Postcards from a postcard

Recently in Iceland I posted a postcard. More precisely I posted 3. All together, from the same postbox. 2 of them arrived in the UK, but the second? Who knows? I was reading a news story today about an elderly lady who sent a letter to her friend. Not knowing the address, or her married surname, she wrote her maiden name and drew a little map of the local streets with an “x” where the destination was. The post office delivered it the next day!

So where’s my postcard? Maybe on its own little holiday. Maybe it’ll send me a postcard!

When the Brown Stuff hit the fan

I’ve written on here before apologising for the political hopes my generation gave the country in the form of New Labour, but it appears Tony *pause* Blair did it for me today. He apologised in a press call today for the Labour Party’s behaviour over the last week. If only he’d continued ‘…you must be sick and tired of there being nothing else on the news’. I mean come on, there must be what, maybe 98% of the journalists in this country covering the story. At least 95% of news coverage today is along the lines of “Blair will quit, sometime, soon if not later, maybe, maybe not’. BBC News played the footage of Blair saying it’d be in a year, then immediately followed it with political analysis saying it may be a matter of weeks. Presumably tomorrow I can look forward to the Weather report saying sunshine and showers followed by a weather commentator saying it will snow.

My media grumbles aside, having watched the Labour party my generation brought upon the fall to the ground, it appears Gordon Brown is mining for the Earth’s core. Okay, so Blair was tarnished by the War on Iraq and his relations with Bush. Therefore Brown, with his Bank Manager appeal and proven track record would seem a great successor. Afterall, he’s been quiet, nothing’s stuck to him apart from the sweet smell of success. Great. However, 6 months on and Gordon’s clearly been having Tony-and-Guy style makeovers from ’80s Tory MP’s. He’s sleazy, he’s underhand, he’s power-hungry, he’s ’80s Gordon Brown. Excellent. Suddenly we’re watching Tony thinking, ‘awww poor guy. He looks tired. He’seven holding a mug of tea at his press conference. Like the Dad apologising at Butlins for his kids urinating in the pool, he’s weary and we should all cut him some slack’. I think he’ll be Labour’s only hope unless Prescott starts a few more punch-ups…

Stripping for George W

By the time my slowternet connection publishes this it’ll probably be out of date. Tony *pause* B will probably have resigned and some keen eager beaver MP made Prime Minister will gamble public safety in favour of media brownie points by returning airport security to its normal levels. But just in case it isn’t, and he doesn’t, or they don’t, here it is…

After all the furore of the media coverage of London airports struggling to cope with heightened security I wasn’t expecting an easy check-in at Gatwick flying out. I expected former night-club bouncers in police uniforms carrying AK-47’s in order to make me feel safe in my free and gun-free society. I expected extra staff scrutinising every piece of luggage I had with me, making sure there was not even a droplet of water left in my freshly-washed socks for fear it might be a terrorist plot. Instead I was faced with a man in a luminous jacket carrying a little see-thru bag. What did he do to safeguard everyone’s safety? He asked if people were carrying liquids, and if they were he asked them to hand them over or pack them in a suitcase. That’s okay then. I’m sure the terrorists would answer “Yes…I mean no!” in a Python-esque way.
The girl at check-in didn’t even double check! Instead we were expected to own up in a typically British way – we were supposed to read the very long sign detailing what could and could not be carried on, and then follow it’s instructions. Excellent.

Having established everyone’s safety thus far, the team of x-rayers really went to town. Standing in Gatwick, everyone was forced to approach security as if about to play a Gamelan – in socks – and then remove their belts. This would be fine anywhere but England. In england we have a tendency towards baggy trousers. Never have I seen so many men desperately holding up their trousers by keeping their hands firmly in the pockets. You could see the worry and stress on their faces as they were frisked by security, not because of the fear of being found out and imprisoned, but because there’s only a limited amount of time before their Mr Grumpy pants are being shown to all around! So now we all like sweaty police-fearing terrorists as we strip to keep George W happy, all the time eyeing up passengers around us to see if they’ll crack and admit their plot under the stress of our gaze. I feel safer already!

Now I know it’s all for our safety. I know it’s better to have a few minutes of inconvenience rather than “being blown up by a bomb” as one lady tactfully put it in front of us in the queue. But is all of this to keep George W happy in the knowledge that we’re safe, or is it to keep him happy in the knowledge we all live in fear?

Incidentally, on the return trip from Iceland there was only one tiny sign about the banned liquids, no questions about them from check-in, and I could have taken my scrummy Icelandic fizzy orange on if I hadn’t thrown it away before checking in! And to think, I abandoned my book by Mark Thomas on the Arms Trade at home in order to avoid any undue scrutiny on the way out…

Toilet Musings

Now, everyone knows that travel broadens the mind. It allows you to have new experieces, think in new ways. I’ve never travelled to anywhere I didn’t like. Well, Bufalo in the US wasn’t great – a dodgy bus station surrounded by street peddlars and I’m sure I heard the sound of gunfire whilst waiting for a bus – but I wouldn’t say I detested it completely (it had a fully stocked chocolate vending machine). Sometimes though, travelling can make you see clearly what is wrong with your own country.

Why can’t the English do public toilets? Okay, so the French favour a trough in the ground, but like the wheel it’s simple and it works. Okay, so in Belgium you have to pay 50p to a troll-like old lady who sites moodily outside every public convenience (I’m sure they’re all part of the same family), but again they work. Iceland has a population of around 230,000, leaving it with a lot of open spaces. Ironically they also seem to have more public toilets than I have ever seen before. You can arrive at a waterfall, or other lovely topographical feature, with nothing for miles around and there it is. It looks like a wooden cabin portaloo effort but it’s not. It has one of those European water-saving dual flush options, it has a nifty loo-brush, it has a large clean mirror, a working light, a nice basin with cold and hot water. Despite the fact there’s nothing for a million miles in any direction, apart from some lava fields or volcanoes, they’re always sotcked with loo-roll.

