British television is no safer from the plague of reality shows in the US, save for the fact that we only have 5 channels (well, 3 really, BBC1 and BBC2 would never go for it) on which to broad cast such fare. In fact, ITV (The People's Channel) actually reverts to live coverage of a communal house during it's night-owl Big Brother block. There's this show, Bad Boys, where delinquent young yobs are sent off to military training. One of the exercises i saw them forced to perform was to hold a red pencil in between their nose and upper lip, no hands. Hence, the expression, "stiff upper lip." I don't know the history of this practice, but i suspect it plays on the conception to reap something humiliating to the cadets. Stiff upper whatever.
So London endures it's second bombing and the world watches the upper lips of the Brits. These particular rucksacks went off with a bit of a pbbhht, the detonators not setting off the rest of the homemade explosives they had left behind for their fellow commuters. Two weeks ago 4 bombs on public transport killing 50-some folks seemed to evoke "Blitz Mentality", i.e. "stiff upper lip", i.e. keep it moving. But these more recent attacks, despite their weakness, have not produced the same sentiment. Editorials are going off in all the papers, from The Guardian on the left to the Financial Times on the right, that "the captiol's mood is less sure", and that "the defiance has begun to fade."
After the 7th of July, Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, comes out and cries an invective against the bombers: "Londoners will not be divided by the cowardly attack," he said, his voice angry and raw. "They will stand together in solidarity ... and that is why I'm proud to be the mayor of that city." Of course, Livingstone isn't terribly popular, but that's beside the point in a crisis.
I said that most "can't be bothered" to worry about the national mood or how the occurence of terrorism affects London life. And those people will, largely, continue to be unbothered. The people who would be bothered by this sort of thing, well, now they will.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Blitz Mentality
Did something fairly stupid today. I left my apartment in South Kensington and walked towards my university in central London. Being an overseas student with a cheap apartment means you are connected to the world only through your email, your chat box, or your online personality. The desire to reply to emergency emails outweighed the desire to avoid the possible aftershocks. The bombs had gone off at the tube stop i get off to go to work, and on a bus i use when i can't afford the tube. Ah. Who am i kidding, I wanted to see the whole mess of it.
I woke the same way I woke up on a morning in September, by a phone call from a hysteric mother ensuring my uniform bodily constituency in the face of militant Islamic fundamentalism. I remember feeling kind of excited when she first told me. I think i might have even voiced, "Wow, that's amazing." I got off the phone to call my mates, all three of them, and got the requisite responses. Wow, man, yeah.
I made a couple eggs and left the apartment. Everything in Kensington looked quite normal. Harrods was open, restaurants, shops, about half of them were still operational. As i got to Hyde Park Corner i noticed the sidewalks filling up with suits. I walked along Piccadilly, where 5 days ago a Pride Parade made its way away from the Live8 concert. Green Park was full of people that don't usually walk through Green Park, or who bother walking anywhere, besides to the curb to hail a cab. It occured to me there that at any hour in the London workday, maybe 15% of the population is underground. I walked past a few of the major stores, the Virgin Megastore and the Waterstones Bookstore. A group of men seem miffed that the bookstore was closed. Nobody was open in Piccadilly Circus besides the Pizza/Souvenier joint below an Adam's Rib restaurant. That's the worst pizza i've ever tasted.
Nothing was open from there to Bloomsbury besides a Subway and a video rental place. Everyone was walking in the other direction, and no one seemed particularly distraught. Most people were either walking in groups of three or four (laughing, joking), or else talking on their mobile. People were a little inconvenienced, maybe a little shocked, but no particular distress. Granted these weren't the people who had felt the heat of the blasts, or broken tube windows with their fists, but they did have to endure "heightened circumstances."
But they weren't doing it right! The were just walking home as if the boss had called in sick, or a The men and women in business attire seemed less worried about terrorism, and more upset that they couldn't pick up a novel on the way home. One of the most common expressions to insignificant events in London is, "can't be bothered." Terrorism seemed to rise to the top of no one's agenda.
Perhaps i wanted to see fear, I wanted to see recently dried cheeks and loosened ties. I wanted to see them get nuts, because if they could get nuts, this country, then maybe my country wasn't melodramatic for having done so. Maybe i could see some of the sorrow, or the militancy, or even the glint of revenge sparking in the eye. But there was no such reaction. Yes, yes, the IRA and all that. British resilience. Stiff upper lip. Whatever. I know there's a completely different, news-worthy story to be told about those stuck in a smoky tube carriage, or on the top floor of the double decker bus. But i don't know any of those people yet.
Things are running smoothly. The pubs are full of people getting pissed, as they (and I) normally would. All busses are running. The tube is back on tomorrow, mostly. There are a few lines cut, and a few diversions. There will be inconveniences. But its quite traditional in London to moan about such things. About the rest they can't be bothered.
