .. it's not THAT close'. 'Aaaarrgh!'. 'Don't be silly Mummy, it came up to the garden that other year I was here and we were fine. We went and sat in that beach bar. Anyway I may not be able to call again as it will probably destroy the power lines'. Rings off cheerfully. It's true that fires are a normal feature of that stretch of coast and everyone owns a boat so they can zoom out to sea if necessary .. but still ...

On Sunday my son rang in the evening. 'I just wondered .. what does a b0mb going off sound like?' 'Why, WHY?'. 'Well there was this massive bang a few minutes ago and it sounded quite close'. 'It's a sort of 'whumph' not a sharp noise at all'. 'Yes, that would be it'. 'Oh, no ... was it in the direction of P@ddingt0n Stat1on. Your father's train will have just got in?' 'Err .. it might have been but I thought I heard someone come in downstairs so perhaps he's back.' 'Run down and look and ring me at ONCE if he is there.' Ten minutes of intense worrying and fruitlessly checking telet3xt newsfl@sh pass until I ring desperately. 'Have you heard anything?' 'What? Oh, sorry ... he was here and we've been discussing getting a pizza.' 'FOR F.CK'S SAKE! I've been going through hell, panicking.' 'Look, I said I'm sorry and I've got to go now.'

So it turned out to have been a 'c0ntrolled expl0sion', probably of some Austral1an tourist's hand luggage, and both the girls are safely back and the fire stopped well up the hill side and they both had a lovely time. But I have somehow managed to spend large parts of the past few days under mental circumstances of extreme terror. Is this just the normal result of being a wife and mother ... or should I loosen up and get a grip? Preferably both at the same time.
- posted by Iris @ 7/26/2005 11:56:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Subconcious.
It is unnerving to realise how little most countries know or care about the insular concerns of others. There just isn't time to follow the threads of their quarrels with their neighbours or, say, the relative levels of lying amongst the French and Italian politicians. So you have to take a quick snapshot of the situation .. probably from a newspaper headline ... and file it away to be brought out whenever that subject is mentioned. Eventually your snapshot may be months or years out of date.

Or centuries.

As you saw, I was so incredibly angry the other day. Although probably no one is ever coming back here again .. I still want to write down that finding your blogs changed my ideas about Americans for ever. I can't apologise for what I wrote because I still think that huge numbers of Americans are like that. But I now see that huge numbers - on the West Coast at least - are not.

It is absolutely standard for Americans arriving in Europe to be stunned by the taken-for-granted (by us) dislike and contempt for America at every level. Especially when, at home, there seems to be a media tradition of casual, superior, putting-down of just about every other nation in the world. My daughter was saying that as she was leaving for a few days away last week the hostess rang her, 'I thought I'd better warn you that we have an AMERICAN staying ... but, honestly, he's really nice'. How many people in America would imagine that scenario as a possibility?

After I was angry I realised that it was partly my endlessly supressed fury at the way England is treated and portrayed by America. What are you thinking? We are your really good friends .. politically at least. Most of the snidy asides are about 'imperialism' for f.ck's sake ...errr ... how recent was that? Does our media constantly make scathing references to your treatment of the American Ind1ans? Well, NO .. it doesn't. Because that would be ludicrous as it was really rather a long time ago.

And why are all the villians in American f1lms British? Invariably cold, cruel and heartless and, in case that doesn't do it , ... let's, invariably, make them cowardly and without honour or decency too. Cool. While we're about it, we could make more films that totally re-write history. Let's take some famous incident where the English portrayed real courage and selflessness or showed amazing cleverness and ingenuity and .... CHANGE ALL THE FACTS. So that some tribe of vicious savages appear to be wise, superior and blameless. Or the brave soldier who saved the day was, (a fact concealed by the vile British), actually a black American. Or the brilliant discoverer of the solution to the En1gm@ c0de was not, as we had always thought , British, but was in fact an Afr1can-American w0man. And so it goes on ... and on .. and on... There was a really funny parody in some m0vie magazine which I have sadly lost .. which pretended to review British films of famous events in American h1story where we had done the same thing. F.cking hilarious but can you imagine the outcry and outrage in the US if we actually did that? So why do you think that it is all right for you?

