Circular Foodstuffs, Circular Logic?

So, for a second post in a row I'm beginning with an apology - this time for my long silence. I have been adrift (sometimes paddling manically to stay afloat) on a sea of academic conferences (nebo v academické obci - at least I'm still finding time to study Czech).

It occurred to me earlier that today, being the day before Ash Wednesday, is perfect fodder for a blog that ostensibly concerns itself with national/cultural differences. As David Sedaris explores hilariously in his story "Six to Eight Black Men" (if you haven't, read it - preferably in private or people will stare as you laugh uncontrollably), holiday customs have much to say about our national differences.

Where the-day-before-Lent is concerned, nowhere is this more apparent then in Central Pennsylvania, where I grew up. Central PA was largely settled by Germans and, accordingly, maintains a number of German traditions. In addition to producing multiple types of potato salad and the best pretzels in the world (seriously, I've been to Germany and ours are better), these include the hallowed tradition of Fasnacht Day. What, you ask, quite rightly, is a fasnacht? For the uninitiated, which once upon a time included my grandmother, who hailed from the exotic land of non-German Pennsylvania, the fasnacht is a donut that looks something like this. Two fascinating things about Fasnacht Day: 1) In Pennsylvania Dutchland, donuts are donuts 364 days a year, adopting the name fasnacht, the name of southern Germany's carnival, only on Shrove Tuesday. 2) Most Pennsylvanians of German descent are Protestant, while giving up things for Lent is more popular among practicing Catholics, a paradox which calls into question the necessity of emptying one's kitchen of lard on a random day in February. But hey, let's not nitpick.

My only experience of a genuine Central European carnival happened in Prague in 2006. My friend Werner dragged me to Kino Aero in Žižkov. The Plastic People of the Universe were onstage. Fake meat was hanging from the ceiling - the name of the festival, Masopust, means, literally, something like "stop meat." Beer was flowing and the atmosphere was closer to what I imagine that of a New Orleans Mardi Gras to be, though I have never attended.

In London, Shrove Tuesday disappears into the ignominy of "Pancake Day". When I first heard of it, advertised a diner as "Pancake Week", I didn't connect it to Lent at all, suspecting it was akin to Arbor Day, International Book Day or similar...As with most British interpretations of feast days that have their roots in the Christian calendar, it feels oddly commercial and alienated from these sources. My local Waitrose went so far as to erect a special display of all the ingredients one would need to make pancakes. So much for emptying ones cupboards of comfort foods verboten during Lent - instead we were being encouraged to go out and buy them!

It's all quite Platonic, I suppose - there's the form of the thing, epitomized by Carnival in Venice or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and then all our little local attempts to participate, via a circle of fried bread, plastic sausage or humble flapjack. One wonders, increasingly, why we bother at all, particularly in nations firmly on the path to mass atheism. What earthly pleasures will we deny ourselves for the next 40 days to justify a day of gorging on circular pastries of one kind or another? It's kind of sad, actually...though a glance at the clock tells me its now over. And I haven't eaten a single fasnacht. What would my Grandfather, descendant of fasnacht-devotees, say.

Disillusionment in three

Apologies for the somewhat pessimistic tone of this post, but I do have the flu, after all. Not just any flu, either - by far the worst flu that I have ever had in the UK. It is not as bad as my worst flu ever, which I caught in Prague, while living in Mala Strana. That was the kind of flu that makes things spin, which is quite interesting when you live in a neighborhood full of baroque architecture...but I digress.

As I have not left home for several days - indeed, I have only recently regained the ability to use my laptop - I shall beg the readers' indulgence for a post of this nature.

Disillusionment No. 1. Gig-going in Camden.

