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.

Normality and other assumptions

In the midst of an incredibly stressful week due to impromptu renovation work in my flat, leaving me with a non-functioning toilet, I have begun to recognise one of the down-sides of a Czech quality that I had previously appreciated.  When I was meeting up with Czech friends back in London, prior to coming here, I used to be amazed and hugely comforted by the fact that whenever I was having a spectacularly difficult time and I needed to cry and talk it over time and time again, these kind Czech friends would say, "it's normal."  The kind of despair or ongoing battles I faced did not faze them.  With British friends, of whom I had very few, most were unable to tolerate too much of this bleak state and they were detrimentally affected by it.  Mainly because it frightened them.  If it could happen to me, maybe it would happen to them too.

Czech friends, on the other hand, displayed no such fear.  But the reason for that, I now realise is that they don't expect to avoid these kinds of pitfalls.  Czechs are always being told to expect things to go wrong.  That relationships probably will go wrong.  That you probably will live in abject poverty all your life.  That your skills and talents will more often that not,  count for nothing.  "It's normal."  And suddenly, there it is.  Something's wrong with this picture.  

Everyone knows life can be one hell of a struggle, most certainly, and a lot of people do get overlooked or miss out on great opportunities because they don't have enough outside support to be able to get beyond the time and energy involved in mere survival.  But to say, "it's normal" seems at least fractionally defeatist, not to mention desperately sad.  And so it is with this renovation work, that I find none of the builders sympathise with the fact that I work from home most of the time and this work is therefore very, very disruptive.  Nor have they considered the kind of stress (and the detrimental effects on my health this is causing) that not having a functioning loo in my flat will generate.  It is of course, a 'normal' consequence of living in an old block of flats.  Renovation was an inevitability I should not have expected to avoid or have any say in.  (Thank god my landlady is not typically Czech and has apologised for this terrible inconvenience and given me a key to another flat to be able to use the loo.)

Equally, when I stayed with the architect in his flat in the mountain town, having a hot water supply that ran out after both of us having a shower and doing one big amount of washing up, was 'normal' and I was accused of being a princess for expecting otherwise.  Hot water is a luxury, afterall.  Well, I can agree with that, having not had hot water for several weeks in previous places I lived in, in London.  That just means that I appreciate it all the more when there is hot water, and I like to be able to relish and enjoy it, rather than worry about its extremely limited supply.  The same goes for material things.  If you're brought up in a low-income family, there is often an emphasis on the virtue of being someone who can live without many of the commonly sought-after material things.  It becomes a noble attitude to be able to cut back and survive on very little and say things like, "we didn't have much, but we were happy."

Perhaps this notion is genuinely true for some, but for others, 'not having much' results in a battle to get as good grades as others who have the privilege of extra home tutoring, or those who have extra books and resources bought for them, to aid them in their studies.  This is not happiness.  There is no real pride in getting a 'B' grade and saying that it was, "good when you consider I did that without any help".  The music GCSE exam was a prime example of that.  In many schools, music education is an oddity.  You can pay extra for lessons on an instrument as an extracurricular activity but you can't get that kind of education as part of the free GCSE tuition alone, so that exam is one whereby the noble poor pupil with no after-school instrument teacher will get a low grade or even fail because having that extra-curricular teacher was a vital element in the others' capacity to pass the exam.  That's not happiness.

Nor is it happiness to be proud of not being affected by 'material things'.  If having a washing machine that works, having a kettle to make tea with, having a piano to write music on has no impact whatsoever on your level of contentment and ease with which you can conduct your life, not to mention the added joy you could derive from these things, then what kind of person are you?  What kind of person says that they are entirely unaffected by these types of things?  What kind of person is disinterested in having the choice between buying cheap, bad quality red wine and a spending a bit more for a decent bottle of Bordeaux because they are only interested in getting the lowest price?  Dare I say it, oh god forgive me, a Czech.  Or at least, a miserable, hopeless kind of Czech who's had the joy and hope knocked out of them on a regular basis.  The effects of a totalitarian regime do not die when walls come down and governments are changed.  The walls have already been formed in your head.  And those take far, far longer and an even more concerted effort to tear down.

I had one of these types as a meet-ee.  He really said it makes no difference to him having a computer and a washing machine and those kinds of things.  He wasn't grateful for them.  I suggested that he would be pretty annoyed if they suddenly broke.  And I'm sure he would be, though he's earning enough that he could simply replace them at the drop of a hat.  So the inconvenience might only last a couple of days.  And there are members of my family, with no such, "we lived through years of communism" for an excuse (though years of unquestioned Christianity might have had a very similar effect) who still buy cheap chocolate and don't think it's worthwhile spending more on getting something with more cocoa content than sugar in it, for a better taste and less damaging effect to one's health.  (Even the architect can tell the difference and would actually prefer the pricier stuff, so that's really saying something.)

I certainly feel a great deal happier when I do have functioning 'material things' in my life.  Access to a working loo within my own flat for one thing.  And I certainly enjoyed it when I used to have a piano to play loudly when everything else around me seemed doomed.  And today I'm grateful to have a warm new jacket to wear when it gets chilly, and a lovely new fluffy cushion to lean against and make the place feel homelier with.  All of these things bring or brought me comfort and happiness when I had them.  It is not noble to try to live without as though we're still living in a cold war.  I'm not in favour of wasting things, but nor am I in favour of not appreciating things when I do have them.  A life of drudgery and limited resources is not something I should accept and be content with.  It is NOT normal.