I don't mean YOU about any of this, obviously. I am trying to show the bubbl1ng underb3lly of my day-to-day feelings.

A final scenario. It is just after 9/11. The Queen has agreed that 0sama b1n lad3n can visit England and has invited him to the palace where she is hosting a glittering cocktail party in his honour. When he asks if he can solicit money from rich English people to fund his 'cause' she says 'Yes, of course'. Although she knows that some of that money will be used to buy weapons to attack American c1vilians. When the US pr3sident asks her to reconsider as there is massive evidence to show that b1n lad3n is an evil terr0r1st leader, the Queen says, in effect, 'F.ck off. I don't care about your concerns as this man has many followers whose support I need'. And when this is reported in the Br1tish press the journalists joke and gloat about how amusing it is to irritate the Americans.

And if you just change the names to Cl1nton and G. Ad@ms. That is exactly what happened. So HOW can non-Ir1sh Americans think and behave that way? Or even Ir1sh-Americans with any kind of decency and half a brain?

All of which contributed to why I felt so furious.
- posted by Iris @ 7/16/2005 10:51:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Mistake.
Today everyone I've talked to on the phone seems to be thinking exactly like me. All saying how after many years of a low level version of this sort of thing it no longer seems like a big deal - as long as you weren't actually there in the middle of it, obviously. Especially the transp0rt grinding to a halt part which, my daughter pointed out, usually happens even during a heavy shower.

I don't know if it is better or worse but as details emerge it looks more and more as if very little of it actually went to plan. From past experience the bus b0mb seemed odd and very likely to be a mistake that happened while it was being transported, especially as the bus had suddenly been diverted down a quiet street. This was familiar from Ir1sh days when 'operatives' often accidentally bl3w themselves up in deserted back alleys while en route to the 'targ3t'. Only one of the Undergr0und b0mbs went off under a main ra1lway stat1on, the others expl0ded at small lesser used st0ps which in each case were just before other ma1n stat1ons. It appears that their timing was probably out. Any L0ndoner could have told them that assuming that a train will be in any given place at any given time is very rash indeed.

I think, if I had the choice, I would far rather the 'campa1gn' was being run by some genius mastermind than a group of dim, fanat1cal students. What is the point of our sensibly avoiding tra1ns and over crowded places if some loony with his watch five minutes slow is going to trip a vast expl0sion outside the local vide0 shop.
- posted by Iris @ 7/08/2005 11:29:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Betting.
This unusual flurry of activity is not just because the TV is f.cked but also because an endless camel train of visitors is making its way towards me and the first, although only my husband, will arrive in two days time. After which I will probably write nothing.

I forget mostly that my world is not that of others. For example, the man turned up finally to mend the aerial and, unlike, say, a 'normal' house ... my aerial is two fields away. With hundreds of yards of cable, part of which is buried as it passes across gateways or disappears behind barbed wire fences into waist high brack3n. By chance it wasn't raining so the expedition had a certain charm, to start with. Obviously I couldn't let him drag off on his own so when he said 'We'll start by checking the junction boxes', I put on strong waterproof shoes. Since I last looked, about four years ago, every junction box was now buried in a thicket of vicious nettles. He stood there firmly without moving and even I felt that it was fair enough. I made a little path to each box with only the protection of a small wodge of tissue I had found in my pocket. All fine. 'It's the one on the aerial itself then'. As we approached over the ridge the aerial was invisible. 'F.ck', we said in unison. The aerial lives in its own little fenced enclosure ... which was now a small wood .. smothered and entwined by several years growth of brambles. There was no way. I like to show tradesmen that I am super-reasonable and worth their bothering to be nice to me and come back in two days even though they are rushed off their feet mending every other aerial in the county. So I said immediately, 'Okay, so this is impossible and if I cut all the brambles down you could come back in a day or two and mend it really easily ... and charge me for both visits'. To which he replied, 'All right then'. This was a huge victory though maybe not to the untrained eye. Anyone else would have had to wait another week. So I have spent the whole afternoon with massive 'loppers' and thorn-proof gauntlets and it was agonisingly prickly and sweaty and .. horrible.