One of my resolutions upon moving back to London was to try to hear more live music, as a result of which I found myself on Thursday evening squeezed into the upper room of the Lock Tavern for the Young and Lost acoustic night. Perhaps the unbelievably pretentious faux-angsty title should have put me off, or perhaps I should have heeded A. A. Gill's warning that hanging out in Camden past a certain age is "cause for self-pity", but Stranded Horse, who I deeply love, was playing. So I had to go. And force others to accompany me. I in no sense fancy myself a music critic, but whoever curated the evening needs to have a word with themselves on multiple levels: of four acts, the first two were clearly superior, the sound engineering left much to be desired, and one band in particular beggared belief. Image a parody of a parody of 1950s Big Band with a vocalist alternative channeling Anthony Kiedis and Modest Mouse. Add dramatic hand gestures and subtract any sense of irony or humor and you begin to get a sense of the pain. Then there was the behavior of the crowd. Why go to hear live music if you're going to talk, loudly, throughout? Still, Stranded Horse was lovely (that's him, below) and the rudeness of the assembled audience proved an excellent aid to overcoming my habitual unwillingness to speak to artists - saying thank you felt quite necessary after all the loudness.

Disillusionment No. 2. Snow siege in Crouch End.

So it snowed on Saturday night, which was deeply exciting. As someone from a country with four actual seasons (though these are often reduced to summer and winter) the monotony of the UK climate tends to get me down. Snow makes me happy. Watching it fall makes this song start playing in my head. As a child, freshly fallen snow always placed me in a dilemma - I really wanted to play in it, but hated to disturb the beautiful pristine frostiness. No such quandary seems to have troubled the brave young men of Crouch End, who, upon being ejected from Kiss the Sky around 1am, proceeded to pelt my row of houses and any passing cars or pedestrians for thirty minutes. Far from being the magical substance of my youth, snow in London, as seen above, seems to be prized primarily for its efficiency in providing the local citizenry with frozen weaponry. Bless, perhaps it's all just too much for them.

Disillusionment No. 3. The elusive B359.

P and I having been stricken simultaneously by this plague (and having watched all available episodes of season 8 of House), we decided to take advantage of our housebound state to research some unsolved mysteries. Having previously determined precisely who (or what?) Peppa Pig is and source of taramasalata's high fat content, we set about locating the precise location of the B359. For the uninitiated, this the road that Hugh Grant's character misses the turning for in the first nuptials of Four Weddings and a Funeral, leading to much swearing and general hysteria. Turns out it doesn't exist. It is actually the A359. We know this because of an absurdly pedantic website about Dorset in film. Perhaps David Cameron should worry less about British cinema's financial viability than its factual accuracy, eh?

As it seems that everyone and their great aunt Beulah is sick right now, to what absurdities has the flu (or the wintry weather) driven you and yours?

Has anyone else noticed this sign on a recent tube journey?

It's surprisingly hard to take a clear photo while on a moving escalator, so I shall translate: "Are your skills in demand overseas? Visit the Emigrate show." I confess to a level of perplexity and confusion - it's quite an oddly complex piece of work, isn't it? On one hand, it feels like a recession-busting scheme, as in 'Can't find a job here? Then why not shove off and seek employment elsewhere (whilst conveniently bringing down our unemployment numbers in the process, innit)?' Then, as if that's not unsettling enough, there's the sense in which it seems to be suggesting that here is indeed a possibility (wait for it...) that life just might be as good -or better?! - outside the UK.

This second proposition is truly revolutionary stuff. I number many a critical Brit amongst my close friends and associates, but, as is the case in the States, the official rhetoric tends not to be so self-reflexive. In the 5 years I've lived in the UK, I've been queried extensively on, among other things, my qualifications, work experience, seemingly bizarre interest in the Czech Republic, disdain for fake tan, the capitalization and pronunciation of my own surname and whether I really need to see a specialist for something my GP can surely handle by flipping through an abridged medical encyclopedia. Such experienes are part of life outside one's native land and, if nothing else, provide amusing fodder for blog posts. I mention them because the implicit sense behind such challenges is the notion that the British way is the most natural and/or highly-evolved manner in which to handle whatever's at stake.

