Ezra’s Travels

Continental Communications: Number 001

I don’t like the heat. Never have done. And when it was first decided that we would be leaving for someplace other than South Africa when we were done with Taiwan, I pushed hard for someplace cold. Cold. I believe at some point Yellowknife and Fairbanks were plumped for. The saner side of the marriage held firm, and it was decided that England or Ireland would be graced with our presence. No problem, right?

Well… suffice it to say that I have now been in England for just over a week, and we have yet to even have an overcast day, let alone a day of rain, snow or sleet. The only thing to have fallen from the sky has been the odd pigeon that honestly thought I would share a pie with it.

My parents have maintained that I have arrived during the hottest week in a February for a hundred years, that the weather is totally atypical and that they honestly can’t understand it. Given golden sunshine and light breezes off the Thames, I’m not sure that I believe them. Global Warming, El Nino, Nigerian Immigrants, Health and Safety…. They have all been blamed. In the absence of snow, I remain dubious. Let me state for the record that the weather IS colder than Taiwan. Vastly colder. For the first time in my adult life, I am able to pile on a long sleeved shirt, pull on my trusty dri-mac and go for a walk without cracking a sweat. It’s a novel experience. Having grown up in Durban, spent some time in Tanzania and taught classes in Taiwan, sweat is something that I have come to associate with exercise. No longer. And it is awesome.

Enough about the weather. Let’s talk about England.

So… it’s an overcrowded island with a vast influx of foreigners that insist on stealing the jobs of the locals. So far, not so different to Taiwan.

But THIS island is the bastion of English history and culture world-wide. As a Beef-Eater mentioned to me the other day… the English were building drop-gates before most western nations were even formed. I know that my Taiwanese readers are now going to say that their culture is older still. True. Taiwan, if it is to be regarded as Chinese, boasts an older culture. So, my question, my dear Taiwanese friends, is this…. Is Taiwan part of China? J

I thought not.

So…. An island nation steeped in history. And Pakistani taxi drivers.

A nation where a national dish is a home-brewed ale. And a Chicken Vindaloo.

Bangers and mash, Marks and Spencer, God Save the Queen and Polish barmen. Windsor Castle, the Underground, the Crown Jewels and Italian waiters. It is a strange smorgasbord of cultural mayhem. Everyone had warned me of a possible “culture-shock” on my arrival in England. And they were right, although I am still not sure which culture I find more shocking. For you see, they are all here. In seven days, I have spoken to a Romanian taxi-driver, a Pakistani taxi-driver, an Indian taxi-driver and a Jamaican taxi-driver. I have been served by a French waiter, Italian waiter, Spanish waiter and a Nigerian waiter. My money has been taken by a Scottish teller, an Irish teller, a Welsh teller and an English teller. I have bought coffee and beer from Jewish, Polish, Norwegian and Uruguayan counter-jumpers. And the one thing that they all have in common?

They insist that they are English.

Which leaves a South-African with an Irish passport and Taiwanese work experience fitting right in. This place is incredible. They have seen it all, assimilated it all, and have beaten it all. They smashed the Nazi’s, the Prussians before them, and the French every day that they can. They have withstood the influx of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu children into their Church of England schools. Their Yobbo-culture stands ready to give anyone and anything a good fonging. And so they have. Despite having no cricket, rugby or soccer team to speak of, history records that they invented the games. Newfangled things like ice-hockey, baseball and basketball are simply ignored as being boorish examples of colonial upstart behaviour. This is a nation that leaves the “u” in favourite, can withstand the rigours of Marmite, and virtually worships a wizened old lady with a jewel collection to rival Liberace’s. Welcome to England.

The Arrival:

Heathrow is a massive airport, a skyway city that stands head and shoulders above every other of its kind. Rumour maintains that there is a plane taking off or landing every 30 seconds. Make no mistake. This is a busy place. Mentally, we were prepared to be intimidated. But Heathrow is a pussy-cat. The signage….wait for it…. is in English.

English notices everywhere… no more deciphering of Chinese signs or Chinglish.

One thing that we noticed while we were whiling away a carefree hour or two in the customs queue…. It really pays to have an EU passport. Those bastards swan through the turnstiles with happy smiles. The rest of us (and I am only included because I had to go through with my wife) had to wait for ages. Standing in a queue for hours, there is very little else to do but watch people. Besides shifty looking Romanians, the majority of the queue was filled with Americans.