I meant to write about betting as I have just discovered the pleasures. Years ago I think I wrote some posts about how I used to work in a smart gambl1ng club near Gr0sven0r Square when I was nineteen. This cured me of any idea that gambl1ng was either romantic or that the average person ever made any long term money at it. So, the happy recent surprise that bett1ng teeny amounts of money on all sorts of things .. and doing it on-line ... is massive fun. I now have my account with W1ll1am H1ll - England's finest. I put fifty pounds in to start and promised myself that if I lost it I would stop. But as I only bet in one pounds .. I am still there. Also, I win consistently at horse r@cing. This is going to sound really annoying but I choose the horses because the names on the lists 'speak' to me. What can I say? During Asc0t a few weeks ago I picked the first or second in nearly every race of the three days that I bothered to do it. I know nothing about horse racing whatsoever. As I was only betting a pound I won practically nothing overall - but still. Okay, this is the start of the slippery slope and when I was young I saw enough of that so I have backed off. But still .... suppose I was somehow psychic and suppose just as a test I put on TEN pounds each time? Interesting ... but suppose I was somehow deluded ... and suppose I quite soon lost quite a lot of money ... hmmm ... which is the most likely?
- posted by Iris @ 7/08/2005 12:50:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Relief.
In parallel to the sorriness for people who were hurt - this has been a relief. Unless they are going to do it again. I have been worrying about something happening for years and not helped by the government constantly telling us that they have cleverly foiled various plots that would otherwise have had 'serious consequences', as if it was only by chance that bombs weren't going off every few months.

Every time any kind of anniversary came up or major talks about Ir@q or revelations about cruelty to prisoners, I would be on the phone to L0ndon giving them the fear about taking the Und3r gr0und and trying to get them down here. And they always spoke kindly to this hysterical over-reactor and explained that they were, for various very good reasons, going to ignore me totally. So I would put the phone down and cry with terror for them ... and then nothing would happen.

So now it has come but, after all that, in an incredibly unstressful way. If something like this has to be ... then to be rung up out of the blue by your daughter to tell you that bombs are going off all over L0ndon but your family are all safe. And as long as they stay where they are then they should not be affected at all. Is so far removed from my imagined scenario of days of terrified build-up; thwarted attempts to leave the city; viruses let loose and no way of getting hold of an antidote; nucl3ar weap0ns let off in the centre near my husband's office; food running out and water c0ntaminated ... and me alone here and unable to help them ...

So in an absolutely selfish way .. and if only it follows the pattern of Madr1d and they move on now somewhere else .. then it could have been so much worse.

I don't want to tempt Fat3 by saying this ... but the main t3rr0rist coup seems to be with pr0paganda. The things they have actually done really haven't been that big when you think what is possible. Isn't it true that 9/11 was a fluke? That the design of the buildings was very unusual and that most sky scrap3rs wouldn't have collapsed like that? That the terr0rists don't have incredible expertise and cunning and funds but are just very determined and obsessive? By chance, last night, I was watching a programme about London's travel netw0rk being brought to a standstill for twelve hours a couple of years ago by the 'wrong sort' of snow. On the news today they were saying that one of the main aims of today's b0mbs was to bring Lond0n's travel netw0rk to a standstill. The trouble, for them, is, that here it happens all the time. And we have had so much experience of the ARI* and more recently endless 'alerts' and evacuations that this isn't the overwhelming shock that it would be for, say, Cal1f0rnia.

The news reporter was standing outside one of the b0mbed stat1ons a few hours after it was over and saying, 'To look around at the passers-by now, going about their business as normal, you would hardly believe what happened here earlier today'. It's true .. it is our old wartime sp1rit .. I am proud to say that the British really are pretty tough.
- posted by Iris @ 7/07/2005 11:52:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Finally.
Well ... we have been waiting for this for years and although it is horrible it is nowhere near the scale predicted. We have been assuming that when it came the whole of central L0ndon would be wiped out by some biological virus and thousands would d1e.

