Jamie'sPostcards
2007
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A random collection of my postings on various topics
over the last
few years.
New!
Lancaster, (An Exquisitely Lovely Ale), Sun, 13 May
2007
I write this postcard, courtesy of the Britania pub's wireless internet connection, with a pint of Wainright (``Exquisitely lovely ale,'') sat before me. To my side a triplet of old bearded men discuss the finer points of dog walking; a faithfully floppy hound sleeps at their feet. To the far end of the bar, a loud-voiced lardy lad espouses lyrics of loyalty to an equally lardy lass, a reasuring pint of lager and glass of dry white wine propped before them. The barman, a squinting long-haired university type, - cheap labour, in it for the love of it, - tells a big elbowed local how he'd stood on his spectacles while down the store room, (``Can't see ought now.'') Outside a lazy precipitation, an Irish sea evaporate, gently soaks the Lancaster City streets.
England. Much though I'd read about her, I never thought I'd one day find myself living with her.
But here I am. A Scot, sat in a pub in the place where, 200 years before, the industrial revolution took seed; a place where, 300 years before, this might have been a dangerous place for one of my nation to be; a place where, now, one of the old bearded men has approached me to enquire about what a `software patch' is (``You know about computers, don't you - he points to my laptop - well I've got this Adobe, on me computer, see, and it want's a patch..'')
I loose my thread (could it be that Exquisitely lovely ale? - it's claims, I assure you, are not exagerated.)
I'd left Zurich with a dull sense of anticipation. I was leaving somewhere that was sunny, warm, comfortable - somewhere I'd lived, for better or worse, the best part of six years - to somewhere that was dark, wet, cold and damp. Somewhere very like the place I'd grown up in (the place I'd thought I'd escaped), but without the comforts of family and old friends. What the hell was I doing? Why on earth did I want to give up a fine life in a city voted `best place on earth' (admitedly by one of those studies you read about in free newspapers) for the drabness and urban decay of Northern England?
Why oh why... Well, I'll tell you. I think it stems from my Catholic upbringing, that acute sense of You Don't Deserve This; You've got it good now - but just you wait! I didn't feel comfortable with comfort, so I took a step (a very slight one at that, let it be noted - i am a coward too) to make life a little less so: less pay, lower job prospects (why Lancaster, why not MIT? Why not Google?), colder climate and a stark increase in alcohol consumption.
They're playing Miles Davis on the jukebox, a duet with Vaughen, if I'm not mistaken, a wonderful piece of music. Another pint of Wainwright? Why not.. The bodies and voices at the bar become more numerous and louder. The triumvir of old bearded men steer their discourse to the topic of marriage, one of them gets up to get another round in.
How slovenly I've enlisted a clatter of stereotypes: the Catholic upbringing; the grim North. All rubbish, really. But there has always been something enticing about stereotypes. Just look at the classical Auslander's perception of Switzerland: clean, efficient, particular; and from a more unkind view: analy-retentive, xenophobic, spoiled. After a year or so of living there, I could attest that all of these perceptions are easily put out with the Zuri Sack; but after three or more years, these same ideas can be just as easily recycled - they come back, this time not as mere perceptions, but as as irrefutable, indelible Truths.
And the truth is, this place probably can be viewed as drab; my motives for moving here might possibly be construed as some latent Roman Catholic Masochism (combined, no doubt, with a heady dose of Irish-Scottish Sentimentalism); but despite such glum truth(s) I must confess: I do love this place.
It's not just the beer. Well, it is. But not just.. It's everything: the way strangers politely open doors for you; the way restaurants and cafes are served by people who genuinely seem to want to serve; the way people queue without quarrel (even though they might not take pleasure in the experience); the way that even the most sinister seeming thugs appologise for walking out in front of you in the street; and the way people are, generally, fairly congenial.
I know I'm a foreigner in what is, technically, my own country, and doubtless my attitude might change as my time here grinds on. But, for now, while I await my fourth pint of this exquisitely lovely ale, and I ready myself to press the `send' button - the consignment to e-history of this wordy, un spell-checked and possibly inchoherent monologue - I offer salutations to all of you, my friends at home and abroad, with hope of seeing you all soon.
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all work copyright Jamie Ward 2007