Category Archives: Other Stuff

 The Cornish Saints

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Cornwall was Christianized by a raft (and I’m using that word metaphorically, but you’ll see why it comes to mind) of saints that most people outside of Cornwall never heard of. I’m guessing the best known is St. Piran—Cornwall’s patron saint and a favorite saint of Cornish tin miners. He sailed over from Ireland on a millstone. (“As you do,” as people here say in just that kind of situation.) He’s said to have liked his drink, and to have died of it. Memory insists that he got drunk and fell down a well, but memory—or the version of it that lives in my head—isn’t reliable and may be making that up. So don’t trust me on that. None of the web sites I’ve checked mention it, although they do mention a lot of drinking on St. Piran’s Day.

Whether or not he was a heavy drinker, the saints in those days weren’t prissy. St. Brychan came from Wales with three wives, twelve sons, and twelve daughters, many of whom became saints themselves. I’ve never heard how they got here—probably a VW beetle—but transportation seems to have been a big thing among them: St. Ia floated over on a leaf and St. Budoc floated over in a barrel.

later may 2015 001

A very British form of protest

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Someone was recently convicted of disrupting prime minister’s question time—called PMQ by those in the know—by throwing marbles in the general direction of the MPs. (“Marble-throwing PMQs protestor gets suspended prison sentence”)

No, that’s not the part that strikes me as particularly British. We’ll get to that.  But before we do, I should explain that it takes an expert to tell when someone disrupts PMQ, because the MPs bray at and heckle and bully each other like a classroomful of twelve-year-old boys whose teacher stepped out for a smoke a month ago and still hasn’t come back. (My writers group, whose members are an invaluable and giddy guide to all things British, advises me that the MPs sound like public school boys, which if you’re American means private school boys, because public schools here are private, but that’s too much confusion for one post. Let’s thank them politely and not get into it here.) All that braying and harassing are politics as usual. The reason this guy stood out was because he was in the visitors’ area.

And, yeah, the marbles. I admit that.

Plus his language. The MPs are allowed (even expected) to be horrible to each other, but their language has to be pristine.

Blackthorn in bloom on the North Cornish coast

Irrelevant photo: Blackthorn in bloom.

What kind of language did the protester use? That’s in dispute. The prosecutor claimed he stood up and said, “I’m sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen. You fucking wankers, you’re just liars.” But the protester, who as far as I can figure out had already pled guilty, interrupted, shouting, “Can I just say, for the record, I didn’t call anyone fucking wankers. I called them dishonourable bastards.”

That “dishonourable”? That’s British. The next person who interrupts the American House or Senate will not, I guarantee, use the word dishonorable, even though I switched to the American spelling to make it a fraction of a percent of a probability more plausible.

The “I’m sorry about this, ladies and gentlemen”? That’s also British.

I’m still not sure what our protester was protesting. According to the article, he has (as the current phrase puts it) mental health problems and felt his life was wasting away. In response, I’m sure the government will make more speeches about putting mental health on a par with physical health and keep on underfunding both.

They’d outlaw marbles but Parliament’s dissolved until the election.

With apologies…

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With apologies to everyone who’s already seen it, this is a link to “The British countryside and Winnie the Pooh,” because in a naive effort to make my blog more visible I wiped it off the face of the blogosphere for a day or so, and it’s only gradually fading back into view, so some of you got an email about it and some of you didn’t.

You can’t fade into view. But we don’t quite have a word for that. Think of the Cheshire Cat’s reappearances. Or don’t. It’s not important. And if you’ve already seen the post, this post isn’t important either. If you haven’t, it still isn’t important except as a way to get back in touch.

Remind me never to improve my blog, okay?

 

Trouble, trouble, trouble

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I’m trying to upgrade the site. With luck, you won’t be able to see any difference, but it’ll work better. Upgrading is another word for “it may not be working the way it should.” Hang in there. I’ll have it up and working. Eventually. With the help of someone who knows what he’s doing, because I don’t.

Commercial carrots in blogworld

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I’m going to interrupt my exploration of the spidery corners of British culture—you know, the stuff I claim to be doing in the heading of my blog—to explore a spidery corner belonging of the blogosphere.

The other day, I got an email from someone who said nice things about my blog. I fell in love immediately. Who wouldn’t? She has such good taste. She wanted me to write a post that the company she works for would then promote through social media. Since I’m crap with social media and I assume they’re not (although how I think I know that is anyone’s guess), this is a tempting offer.

Irrelevant photo: Here's Wild Thing me, failing to see the solar eclipse. Just out of range is a piece of cardboard with a hole in it, through which the image of the sun declined to make itself seen. It was hazy, and I'm guessing that was the problem.

Irrelevant photo: Here’s Wild Thing and me, failing to see the solar eclipse on a piece of used paper. You can just see the type on the other side. Out of camera range was a piece of cardboard with a hole in it, through which the image of the sun declined to make itself seen. The sky was hazy, and I’m guessing that was the problem. Either that or the image of the sun was holding out for non-recycled paper.

What does she want me to write about? My ideal night out in a foreign city and how to connect with a culture using language and food.

Well, I like language. I like food. In my barbarian way, I like culture(s). I even like cities, and Britain has almost as many cities as it does bizarre festivals. (I made that up. It can’t possibly.) So maybe this fits. Admittedly, my ideal night out is a whole lot less raucous than most people want to read about, but what really bothers me is this feeling that I’d be selling out if I bent the blog off course (if it is off course, which I haven’t established yet) just so I could wolf down the first commercial carrot anyone has bothered to dangle in front of me.