My son and older daughter were still at home and my husband settled cosily at work. My younger daughter had just got to her office which is in the same road as one of the b0mbs but it is a very long road. She is trapped there as no one is allowed out into the streets for the foreseeable future but at least she can walk home through the park .. unlike most people. She rang me in the upbeat mode of someone who has escaped d3ath, worrying that the traffic cha0s will prevent her from getting to the Pr0d1gy concert tonight. I'm didn't like to say that her chances are probably nil.

I have been saying constantly since 9/11 that they must take the und3rgr0und as little as possible especially at 'sensitive' times as I can't believe that no one has attacked it before. To which they would reply 'For god's sake, how else am I getting halfway across L0ndon by 6.30?' I still can't bear the fact that we suffered years of the c.nt ARI* and their 'seasonal' b0mbing and the minute they finally stop their place is taken by someone else.

Just please let that be all for today so that my daughter and husband can get home.
- posted by Iris @ 7/07/2005 12:12:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
NOooooo.
OMG! This cannot be happening. They have just announced that London has been awarded the 0lymp1cs. NOOO, Noooo, Noooooo.

Why, oh why? It is not just that I don't know anyone ... I have never even heard of anyone real who wanted this to happen. It is just a giant waste of money. London is already overcrowded to bugg3ry and the transport system at every level is falling apart in a scandl0us way. Isn't Gr3ece going to be bankrupt for the next twenty years after their bid? How f.cking stupid and pointless it all is. The only people who were keen were a lot of dreary athletes and the inhabitants of the horrid, run-down suburb where the 0lymp1c V1llage will be built.

Like the farcical M1ll3nium D0me which has so far cost the taxpayers about a billion pounds ... it is just another way for T. Bla1r to show off. I couldn't hate that man more. I even prefer J. Ch1rac so you can see the strength of my feelings. The TV kept saying in a fake caring voice, 'And now we go to Paris to see the Fr3nch reaction to the announcement' and showing crowds of people looking sulky or crying.

Well, everyone I know here is looking sulky or crying ... because it is all a massive bore and WASTE OF MONEY.
- posted by Iris @ 7/06/2005 02:27:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Odd.
This whole post just wiped itself ... except for the title ... so that really is odd. I will write it again, but it may have lost its freshness ...

Anyway .... as I was saying ... I was feeling nostalgic today but then I remembered that the nostalgia had no meaning ... as it wasn't real. I mean L@yn3. Yesterday my daughter managed to go to two different pop concerts. One was L1v3 Ate and .. another ... where she was thrilled to unexpectedly find raH raM. 'He came off the stage right next to me .. I could have run my hand across his body, except that he was all sweaty'. 'So he was bare then?' 'Of course'.

The only reason that she knows and loves him is that a couple of years ago, or more, L@yn3 wrote about going to one of his concerts in Minneapolis and how amazing he was and how she wanted to have his children. And I was struck by this and ordered his CDs, sight unseen, from Amaz0n that very night. And luckily really liked him and passed them on to my daughter who had never heard of him. And he soon after turned up in England (and seems to be still here) where NO ONE had heard of him .. and we were both able to be cool and casual about knowing his stuff already. And I was reminiscing about this inside my head when I realised that L@yn3 was actually that weirdo and the whole thing was just a creepy story ... and she didn't want to have his children at all because she was a MAN .... Cr@p!

I just went down to refresh my drink and more plaster fell off the ceiling under the stairs. And I was reminded of one of my favourite films - 'La V1e du Chat3au' with C@ther1ne D3neuve. The part where her mother is playing the piano and every time she hits a thunderous note a shower of plaster falls onto the keyboard. I know you would like it ... it is really funny and C.D. is so gorgeous.

Every morning now I wake up and lie there trying to make a life changing decision .. which is based on a dog. Last week an old friend of mine came to see me and we realised that we are both doing exactly the same thing. We live here in suspended animation, carefully ensuring that nothing specific ties us down so that we are 'free' to go to London or abroad at any moment. Except that we don't. And we don't really want to. So our life here is quite empty and sterile and our life not here doesn't exist ... and the days drift along.