The emigration sign, then, upsets the applecart of casual, public nationalism in a quite radically shocking way when you get down to it, or so it seems to me. Indeed, it feels downright portentous. This is especially the case when coupled with a recent article in the Sunday Times Style mag in which Chav was rebranded as Chinese Accessories Victim - in honor of the Beijing fashionistas converging on New Bond Street and creating a market for shop assistants who speak their native tongue. In this brave new world, one can't help but wonder what's booking up faster: the emigration fair or City Lit's courses in introductory Mandarin.

Lessons from the European Figure Skating Championships...

Right, confession time. Back before I owned a passport, this is how I spent most of my time...

Given such photographic evidence, it should come as no surprise that the 2012 European Figure Skating Championships, held in Sheffield last weekend, proved too much for me to resist. Indeed, I have been planning to attend them since last summer. While I could go on (and on, and on) about the skating, I shall spare you the technical details (such as my outrage regarding a certain C. Kostner's pathetic jump content) and share instead cultural observations of a somewhat more general nature...

Outer London looks like Poland - or anywhere else in Northern/Central Europe.

A somewhat facile observation to be starting with, but nonetheless true. Seriously - look at it:

I took this photo in Enfield, aka outer Mongolia, whilst waiting for a lift from my friend and fellow FS (that's figure skating to insiders, one of which you can now pretend to be) aficionado. If the generic US landscape is punctuated by Wal-mart and Home Depot, then surely this is the Northern European equivalent - garden centres, tons of signs for little stall-type shops with disparate fonts, etc. I would have photographed the collection of gazebos/mini-chatas across the street, but I dropped my hat in the mud and became preoccupied with cleaning it before I got the chance. Oh well, if I don't know what Monty's does/sells, at least I know where I can go to acquire a reptile, should one ever be required.

National stereotypes are alive and well in Europe. Any Euro-skeptics bemoaning the culturally homogenizing effects of the European Union are clearly not watching enough figure skating, where kitschy nods to one's homeland apparently constitute an attempt at artistry. The Italian and French skaters seem particularly invested in reductive expressions of nationality. They appear to have conflated their styles into a single entity I shall call mediterranean-sexy, which can be further broken down into sub-types a) vintage (Breton tops, suspenders, accordian music - see Samuel Contesti) and b) Pigalle (jazzy music, revealing costumes - see Valentina Marchei and Mae Berenice Meite). On the other end of the spectrum (apart from the unfortunate, Marilyn Monroe-channeling Ksenia Makarova), are the Dramatic Russian Skaters (black costume, moody music - see Artur Gachinski and Polina Koreybinikova). Nordic Snow Princess is another clearly demarcated category, the apotheosis of which must surely be Swedish champion Viktoria Helgesson's fur-cuffed long programme dress. More disturbing manifestations of ethno-packaging include Yretha Silete's jungle-themed program, the problematic nature of which nearly merits its own post.

English audiences are a bit rubbish, really... at least when it comes to watching female athletes. Any time an attractive woman who appeared to have reached the age of consent took to the ice, she was greeted with wolf-whistling and other caveman-esque accolades. Classy, gents. I shudder to think what's going to happen at the London Olympics. Perhaps all female gymnasts should be issued earplugs.

Celebrity culture has infiltrated women's skating. This is in no way an apologia for the hooting men of Sheffield, who, to be fair, may not all have been English, but I can't help but query the decision to present oneself for athletic competition decked out like a showgirl. The International Skating Union attempted to deal with this issue in the 1980s, when Katarina Witt showed up in this outfit, the first version of which was sans feathers and cut high up the hips, Las Vegas style. A new rule was introduced, dictating that all clothing must be "modest, appropriate and suitable for athletic competition" (this also ruled out tights on men, by the way). Perhaps many of the Euro-ladies spent the off-season reading Catherine Hakim and are consciously attempting to invoke their erotic capital in pursuit of sports glory. I'm not convinced though. What child dreams of ascending to Olympic heights dressed as Marilyn Monroe? That said, as I type this, it occurs to me that perhaps I shall one day look back on KM's Monroe-themed program with nostalgia as someone attempts to land a triple-triple combination dressed as Kim Kardashian. Too horrifying to contemplate! Quick, here's something else to look at:

Eventual winner, Carolina Kostner of Italy, left, with Makarova-as-Marilyn, right, in pink. See? Not so bad...