And hell, the carrot isn’t even money. I’m mean, if you’re going to sell out, shouldn’t you get paid?

That tells you I come from a print background. I mean, in blogworld we’re supposed to be thrilled if our words are discovered and circulated, but we’re not supposed to think about money. Even when the circulator hopes to make money out of the exchange.

Does anyone notice something slightly wrong about this?

Even so, I am thinking about it. Carrots are food. I like food. We’ve established that. And I’m crap at social media. We’ve established that as well. It’s the commercial aftertaste of this particular carrot that bothers me.

In the name of transparency, I should say that I haven’t a clue whether I’m supposed to be writing about her request or whether the post—if I ever write, let alone post, it—is supposed to appear completely natural and unsolicited. Also in the name of transparency, I’ll add that I’m not sure how I feel writing about our email exchange. I don’t know if I’m talking behind her back, and if I am whether it’s okay since it’s not gossip, just discussion. Hell, I don’t even know if her back’s turned. Maybe she’s reading this. If so, I hope I’m not creating any hard feelings. She presented me with an interesting problem, and I want to explore it. And she was drawn to my blog, she said, by its creativity, which I take to mean its unpredictability. So here’s me, folks, being unpredictable.

If anyone has opinions or past experiences with this kind of thing, I’d love to hear them. Let’s explore.

Notes from the U.K. inspires a poem

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Notes has inspired its first poem. Seriously, folks, we’re talking high art here. You can find it at Praying for Eyebrowz (that link’s to the site itself; for the poem specifically, try the first link) and it’s about wood rot. I know, so many poems have been written about wood rot, it’s hard to come up with anything new, but she has. The poem came out of the Comments section of “What people want to know about Americans in Britain,” and I don’t really understand anymore how we got around to wood rot, but we did. Look for Nananoyz’s comments if you want to make sense of it all. And good luck with that.

An update on search engine terms

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After Friday’s post went live, I found another search term that led some poor soul to open, if not actually read, Notes: “what is americans favorite accent,” it asked plaintively and without a question mark. Along with that came three more almost identical questions about good manners in public places in Britain.

So if they’re going to Britain, people worry about good behavior, imagining those Victorian Britons who could read bad behavior (not to mention bad breeding) in the way people held their hands, or set their feet down on the pavement. But if they’re going to the U.S., they imagine Americans as kids in a candy store and worry about what we like best.

Says a lot about the images of our two countries, somehow.

Me, I’ll have two gumdrops, please, plus one packet of north Texas accent and an ounce of Brooklyn.

What people want to know about Americans in Britain

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Like so many other bloggers, I’ve become obsessed with my Stats Page. To the point where I have to remind myself that yesterday’s stats won’t change, no matter how many times I check them. And having told myself that, I check them again anyway. (I use the old Stats Page, because it has yesterday’s stats. And because I hate the new one.)

But the most interesting bit of the Stats Page is what I find under Search Engine Terms. This is where I see what people really want to know about Britain. Or about Americans in Britain. Or about life, poor dears, and then they get shunted in my direction and who knows what happens to them next. Nothing good, I’m sure.

Irrelevant photo: Where cats hide on gray days

Irrelevant photo: Where cats hide on gray days

Before we get to the list, I should admit that I’ve edited out the most sensible entries. This isn’t sociology, kids. We’re trying to have fun here, so settle down in the back row. Pay attention.

I’ve left the spelling and capitalization as I found them. When they think no one’s watching, most people are as lazy about capitalization as I am. Of course, it’s possible that either search engines or WordPress turns everything into lower case and the handful of capital letters are only there because I imported them without noticing. Either way, we’re becoming nations of illiterates.

Sad, isn’t it?

Enough. Here’s the list.

 

british english obsessed with the letter U

tea in motion

slang used today

beech loses sand

lemon drizzle cake american measurements

guy with a camera

lemon drizzle cake notes

why does cnn anchors talk with accent

musical quavers and crotchets

manners American

musical notes in British

uk.com sex (this showed up two days in a row; don’t ask; don’t even think about it)

american chocolate chip cookies uk

what should we do to show good manners in public places in britain (twice in one day, once without the S in manners)

show good maner in public place in britain

 

What do we learn here?

  1. That what Americans most want to learn about Britain involves lemon drizzle cake, which, sadly, they won’t learn here since we pretty solidly established that the recipe I posted wasn’t a true lemon drizzle cake but some other kind of lemon cake in disguise. In its defense, it was measured in cups.
  2. That what people who could be from anywhere most want to know about Britain has to do with good manners and musical notation. In the case of manners, they sound a bit desperate. I feel bad about that, because I can’t think I’ve been much use on the subject. I’m not sure what subject I have been much use on. I’m nervous about being made an Authority, even if it’s by something as arbitrary as a search engine.
  3. That somebody wants to know about American manners and assumes we have some.
  4. That a lot of strange stuff gets typed into Google and that some of it gets shunted here for no apparent reason. Guy with a camera? Have the words guy and camera even showed up in my posts?

And what could we teach, if anyone who asked was listening? That CNN anchors talk with an accent because if human beings stop talking with accents they don’t talk at all. It’s like breath: no breath, no speech; no accent, no words.

And the uk.com sex query? That sounds a bit desperate, and it makes me want to know what have you lot up to when I wasn’t looking.