So the time seems to have come when I throw myself into this. And live like a 'real' country person in a way which means I have to get up and out every day and there are (horrors) 'other people' around doing things so I can't stand vaguely in the garden unobserved by human eye. I am pretty sure I would be happier. Probably. And the first step is to get some more animals ... more demanding animals ... like a dog ... or TWO dogs. And the next step is to get a horse ... or (you guessed) TWO horses. And then take back the fields and own the cows and the sheep ourselves ......... and llamas have become strangely popular round here. Mainly because you never have to kill them .. you just build up your herd. I am not a complete fantasist - I am not looking after them on a day to day basis myself. That is where the 'other people' come in. It will all be very different. I can imagine a rosy version of it ... and a grey version of it. But however grey it might be I think how things are now is not so good. And the most I want to go away is two or three days in London at a time and surely my husband or a child could be here with the dogs then. A holiday for ten days or so, very occasionally, doesn't mean that the house has to be left empty? I think I have to do it. Give things 'life' somehow. But maybe not decide THIS morning? What do you think?
- posted by Iris @ 7/04/2005 02:43:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
And..
The rest of it wasn't so bad somehow apart from R.b..e Wi11i..s. I always want to punch people who hold out their microphon3s and make the audience sing instead of them and he did it for his entire set .. hardly sang a word himself. 'I am so incredibly famous and popular that they know all my songs backwards'. Well, all right, they did. But he is still a t0ss3r.

He is my son's most loathed person in the world though I don't mind him that much. We were once in our local vid3o shop in London and a very boring girl was talking on her mobile describing all the films for ages. When we left there was a man outside also on his mobile, quite difficult as he was dressed in motorbike leathers, with closed helmet on. 'OMG!', said my son, 'It's R.W.'. 'How can you possibly tell?' 'It's the way he stands or something. I would know that c.nt anywhere'. And then it was obvious that although he was heavily 'disguised' he also obviously couldn't bear to be anonymous and stood right in the middle of the pavement and spoke really loudly so that people stared. T0ss3r.

There was a charming moment when the entire crowd of thousands sang the whole of 'Sh0w Me the W@y to Am@r1ll0' unaccompanied. Quite touching, for some reason. And then sad, dull old P. McC... to finish. Why is he so boring now? And where was R..go, little sweetheart?

If this is a huge success, is all major world policy going to be directed by B0n0 in future? I may have to train as an ass@ss1n.
- posted by Iris @ 7/02/2005 11:02:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Charity.
I am just here to escape from the agony of L1v3 Ate on tv. Somehow ykS has come back on and I felt I should share this historic moment as I know my children are actually in the park somewhere watching it. Of course it is a good thing, of course SOME of the performers are kind and caring etc. but the excruciatingly self-conciously, self-satisfied expressions on all their faces.

I just watched 'Laney' who I have vaguely heard of but never seen. OMG! How is it possible to be that irritating? Especially as there was a weird familiarity to his act and I finally realised that he was replicating Fr3ddi3 M3rcury at the original concert. He was even wearing similar clothes and ripped off his t-shirt and tossed it casually into the audience. I still have my teeth gritted.

There was a lot of mean comment about the lack of any Afr1c@n groups playing and then not helped by B.G..f saying the reason was that none of them were good enough. Finally a horrifically patronising solution was found where they are having their own 'mini-L1v3 Ate' down HERE in the W. country. And ALL the acts are Afr1can so that they can all be rubbish together.... I assume that is the thinking.

To show that she is sensitive to the realities M@dd0nna has just sung with a massive chorus of bl@ck pe0ple who shuffled on behind her and said 'Oooo Oooo' rythmically while she ran through her repertoire.

I came up here when B0b appeared and sh0w3d that film which had the whole stad1um sobbing in unison when he did it the first time.

I feel bad about finding it all so annoying but why do they have to be such WAN....RS about it.