A sea of changes, an ocean of resistance and surprises from an old friend

I feel worn-out from a day in which I have sought to achieve more than was ever going to be possible, but nonetheless have made progress.  Much to the consternation of some.  It was always going to be difficult, having to put my foot down to some meet-ees and actually say, "no, this is not how it's going to be anymore."  I cannot afford to provide favours for all and sundry and keep my rates to an acceptably lowly 'female helping profession' kind of level any longer.  The saying, "no" part has come easier in many ways, than I expected.  Czechs prefer you to be clear, not wishy-washy so saying an outright, "I cannot continue with this" is preferable to, "I don't think I'm going to be able to continue" and is exactly what I needed to say.  This has by and large been accepted without quibble.  After all, a clear, "no" leaves no room for negotiation.

Asking for what I need from new, 'met-once but not established into the timetable' meet-ees has been a little bit harder.  So has asking for what I need from friends who thought they could have endless favours and fashionable amounts of freedom to come and go as they please.  But it is all necessary and worth it in the long run to actually clear my timetable of so many hours of dead time where I'm virtually drawing blood from a stone and barely getting paid enough to allow myself to eat and drink healthily that day.

So, enough is enough.  I'm being 'reasonable but firm' about what I can and can't tolerate.  And I'm trying to work around problems as they arise and see if I can knock down the most persistent and pervasive ones.  The next hurdle is another visit to the bank.  My favourite thing.  Camping out in an over-the-top affluent-looking waiting area with a fountain no less, waiting for my number to come up on a screen, not only makes me think I must have ended up on a stopover in bankers' heaven but makes me spit with fury at what nonsense they're spending my banking fees on.  If I spent my meet-ees fees on champagne and oysters, it would be close to the equivalent of this I suppose.  (Mind you, champagne and oysters would actually be rather nice and a definite 'pick me up' for my otherwise lethargic and melancholic state, whereas an indoor fountain and wood panelled 'pods' to either sit and wait on or stand and write at, offer no such succour.)

And so it is that I find myself at the end of this long and busy day of once again trying to achieve the impossible, sipping hot chocolate with coconut liqueur and marvelling at the surprises that have befallen me today.  Namely, a parcel I collected from the post office from the Russian Countess, containing a stash of chocolates, including a chocolate covered marzipan bar I had wanted to buy myself over Christmas but ran out of money for, some German champagne truffles, a lovely traveller's notebook and a card with sentiments expressing some unfounded belief in my achievements.  I can only stare in amazement at such luck and cherish the thought that there is someone out there who thinks that the work I do, the stuff that so far seems to have no commercial value whatsoever, is somehow highly significant and is revered by another creative soul.  That warms the cockles of my heart better than the hot chocolate.  And that is truly saying something because I'm becoming something of a hot chocolate fanatic these days.

Problem or solution?

I don't want my focus to be all over the place, but negotiating a relationship (of sorts) as well as a career (of even more dubious, tenuous sorts) is fraught with difficulty especially when I find myself in strange and far-flung places.  It's not as though there is anywhere in particular where I feel 'at home'.  It's probably high-time I gave up on the notion that a sense of being 'at home' somewhere will ever find me or I will ever find it.  I don't have a strong tie anywhere and in each place I seek to make a home for myself, there's always something missing.  In London it was the possibility of speaking a foreign language regularly without having to pay for the privilege.  Finding British friends who can do that was nigh-on impossible and the ones who I befriended who weren't British, either spoke a language I didn't (i.e. Russian) or were about to move away anyway.  Or both.

And here, in the Czech Republic, I seem to finally have found myself drawn to another culture, not my own, not Czech culture, but American culture of all things.  Mainly because it is the polar opposite of the culture which surrounds me.  Is this a result of some innate need to always be the rebellious one?  Do I simply have to continually buck the trend and follow the path less travelled to a destination that only appeals to recluses?  What the hell is wrong with me, if that's the case?  I know, deep down, I actually DO need people.  I would like to be involved in a community of writers or musicians, meeting at cafes or dinner parties and sipping a fine Côte du Rhone and discussing the latest tricks of the trade, but somehow whichever camp I should find myself in, I'm sure I would feel like the fraud, for the mere fact that this one area (music or literature) is not my sole occupation.  Is this part of the problem or the solution?  I simply don't know.

Just for your reference, here's a picture of the "town" I've been residing in over the last few days, just so we can all see another place that doesn't feel like home to me. 

 It's sweet though, isn't it?

Tributes to Havel

I had to go to Václavské náměstí today anyway, so I stopped to take a look at all the tributes to Václav Havel that were displayed around the statue of Svatý Václav (the Saint that Havel shared the first name of) at the top of the square.  I overheard one kid ask about why it says svatý Václav above the tributes and if that's because Havel is a saint, so he was rather confused.  The Mum just told him that it's a coincidence that the saint shares his name.   

Two of the famous pictures of Havel with the Rolling Stones:

This one says, "Thank you for everything you did for us":

And on several billboards on the way home, a photo of Havel by Tomki Němec with a quote of Havel's I've referenced before:

,,Naděje není přesvědčení, že něco dopadne dobře, nýbrž jistota, že něco má smysl, lhostejno, jak to dopadne."

["Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."]

A Sad Sunday

Ex-president Václav Havel has died.  It's the end of an era.  It was a shock to discover it as I signed out of my seznam account.  I went straight to the Czech national paper's site at www.idnes.cz to read the full report.  It bothers me that this means Margaret Thatcher has outlived him.  (Unless she died years ago but it's been a well-kept secret ever since.  Either that or no-one could tell the difference.)  That just seems wholly unfair.

In other, far less important, news I've just had the worst tummy bug of my life and I'm only just slowly recovering from it.  Sipping peppermint tea is just becoming possible without severe pain as a consequence.  I'm recovering.  Slowly.  Very slowly.

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.