Let me assure you. The rumours are true. (And for the few American friends that I have… you are obvious exceptions.) Americans are stupid. Watching them, it becomes apparent that they really could have voted George W. in for a second term. Case in point was the small group in front of us in the queue.

Dude 1 “Did you know that there has been a 16 year-old girl that climbed Mount Everest?”

Dude 2 “Woah.”

Girl 1 “I heard that Edmund Hillary died.”

Dude 2 “Who was Edward Hillary?”

Girl 1 “The first man to climb Mount Everest.”

Dude 1 “Yeah.. I heard that Sherpa Tensing’s son gave a speech.”

Dude2 “Sherpa Tensing? That the 16 year-old girl?”

Defense rests.

Stifling grins and chuckles, we were finally waved to the front to face off against Her Majesty’s customs officials. The wife elbowed me when I started to ask if Her Majesty was working a counter that day, and we made it safely into the country.

Welcome to the United Kingdom.

Our Stay (So Far)

We have now been here for about 2 weeks. It has been absolutely incredible here, filled with numerous “Woah….I’m in London!” moments. We’ve all seen so many London icons on TV and in movies that there is an air of familiarity to this place, a sense of returning to a distant relative’s house after a long time away.

I keep finding myself looking up and taking bearings from something like the Tower Bridge, and then having to stop myself and have a real look at the thing.

Weird.

Well… we’ve done the tourist thing quite heavily over here. So… without further ado… here comes the Ezra Tour Guide….

Windsor Castle:

The Queen’s home. (One of.) This is a massive edifice of stone, and wrought iron crowd control barriers. Nothing says “Welcome” like a riot shield hanging on a concrete bollard.

That being said, the staff were very friendly, the castle was very clean. J

The castle was a climate-controlled shrine to just how much the British have managed to loot, pillage or steal from their various bitch….er…. colonies through the years.

It is absolutely amazing how much there is stuffed into that castle… paintings from literally every corner of the world, and gold objects on display with captions like “Taken from the dying hands of Sultan Swami-Bo-Sweaty, mortally wounded in a battle against His Honour, Lord Basil Crapspray, 217^th Fusiliers.” I found the interior of the castle distasteful, being as how nearly everything within it (with the possible exception of the Queen herself) was borrowed or stolen from another country. (Actually, even the Queen is German, so perhaps everything, in the end.)

As usual, the wanderings of a semi-intelligent tourist are disturbed by the amazingly ignorant masses of gum-chewing blubber that are American travelers. They might represent the world’s largest consumer market, but let me be the first to assure you that they are not consuming knowledge. There is no side-order of culture with the Yankee-Burger. It is as if they have never truly encountered British culture, and have arrived here simply because it is what you are supposed to do on holiday. All through-out Windsor castle, volunteer guides were asked incredibly banal and obvious questions.

“Who lives in this castle?” – Orphans. Dirty, sniveling orphans. And man-eating hummingbirds.

“Where did all this gold come from?” – Excellent question. By ignoring the notices helpfully posted beneath each exhibit you have won a prize. Here, have a burger.

“Are those real?” – Nope. You’re way too good for us. The pride of Britain really is a bunch of costume jewelry and knock-off paintings.

“Why are those walls so thick?” – They aren’t walls. They’re hollow, and that is where we stash ignorant hicks who irritate us.

Ah. Americans. Truly.

Weald and Downlands Museum:

Well now. This one was a little different. The museum is an open-air museum, given that their displays are of restored houses and buildings from various times throughout history.

Everything from an 11^th century toll-house through to a Tudor-style farm house, they have all been lovingly moved across the country-side, to find a new residence in the museum. The museum is staffed with hordes of well-meaning volunteers. That some of them seemed to be roughly the same age as the houses they were presenting did not escape my notice.

Well-meaning is the perfect adjective for the museum. The houses are very well restored. Attention is given to each tiny detail. My issue with them is that in their scrutiny of every tiny fact, they seem to have missed a few vital big issues. There was a 15^th century kitchen loving restored, and populated by authentic crockery and cutlery, and two authentic 15^th century old women, who demonstrated their knowledge (or lack thereof) of everything within the kitchen. This included invitations to children to scrub their tables with salt, “as in the days of yore”. Curious. At the time, (1450), the French government was coming under fire for the massive taxes that they leveled at salt, and its transport. Countries established cities on the strength of their proximity to salt, and armies lived and died on the whim of salt-hungry kings. And here they were using it to rub down their tables?