I suppose it is the small island thing but over the years I have met several world famous p0p st@rs. Oddly, mostly quite insecure and perfectly nice to talk to. Some were parents of my children's friends at various schools or happened to live near us in the country and none met under glamorous circumstances. Possibly the most famous, I knew when I was at SCHOOL. It is bizarre to look back at how incredibly ordinary they were and how we went to their first conc3rt in a church h@ll out of niceness and were bored to death. They are playing today, possibly as we speak, to an audience of millions. As are another sup3r-gr0up whose lead s1ng3r was my daughter's boyfr1end's best fr1end also at school. It is f.ck.ng WEIRD. I have never got used to the fact of it.

On another front ... I have remembered two famous people who I hate so much that I have to note it here. One is M0by ... I don't think I need to give reasons, one look at him is enough. A pop music reviewer on TV said suddenly, when his name came up, 'I really hate that guy', and then clapped his hand over his mouth. It's okay, we're all right behind you.

The other is S@lm@n Rushd1e. What a PR@TT. How I longed and longed for some brave soul to complete the F@tw@h. The literal millions we taxpayers wasted on keeping him safe while he slagged off England and 'courageously' lurked out to fashionable parties with vast pol1ce b0dyguard. I must have seen a hundred pictures of his fat beardy face on the dance floor with some random teenager. 'Serious writer' my ar.e. I have never met one person who has actually finished a book of his. I met him years ago at a smart l1terary party, when he had only just emerged on the scene. He was sliming up to everyone in case they were useful and mistakenly turned to me. 'Hello, I'm 1ris St0rm', I said. He sprang into some chitchat. 'Sorry, I didn't hear your name', I said. He glared at me, icily and said the immortal words, 'What? You mean you don't know who I am?' And even when he forced himself to tell me .. I still didn't. Because outside a minute group of literati .. NO ONE DID ... because he WASN'T FAMOUS. And so he walked off. WHAT A PR@TT.

Anyway, I was thinking about them because of the faces of the performers today. BUT .. good cause ... try not to mind. I'll go back and have another look.
- posted by Iris @ 7/02/2005 07:37:00 PM (0) comments comment

 
Class.
I am so idiotic, myself ... it is so obvious when I look back at that last post. Practically everything that drives me mad is due to cl@ss hatr3d. You'd think it would be phasing itself out by now but in England it is worse than ever. There is still a tiny, besieged group of real aristocrats who keep a lowish profile and in general are perfectly decent and do masses of charity work and keep out of the papers. But there has been a huge increase in the numbers of very rich businessmen who try to live like a P.G. W0deh0use novel and ponce around being insanely rude, with very clean wives who talk about 'my staff' all the time. Who think that anyone who isn't exactly like them isn't really human.

Contrasted by a huge increase in indentik1t y0bs who all drink beer and watch fo0tball incessantly and think that anyone who isn't exactly like them isn't really human and should die. Preferably from being kicked in the h3ad. This includes a scarily large percentage of the population, many of them students and not totally stupid.

That line from 'My Fa1r L@dy' seems to be just as true today. 'Wh3never an Englishman sp3aks he makes an0ther man d3spise h1m', (roughly). I came across an ancient audio tape the other day, made by my daughter when she was twelve, of the three of them chatting. The high, squeaky voices with perfect articulation could have been coming from some 1930's palace. Nowadays, from necessity, toned down to inoffensive neutralness though still recognisable as 'posh'. My son was actually nervous of arriving at university because he thought he might be beaten up for not having a regional accent. (Wasn't - they were all really friendly). The world neatly turned on its head since my own youth.

So - you have to belong to one tribe or the other and there is no compromise. Either you speak vaguely like the Que3n, 'HellOW! Wonderful to SEE you ... how ARE you?' Or like D. B3ckh@m, 'WeyHAY! Cheers! Aw Right, Mate?' And they might as well be either blue or yellow as there is no way of concealing your true origins. One of the only people who starred in the 'F@king It' programmes to fail was a working class girl who had to pass herself off at an upper class dinner party as 'one of them'. She looked perfect and her topics of conversation were spot on - but afterwards ALL the other guests said 'She seemed very nice .. but there was something odd about her voice'.