I woke the same way I woke up on a morning in September, by a phone call from a hysteric mother ensuring my uniform bodily constituency in the face of militant Islamic fundamentalism. I remember feeling kind of excited when she first told me. I think i might have even voiced, "Wow, that's amazing." I got off the phone to call my mates, all three of them, and got the requisite responses. Wow, man, yeah.
I made a couple eggs and left the apartment. Everything in Kensington looked quite normal. Harrods was open, restaurants, shops, about half of them were still operational. As i got to Hyde Park Corner i noticed the sidewalks filling up with suits. I walked along Piccadilly, where 5 days ago a Pride Parade made its way away from the Live8 concert. Green Park was full of people that don't usually walk through Green Park, or who bother walking anywhere, besides to the curb to hail a cab. It occured to me there that at any hour in the London workday, maybe 15% of the population is underground. I walked past a few of the major stores, the Virgin Megastore and the Waterstones Bookstore. A group of men seem miffed that the bookstore was closed. Nobody was open in Piccadilly Circus besides the Pizza/Souvenier joint below an Adam's Rib restaurant. That's the worst pizza i've ever tasted.
Nothing was open from there to Bloomsbury besides a Subway and a video rental place. Everyone was walking in the other direction, and no one seemed particularly distraught. Most people were either walking in groups of three or four (laughing, joking), or else talking on their mobile. People were a little inconvenienced, maybe a little shocked, but no particular distress. Granted these weren't the people who had felt the heat of the blasts, or broken tube windows with their fists, but they did have to endure "heightened circumstances."
But they weren't doing it right! The were just walking home as if the boss had called in sick, or a The men and women in business attire seemed less worried about terrorism, and more upset that they couldn't pick up a novel on the way home. One of the most common expressions to insignificant events in London is, "can't be bothered." Terrorism seemed to rise to the top of no one's agenda.
Perhaps i wanted to see fear, I wanted to see recently dried cheeks and loosened ties. I wanted to see them get nuts, because if they could get nuts, this country, then maybe my country wasn't melodramatic for having done so. Maybe i could see some of the sorrow, or the militancy, or even the glint of revenge sparking in the eye. But there was no such reaction. Yes, yes, the IRA and all that. British resilience. Stiff upper lip. Whatever. I know there's a completely different, news-worthy story to be told about those stuck in a smoky tube carriage, or on the top floor of the double decker bus. But i don't know any of those people yet.
Things are running smoothly. The pubs are full of people getting pissed, as they (and I) normally would. All busses are running. The tube is back on tomorrow, mostly. There are a few lines cut, and a few diversions. There will be inconveniences. But its quite traditional in London to moan about such things. About the rest they can't be bothered.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
You will never live here
A list of particularly literary books for those that wish an approxiamate The London Experience:
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier - A collection of fantastical short stories which will supplant in you with the proper definition of "wry."
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe - There are about 3 dozen "Thatcher" novels (most recently The Line of Beauty), each with its own brand of invective against the steamroll of PM of the 80s. This is an exposition on those years which is most excessible and personified deliciously by a ruthless family of Leeds.
Lud Heat and London Orbital by Iain Sinclair - This man is amazing. He's a compendium of London esoterica, a purveuor of the nefarious and occult influences on London culture. Lud Heat is a collection of prose poems, most notable a survey of the Hawksmoor churches that were constructed alond astral lines and reference much Egyptian architecture and mythology. Orbital is Sinclair's travelogue of follwing the M25, the giant ring-road that encircles London, and finding various and sundry adventures in the abandoned regions therein.
Collected Letters of Julian McClaren-Ross - The prototypical dandy. Ross wrote a few novels, short stories, but the real adventure was his own life, which goes from origins in Havana and Saudi to becoming a notorious London personality and denizen of the pubs of Fitzrovia. The British would never condone the adjective "gonzo" for extensive use, but Ross most approximates the quirks and intrepid attitude of the word, albeit in a more refined way.
Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier - A collection of fantastical short stories which will supplant in you with the proper definition of "wry."
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe - There are about 3 dozen "Thatcher" novels (most recently The Line of Beauty), each with its own brand of invective against the steamroll of PM of the 80s. This is an exposition on those years which is most excessible and personified deliciously by a ruthless family of Leeds.
Lud Heat and London Orbital by Iain Sinclair - This man is amazing. He's a compendium of London esoterica, a purveuor of the nefarious and occult influences on London culture. Lud Heat is a collection of prose poems, most notable a survey of the Hawksmoor churches that were constructed alond astral lines and reference much Egyptian architecture and mythology. Orbital is Sinclair's travelogue of follwing the M25, the giant ring-road that encircles London, and finding various and sundry adventures in the abandoned regions therein.
Collected Letters of Julian McClaren-Ross - The prototypical dandy. Ross wrote a few novels, short stories, but the real adventure was his own life, which goes from origins in Havana and Saudi to becoming a notorious London personality and denizen of the pubs of Fitzrovia. The British would never condone the adjective "gonzo" for extensive use, but Ross most approximates the quirks and intrepid attitude of the word, albeit in a more refined way.
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