How do they do it? Is there some superman-esque, “loo-man” maybe?, figure flying around Iceland? Does each loo have its own guardian angel? Does nobody use them in Iceland? These seem quite trivial questions in comparison to the biggy – If they can do it miles from anything, why can’t there be a working toilet in the centre of London??? What is it in the British mentality that says – “oh, a nice working toilet that somebody has provided free of charge. Tell you what, I won’t bother weeing in that convenient hole, I use the floor, and whilst I’m here I’ll try to carpet the place with toilet paper”…???

The slowternet

Iceland. Been there, bought the T-shirt. In fact the T-shirt sums it up very well: “Discover Iceland: The coolest place on Earth”. In a few days I saw Reykjavik, Volcanoes, Geysirs, Waterfalls, hiked up parts of mountains to sit above glaciers, watched icebergs float down rivers to the sea, waves crashing on black-sand beaches, Sandurs and miles of land covered in hills created by lava.

I want to post pictures. I want to post words about the trip. But I haven’t got broadband yet. In fact, VirginNet seem to want me to telephone just about every department they have before they sort it out. So it wil arrive here soon. Maybe in dial-up bursts. Maybe in the 7-11 days they think it will take to get my broadband back. But like the Irish black-stuff, it’s worth the wait.

The new ‘third place’

Just as I was leaving Cardiff I wrote about the loss of my ‘third’ place. It used to be Starbucks. It used to be th glorious Roath Park. They were retreats from city living. Somewhere to go to at the end of a day for a bit of relaxation. R&R as the new-model-Saachi’s would have us believe. Okay, I know Roath Park is no Central Park, but let’s be honest, Cardiff is no NYC. But it was nice. It was mine.

But here’s a run-down of today’s activities:

• Sarah goes to Church
• We go to a farm-shop for fruit, veg and dairy products
• A walk of a few miles across the common and up country lanes

So I’m embracing life in the country. The strange thing is there’s always been a part of me that’s wanted to live the trendy-twenty-something-new-media-type-flat-living-mocha-drinking lifestyle. I wanted to catch the tube to work. I wanted to spend lunchtimes in museums (preferably the New York Met, but you can’t have everything). I wanted to buy newspapers on street corners. The thing is, I don’t think I’d fit in. I hate the pollution. I like the natural environment. I like driving my car fast (ie above 5 miles an hour). I like the colour green.

So here I am in the countryside, with my new ‘third places’, and enjoying it. But I can still say I live in Bristol when I want to…

Mum’s off to Iceland

Mum’s We’re off to Iceland. 6 months planning condensed into snatched moments inbetween packing and unpacking boxes. Volcanoes, Tectonic plates, ice-caps await us, if we can get passed the security at Gatwick airport. Wish us luck…

Why moving is for fit people

I’m asthmatic, but I don’t complain. It doesn’t affect me too much. I also need to have my sight quite heavily corrected, so I have to wear special contact lenses. Again, I don’t complain. It doesn’t affect me much. However, it’s really difficult to stop myself moaning when for 5 days I’ve been coughing up dust, and have had tears streaming down my face from the rubbish which is no doubt scratching little snow-flake patterns all over my cornea.

There, I’ve got the whinge out of my system now.

Don’t it always seem to go…

…that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. So wrote Joni Mitchell, admittedly about Paradise and DDT-free apples, but it seems to fit the picture at the moment. We’ve moved back to England after 5 years in Wales (the subline of this blog will change soon). It’s strange how much our lifestyle has changed over that time. We arrived as penniless Tesco-value students, and have left twenty-something Starbuck-frequenters, a two-car household with holidays to trendy Europe destinations. It’s not that we’ve struck it rich in a Texan oil-baron kind of way, it’s just turned out that way.

There are quite a few trappings that go with that lifestyle. As Meg Ryan says in ‘You’ve got mail’, everybody needs a ‘third place’, after their home and work. For many that’s Starbucks, and we were lucky to have one we frequented almost every other night towards the end of our time there. Then there was Roath Park, with its enticing lake, rowing boats and Central-Park-wannabe joggers pushing their Maclaren prams around ni little unofficial races. Then, just towards the end there was Cardiff Bay, with its trndy bars and restaurants. The thing is, they’re gone now. I’m in a small village/town. There are ‘tea rooms’ rather than Starbucks. There are open fields rather than man-made parks. There’s no Bay – the sea feels a long way away.

I’m trying not to be down though. There will be third places. Maybe for now that third place will be Cardiff itself, but things change. Instead of missing what’s gone now, it’s good to think of how exciting finding new ‘third places’, although maybe not the pub from last night, where a strange woman came over to ask us what ‘virile’ meant…

Staying still

I hate moving. I hate packing. I hate lifting. I hate driving backwards and forwards. I hate more lifting. I hate unpacking. I do however like driving a big van. It must be how the aristocracy feel when they go into Tesco’s. The hire company logo on the side may have given me away like the character of Jarvis Cocker’s ‘Common People’, but I did my best – surrounded by pastie crumbs, arm out of the window and ‘TalkSport’s’ James Whale on full blast (It was a discussion on immigration rather than the usual God-bashing which normally makes me chuckle in the evening).

So there you have it: Moving bad, driving a big van fun.