I may have wandered from my point but it comes back to why I find all these blogs agony. It is their entrenched, never changing wallowing in their lower classness. Of course anything written by the 'other side' would be just as maddening in its own way .. in fact somewhere I have a string of ludicrous e-mails that some nouveau riche twitty sent me by mistake. I must try and find them for your amusement.

I think sensible, objective l1berals like you don't really exist here. Or else they are living in isolated pockets in the countryside and don't write blogs.
- posted by Iris @ 7/01/2005 11:03:00 AM (0) comments comment

 
Annoying.
Right. Now I don't have a television to watch I am spending more time here ... alone, apparently. So .. I suddenly had this moment of clarity and I thought 'OMG - I found B..,and J., and Squ.., and M...ie, by chance on-line. So maybe there is the English equivalent of that group of amazingly charming, talented and amusing people just a few clicks of the keyboard away'. And if they lived HERE, I could easily meet them .. and that could possibly be really nice .. and even fun. So the search began.

I started with a link from one of the blogs mentioned above. She seemed okay and wrote well but was rather self-conciously cool and .. my over-used word ... smug. So I tried HER links. Errr .. the same again. A couple of them were actually very funny but quite aggressive and all left-wing in that biggoted English way which allows no discussion. One of them said he would love to be M. Th.tch3r for a day so that he could apologise for everything she had done. How f.ck.ng stupid is that? I get so exhausted with this kind of remark to which 'they' chorus 'Yeah, right' and when you say what did she 'do' exactly they usually can't remember anything in particular. She had a brisk and unsentimental, 'uncaring' manner and didn't pretend that all poorer people were victims (much like myself)but dragged England back from total crapness in the world view to being a major player again. She was a bit strange towards the end but it was worth it. Try to find a politician of any party today that you could admire for anything ..

So already I am irritated by many of the things they say and find their manner annoying and this is not going well. By chance one of them has made a huge list of all the people who link back to him - about fifty Engl1sh blogs. I start with the ones with 'Lond0n' in their names for ease of contact once we become close friends. They are all very, very dull foreigners having a wonderful time in your fascinating city. F.ck it .. I will choose at random. This one is not so bad and he is writing under his real name and has a rather pretty photograph of himself at the top and lives not unadjacent to my own flat .. hmm, hmmm. No. Hopeless. He is a deeply humourless theatre producer who goes on and on and onnn about the minutiae of various low level plays he's involved with and the whole thing is probably set up to be read by someone who might give him a job.

And the next one is a man writing under a woman's name and the one after that is a gay man obsessed with football and the one after that too and what the f.ck is this? Are all Engl1sh blogs written by the same person? They are interchangeable .. and not in a good way. I could write a parody by now and would probably be put up for an Engl1sh 'bl0gg1e'. All I have to do is be scathing about anything upper middle class; love lots of cliched whiny music like C0ldpl@y; boast about how drunk I was last night, preferably on some bizarrely horrible mix; drone on about injustice on the other side of the world; make a list down the side of my favourite films including martial arts and anything about minorities being cruelly ignored; plus book list including any modern very left-wing ranters and novels about minorities being cruelly ignored and add the name of my favoured football team in coloured letters. Then I could bring up a few ever-popular topics like the f0x hunt1ng ban being bypassed by cunning toffs and the cruel repatriation of failed 'asylum seekers' and I would be totally indistinguishable. And would probably have hundreds of new friends.

I feel really bitter now. Why are so many English people so cliched and stupid? Why are they so dreary? Why do they cling on to their nasty, crass, anti-intellectual, anti-eliteist thought processes as if any other way of being was actually evil? I have looked before and have NEVER found an English blog that wasn't roughly like these. Whereas amongst American ones there are masses that, although not riveting, I could read quite happily and without screaming. Perhaps all the nice, fun English people still don't understand how to use a computer ... you may be surprised to know that that is actually a real possibility.
- posted by Iris @ 7/01/2005 12:59:00 AM (0) comments comment