Reasons to be ashamed of being British (the edited version)

Having dared to criticise Czech culture in my last post, I feel compelled to counter-act it with all the things I hate or feel ashamed about in British culture.  But that could take more than one blog post to do.  Thus, I shall compile a little list:

1) There is no tradition of good quality cuisine.  We just steal everyone else's.

2) We claim to be ever so polite but we merely moan and curse inwardly or pass comment, passive-aggressively while waiting in queues.

3) We don't applaud other people's success.  We merely go about finding as many ways in which that success was flawed, unmerited, the result of nepotism or outside help in order to undervalue the achievement in question.  In essence, we don't believe hanging out with successful people means that success will rub off on us, but rather that their success will deny us any chance of our own.

4) We have the worst public transport system imaginable.  It is overpriced and consistently so bad that we use the example of 'a long wait and then two buses coming at once' as a common metaphor for similar such agonising waiting in our careers / love lives etc.  We also brag about having a 'good service' by writing it next to a tube line when that tube line is, for a rare moment in time, not experiencing any delays or service limitations such as half the line not running for the whole weekend.

5) Our appalling record at speaking foreign languages.  Made worse by a government who now thinks it's ok to abandon learning languages at the age of 14.

6) Our despicable habit of referring to 'Europe' as though it's got nothing to do with us and is some entity 'out there somewhere' rather than a continent we are actually a part of.

7) Our abysmal recognition of the advantages of being a part of the EU and the consequent moaning about 'people coming over here and stealing our jobs'.  (If you bothered to learn another language, you could 'go over there and "steal" their jobs' if you wanted to.  That's the point.  We're able to share.  If you make the effort to open your mind to another culture, language and way of life.)

8) Our relationship with alcohol.  Everywhere we go in the world, the British reputation for drinking too much and consequently behaving atrociously precedes us.  The attitude that this is normal, is even worse.  Our language is full of expressions that are acceptable in social circles, even though they are all about being so drunk, you no longer had control of your own body.  Saying things like, "yeah I got so rat-arsed / wasted / pi**ed / wan**red / paralytic / slaughtered / plastered / s**t - faced" in a mock-embarrassed but really quite tickled by the idea way, shows just how acceptable it is in British society.

Don't even get me started on those who come to Prague for stag nights.  I would purposely cross the road to avoid walking alongside people like that.  I should be spending every minute of my day apologising to Czech people for this fact alone.  How dare such an ignorant nation as us Brits use a country for its cheap beer?

9) The British attitude to sport and music in schools.  It costs too much to teach properly and make enjoyable, so we just don't bother and leave it up to rich kids' parents to pay extra for these areas of education instead.  

10) I've saved the best till last: 

The British inability to say something directly.  Such as, "I'm not sure that's a good idea", when they mean, "Hell no!"  Or, "We really appreciate your application for this job but on this occasion we're unable to offer you anything", when what they mean is: "You are totally wrong for this job."  Or else, "I think I might have to cut back on our meetings for a while", when they mean, "I want to stop our meetings for good".  

Worse still is the extreme self-deprecation, ingrained from birth, that dictates you must override any compliment regarding your achievements with an explanation of how you're normally not that good, had help or copied someone else, or it was a total fluke, which really translates as, "Gosh, did you really think I was good?  That's amazing!  Tell me more..."  (If you seriously are that desperate for approval, for god's sake own up to it, show some maturity and say, "Thanks very much for the compliment.  I've been feeling really quite unsure of how much I could manage, so I'm pleased it went so well.")

With all of that off my chest, I can feel a little bit better about daring to criticise an aspect of Czech culture and assure you that I have been, and always will be, rather ashamed to be British.

