Onward!!

Sat in the usual lunch haunt, my attention turned away from the issue of Private Eye was reading to a conversation between a lift technician and another man with his back to me at the next table. The technician was explaining about a “fascinating” series of documentaries he’d been watching on TV with his family. The series? The Normans, a ponderously-paced, methodically structured and dry-as-kindling yet somehow captivating show about the influence of the Normans throughout history. Narrated by the classical academic figure, Professor Robert Bartlett, it is very much an old-world documentary, with a lot of pieces to camera and narration over illustrated manuscripts from a thousand years ago.

It was really cool to see the lift technician paraphrasing, accurately, the content of a few episodes. “Before the Normans came here [England], we were mostly, you know, Angles. They brought with them law, and literature, and things we’d lost when the Romans left. A lot of that survives to now, you know. Like words. Did you know that ‘country’ is a French word? Because if you were English, you’d call it ‘land’. That’s the old English word for it. And garage. That’s French too. But I say it /ga’ridz/. Not garahge, because I’m not French,” he ended with a wink.

With a few more forkfuls of chips and beans he continued, paraphrasing from Wednesday’s episode.

“And the fascinating thing about the Normans is that once they conquered, which is what they did all over Europe, they merged with the population. You couldn’t tell after a few years who was Norman and who wasn’t. And nobody else did that at that time.”

He moved on to another show that started last night, called Digging for Britain.

“It really makes you see how much history there is, and we don’t even think about it. What they do in that show is go around to all the digs going on around the UK and talk about the stuff they find. And it’s really well done. Like last night they were at this construction site for a six-lane dual carriageway somewhere down near Dover I think [actually slightly further North, but still in Kent] and what they would do is get the top layer of the soil out and allow the archaeologists to work for like a month. And they would map everything they found before it got covered by the road. And they talked to the guy who found all those coins in Somerset, remember?”

“The BBC really is doing a good job this year. What’s neat is they repeat the programmes in the night, with the little man in the corner, you know, signing away for those people who can’t hear. And it doesn’t hurt that the archaeologist in that other show, you know what you think of when you think archaeology, boring, but she’s not… she’s like this red-headed, kind of blonde woman, in her thirties. And I mean, she’s nice to look at” he guffawed.

I agree. Fully. One hundred percent. The BBC is doing a very good job in this case.

Why the hell did I let myself get talked into going to a music festival again? Not just a music festival, but a metal music festival. In the middle of the English countryside. For the second year running. Last year a guy in our party broke his leg and I spent a night in Burton on Trent accident and emergency with him, talking to a girl who’d taken a bit too many party drugs and was sure her calling was to settle down and have babies.

I bet it’s going to rain my pants off.

See you next week, both of you.

After the sunshine, heat and downright fecundity of Italy, coming back to subdued London seems positively autumnal. As the airport train wound its way through cows grazing on pastures and then more and more built-up scenery, I expected rain to start spitting down and the lights of pub windows looking invitingly warm. It’s strange how spending a few days in a place that’s altogether different alters your perception. The light is just different here, tinted with gray and sobriety.

I certainly seem to.

The endless rows of fried chicken shops littering London’s streets are clearly getting to me, so it’s a good thing I’m getting away for a bit permitting that flying tin cans don’t fall out of the sky. I don’t think I’ve ever had quite this much flying planned for the next month. I feel like a bit of an environmental criminal but on the other hand I’m going a bit ropey in this city. It’s made all the more interesting because my job situation for later this year is all still up in the air, with me hopefully finding out more today or tomorrow, Tuesday.

I’ll be in Rome for the coming weekend, which means a four-day work week both this week and the next. And the one after that, too, given that I’m flying back to Finland for midsummer. Getting away from it all for a bit never hurt anyone, least of all with at least some Finnish blood flowing through their veins.

Once I get back I will wrap up my job and leave for my trip across the Atlantic. All very exciting, all very confusing.

I gave my French oral presentation last night, marking the effective completion of that course. The United Kingdom has a new government, a historic one, being the first coalition since the Second World War. Spring is well and truly here, though it’s still far too cold for my tastes. Tonight I sat for a bit in the garden at the back of our house after coming home from work, enjoying the lingering sunlight. I can’t wait for real barbecue weather.

British TV and the press are full of the political news and not much else. No matter what your personal political views are, one can’t help getting swept up in the speculation and even excitement of this new government. No doubt there will be much blaming of the situation left by the previous administration, but both the population and the markets will want specific and effective measures, not just soundbites about how times are tough.

Perhaps the biggest sign of being grown up is not only thinking you understand the machinations of politics (with the associated things like the economy) but you enjoy following them too.