Hmm… given that the average peasant can make lye soap from ash, why would he use possibly the most expensive spice in history to scrub up his dinner table? Of course, when I asked these questions, I was indulged in a light banter about how salt really was very rare in those days and then fobbed off with a reference to the pork hanging from an authentic meat-hook. A mill-stone was incorrectly identified as a whet-stone, and it was only when I actually showed them how the thing would have worked that they conceded that perhaps I had a point. Ah well.

That being said, I had fun at the museum. Traipsing about from one ancient abode to another in the mud gave the entire experience an authenticity that I had never considered. Whilst the houses had some glaring errors, it was awesome to see the leather-wrapped jugs and chiseled wood trenchers that they would have used to eat their salt-laden food with. For every 3 senile morons, there was one guide who really knew his stuff, and was able to answer truly pointed and detailed questions.

And of course, sitting in single-digit temperatures eating veggie pies was a nice way to end the day.

Burnham Beeches:

Nothing like a little walk in the woods when everything around you is coated in ice. The Beeches is a forest stuck in the middle of nowhere between a few villages, themselves in the middle of nowhere really. (For my Taiwanese readers… a forest is like an inner-city park… but bigger, and cleaner, and without any concrete…and much prettier….and real.)

The walking was easy, on well-marked paths through some seriously tall trees. After my years in Taiwan, anything bigger than the fake Xmas tree we used to bring out once a year to dwarf with presents is seriously tall. They were all in winter dress, giving the area a stark and barren look. I am not sure what the temperature was that day, but suffice it to say that breath was steaming and the lakes were freezing over. For a South African boy who still hasn’t seen snow, it was quite the thing.

The highlight of the walk was watching ducks trying to land on a lightly-iced lake. Ducks will never be known for their grace on land, or their elegance in foot-races, but watching them landing on what LOOKS like water, but isn’t, was awesome. Wings flared out behind, frantically beating to get to take-off speed again, webbed feet scrabbling backwards to find purchase on slightly moist ice. Wonderful. Truly.

Often the ice would break beneath a duck suddenly, plopping a squawking duck into what could only have been startlingly cold water.

And the best thing about England? Well…. Right next to where we parked the car was that height of English culture. A pub. Aye.
Nothing better than walking into a fire-warmed pub to drink some well-earned Guiness after some exercise in frigid weather. I can think of no better reason for the superiority of the British culture than their pubs…which are everywhere, always open, and always warm.

Stonehenge:

There was NO WAY that I could come to England and not go to see the henge of henges.

And there was NO WAY that I was going to skip paying the fee and simply look at the thing from outside a fence. Nope. I gamely chipped in my cash, and went through the fence. That’s when you see it. There is another fence around the henge. And you can never get closer than about 10 metres from the stones. (Unless you’re a pagan priest, rumour has it that they get to have occasional ceremonies in the henge, where they presumably celebrate flower-power and free sex on the ancient stones. Go pagans. Nothing like unwashed hippy tree-huggers on social benefits getting to bonk on the oldest standing relics in England. Let’s hear it for socialism.)

The henge is awesome. Without getting too touchy-feely, there is a sense of majesty, isolation and purpose to them. They were there before you, and they will be there when you are dead. It is their only trick, and they have been doing it for thousands of years. Standing at the henge, you can look around relatively open land and see distant burial mounds on the horizon. Nothing is mentioned about them, and I am making it my business to figure out who they were for and why.

Now… if there is one thing that I must caution you not to do….. please… do NOT bother to take the Audio-tour. It is free, and unfortunately, you get what you pay for. There are helpful markers around the henge, and when you key in the numbers, the audio guide tells you what you are looking at and gives you some of the history behind it.

At least, that is the idea.

The assumption is made that you are

A) A permanent resident of a box.

B) Are brain-damaged and in serious need of medical attention

C) Partially blind, with an incontinent guide dog that needs to stand dead-still for long periods of time, and:

D) Possessed of a short-term memory loss such that they need to repeat themselves every 10 seconds.

(I am resisting the urge to mention Americans again…. It’s hard I tell you.)

The audio guide is filled with stupidities, and even worse…. SOUND EFFECTS.

There is nothing on this planet that would induce me to listen to some disembodied pommy voice telling me “The ancients carved the stones with harder stones, bashing them together to shape the rocks you see before you.”, only to have it followed by a faithful rendition of rocks being bashed together, presumably to give even the most unimaginative idiot an idea of what hard work it was. The sounds of rocks being bashed together will beguile you for almost two whole minutes, making you wonder exactly who would approve of such banal garbage in the first place.