Thoughts, fantasies and a wish for adventure

"The vitality of thought is an adventure.  Ideas won't keep.  Something must be done about them."  A. N. Whitehead

I'm feeling quite low today.  Something about the proximity of Christmas and the way in which it seems designed to pinpoint and expose those of us who don't feel we really have a home to go has begun to gnaw away at me already.  Additionally, the reminiscences about this time last year, before the final throes of the end of the dredges of my former relationship has started pecking away at my mind, like an insistent and anxious bird.  This is obviously not helped by an overwhelming tiredness.  I'm not sure how to combat it, when I know what I need is some time off and a bit of hope for the future.  Which, of course, will require some planning.  

I also know this is part of the call of the creative stuff, begging me to come back, when I can't.  How can I come back, when I don't even have a whole day off anymore?  I am doing what I said I would.  I'm paying my way.  I sold my piano to do this, but I have no hope of ever buying a replacement, let alone having a flat to put it in.  And even if I could, it's already too late.  It's still painful to look back at how long it took me to think I could even begin to call myself a musician, how much I dedicated myself to trying to prove I was, to make up for my total lack of formal music education.  And the suspicion in the eyes of many that music was not where my 'talents' lay at all and I was heading for a fall by liking music so much, did so much more damage than anyone could have imagined.  (They were right on the latter, but for the wrong reasons.)

And so it is that I find myself a little lost today, away from a real sense of home, speaking three different foreign languages in one day (French, Czech and German, in that order) and wondering what on earth constitutes 'home' anyway.  I keep thinking of that Christmas when I was cat-sitting in someone else's flat, looking after the two cutest cats in all Christendom and being paid for it.  I knew I was the luckiest person on earth.  I also knew it would never happen twice.  

I was slightly envious that the couple I cat-sat for had such a lovely life of heading off to LA one month, Stockholm the next.  I still have a silly little dream of going to California one day and hanging out on some under-populated beach somewhere there (if there is one).  Oddly enough, on the other hand, I wouldn't mind heading way out to San Francisco instead, even though the two are not even remotely close when you look at a map.  Still, fantasies are fantasies.  They work fine in your head.

Just like the idea of being able to change trajectory and run different groups of meet-ees, maybe even for singing/songwriting or even do some playing, writing and performing of my own, keeps circling my mind but there's great doubt it'll have a real landing place.  And all the while, I long for a couple of days of luxury, such as a long afternoon reading books and magazines, followed by a languid bath with all sorts of potions to pamper myself with.  Or a day just playing and writing and even recording songs.  But fantasies are hard to convert to reality.  Especially when you haven't even got any time to think.

Umbrellas, fate and nationality

It occurs to me that I should find the fact that it rained today and that I'm feeling like I'm teetering on the brink of having a horrible cold really rather funny, in light of yesterday's post.  But I seem to have had a sense of humour bypass.  I've been feeling utterly miserable. I've even taken a picture of my umbrella (now that it's had a chance to dry off) in an attempt to cheer myself up that at least I do have a nice umbrella and it's good thing that it had the opportunity to serve its purpose today.

I suppose it's fair enough.  I was almost hinting that it was a shame the umbrella hadn't been used.  And it's probably a good thing that my local area gets a reminder that there is an 'angličanka' among them.  (Who else would be as eccentric?)  After all, we are a rare bunch in this architecturally stunning city.  

We had a conversation in my Czech lesson today about how unique it is in our class to have an English girl, i.e. me.  No other English people have set foot in this language school.  Indeed, I have to report that, somewhat predictably, I've been here six months and still not come across one other Brit.  Not one.  Americans, yes, but a Brit?  Absolutely not.  And the only other Brit my teacher knew of (a friend of a friend) had not set foot in a language school either.  Am I ashamed of my nationality and its apparent inability to seriously try to learn a foreign language of any description, let alone a rather difficult language such as Czech? Well, yes, actually.  

It must be in our genes.  Americans mostly came from other places and settled in America.  Brits just grew up and assumed no-where was worth learning a foreign language for.  So they stayed put.  (Mind you, I've met a few Americans here but not one has said they've made an effort to go to Czech classes.)

So the only English girl in Prague with her red, frilly, polka dot umbrella, stands out a mile.  In more ways than one.  But I suppose that's the way I like it.