That whole, "well, you're American..."  (or anything; insert what you will) thing...it's not clever, in fact, but profoundly reductive and arrogant, predicated on the fact that you, the individual evoking this explanation for whatever I've just said, indeed possess the upper hand, that I must be, obviously, deeply conflicted, apologetic, even. So much so that your rapid assessment buys my silence. Neat, though intellectually lazy (and you pride yourself on your intellect), it's you who's defined by borders, not I.

Occasionally a prose poem is required. This was one of those occasions. Long live the mezinárodní  člověk, kdekoli on(a) se narodil.

Peas, sir (and ma'am)...would you like some more?

Dearest readers, I am pleased to present my first article for Peasoup Magazine!

While I must confess a long-standing dislike of pea soup the foodstuff, Peasoup the magazine is rather fabulous. Each month, Peasoup aim to cut through the fog surrounding a different issue of importance to Londoners, sans celebrity gossip and general rubbishness, but with plenty of wit and responsible journalism. Do visit and enjoy the many excellent articles. I am very excited about this new venture as it means that I get to write about clothes from a socio-political perspective. If you like what you see, make it official via Facebook.

Ode to the Humble School Bus

With the mayoral election and Olympics looming, it seems that everyone has an idea for improving life in London. Catchily-named cures for various social ills are the new black. The Evening Standard seems particularly into this, with its Get London Reading Campaign and Fund for the Dispossessed - speaking of which, does anyone else find that a highly problematic title? Dispossessed by whom, as a result of what? The branding seems perfectly engineered to avoid any suggestion of causality - social inequality just exists, sui generis. Ah, the guilt-avoiding merits of the passive tense, beloved of responsible politicians the world over, including a certain George W. Be careful, my friends...this bodes not well.

Despite my skepticism (this is one North American spelling I shall never abandon, by the way), I thought I'd get into the spirit by offering my own suggestion for improving Londoners' quality of life. I am under no illusions that it is in any way profound - I'm not even going to come up with a catchy, alliterative and subtly manipulative title - but here it is, one thing that would undoubtedly make me a happier person:

Ah, the humble school bus! Willing conveyor of the hordes of school children who are currently storming London's bus system and exploding commuters' eardrums with a vitally important continuation of some playground catastrophe. I've never had much time for London buses, but since moving up north, I've discovered a few pleasant routes. There is the W7, possibly the most obscenely chichi bus in London, which shuttles back and forth between Muswell Hill and Finsbury Park. There is the W5, which winds its way from Crouch End to Archway through a leafy "hail and ride" section, during which you can flag it down like a taxi. Finally, there is the 91, which snakes its way to Trafalgar Square via the British Library and UCL. The 91 pleases me for reasons both practical (less carrying of book- and laptop-laden bags) and esoteric (its route seems designed to confirm North London's reputation as the historic home of the intelligentsia) and all would be well between us but for the influx of school children that are wont to invade, like swarms of identically-clad locusts, at any point between 3 and 6pm. I try to avoid travelling at these times, leaving the BL a bit early or delaying my departure to an evening seminar for as long as possible, yet there's nearly always a group (or more) to contend with.

A school bus network would render such encounters a thing of the past and provide London school children with valuable life experiences. I can't imagine my school years without buses. There was the eagerly-awaited annual bus evacuation drill, during which we interrupted our studies for half an hour to clamber onto a bus, learn the location of the first aid kit and crow bar, and then evacuacte by jumping (in an orderly manner!!!) out the back while a disinterested PE teacher looked on. What 12-16 year old doesn't live for such diversions?

Admittedly, I have phrased the problem (and my solution) in such flippant tones that it can scarcely be taken seriously. There's also the argument that large cities rarely have school buses, that it would be expensive to set up such a network and that complainers like yours truly should just get on the tube and be done with it. All that makes perfectly good sense, but a school bus network in London might be more achievable then one thinks:

Surely there are quite a few of these knocking around at the moment? In these tight economic times, it would be a shame to let them go to waste...