Moving on….

Salisbury Cathedral:

Ah… the home of Sexist Christianity. (I’ll explain that later.)

Salisbury Cathedral was built in the 1200’s. The entire thing was constructed in 38 years, and is truly an awesome spectacle. There is an undeniable presence to the building, but unfortunately, that presence is Commercialism.

The church is free to enter. Completely. However… there are fixed “Donation” rates at the door, and a seriously grumpy looking old battle-axe ready to commend your soul to hell should you not want to pay.

I should warn you that I was not too impressed with the cathedral. Everyone reading this letter will probably have experienced the hush of grandeur that accompanies most old churches. There is that crystallized moment when you step into a truly holy place, a moment where everything seems to hold its breath. It failed to happen in Salisbury Cathedral, and that is most probably because they only ever hold their breath to shout all the louder for money.

The Church is proudly regarded as a living church. This means that people still come to it every Sunday to pay their respects (and their 10% tithe). As a living church, you would expect it to have some semblance of order, a systematic approach to getting people into the pews and their souls on the register. This is not so.

There are no pews. God alone knows what the peasants sat on, but the people of today get to sit on flashy plastic fold-up chairs, which are stacked at the back of the church, ironically DIRECTLY OVER two grave markers.

There are guides within the church, although again, the lesson is that if something is free, one shouldn’t expect too much in terms of entertainment. The poor old man that guided us around the church was a lot more intellectual than the clashing rocks of Stonehenge but probably less entertaining. I lost interest and wandered off by myself after the second exhibit.

The church is majestic, with gothic arches soaring overhead, and massively vaulted sconces and niches in the walls. Truly outstanding. The problem is that virtually every open space has been filled with money boxes and leaflets begging for money. It was disappointing. No real effort has been made to preserve the feel and the history of the church. There are speakers that have been hammered into ancient columns of limestone, there are microphone leads tacked messily onto venerable wooden podiums. Worse in my opinion, was the inclusion of contemporary works of art into the church. This means that you can look at a 600 year old painting of Christ, a 400 year old sacred vestibule, a 500 year old Chancery and then a 4 year old piece of shit by Mary Whiggam-Clark. Gah.

There is no end to it really. Within the bounds of the church itself, is the “Rectory Restaurant”, which sits alongside the “Salisbury Shoppe”. Honestly, I find it offensive that some immigrant short-order cook is slinging fries and hashbrowns within the walls of an 800 year old church! The Rectory Restaurant was a greasy tourist-trap eatery with no imagination or respect.

And now… sexism. Twice during our walk around the place, my wife was honestly treated as a second-class citizen. The first guide we had (the boring one) led the group to a medieval clock that was installed against a wall. He pointed it out, and then peered around the group.

“Ah. I see that there are some ladies within the group. I am not going to explain how the clock works, I don’t want to bore the ladies.”

And then he moved on.

So… with a group full of pretty pissed-off women who couldn’t possibly be interested in anything mechanical following him, he walked away.

The second incident came when we went to go look at the Magna Carta. For those of you who don’t know what it is…. It is basically a signed document from King John promising that he would be a nicer king to everyone. It is a liberal and far-reaching document that forms the basis of Western concepts of fair-play and constitutions. Entering the special little room that the Magna Carta is housed in, we had to wend our way through three cash boxes, and an invitation to donate by money order. Once inside, the wife was accosted by an officious old pratt who handed her a laminated piece of paper explaining what the Magna Carta was, saying to her “So you will have some idea of what it is that you are looking at.”

Heh heh. Basically, in his manner he did everything but pat her on the head and tell her not to worry her pretty little head about things. So it was that a steaming wife and I looked over one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta.

Even then, we were not left alone. Another old git insisted on explaining everything all over again to the wife while we were standing there. (Note that none of them had done anything remotely like that to me.) In the end, we left the Cathedral more than a little pissed off.

To sum up… beautiful from the outside. And the outside is free. There is no need to venture in, unless patronizing behaviour and repeated appeals for money are your thing.

The End:

Well, that seems to be enough for this first edition of the Continental Communications.

There will indeed be more in days to come, so stand by. If anyone has any questions or problems, or would like to take to me to task about anything that I have said, you are welcome to bugger off. J

Signing off….

Ezra

Coming Next Time –

Tower Museum.

London City.

The Temple Church.

Les Miserables.

Stomp.

The Underground.

And: Finding clothes to fit Ezra.

Join me next time…..