Quick Update

1) I met up with my Japanese pen-pal today- longer blog on this to follow! I had an amazing day and despite some lingual difficulties we cobbled together a very amusing and comfortable conversation! I had a really wicked afternoon!

2) I went to Camden and was ripped off by one fella who will be seeing me again next week, and given a discount by another lady because I was using a purse she sold to be ages ago! :) bonus! I wish I could have stayed longer there was a quartet on stilts playing instruments and singing, and generally it has been far too long since I have been there so it was nice to just have a wander around. Plus chinese pot for £3.50!? Have some!!

3) I have started my next essay reading- The role of the Virgin Mary in the Baltic Crusades of the 13th century. Can you get much further from Queen Victoria (my last essay)? I think not, but the reading is tres interesting and I shall no doubt try and keep you updated about all this jazz and interesting factoids I uncover.

4) I am really bad at texting people back. I will get on this. If you are one, my apologies. I am a shite friend.

5) It is Bank Holiday Weekend and I am looking forward to working. I am doing tours on Sunday and it is likely to be busy but they are the best tours. I have got some other factoids to throw in it as well to spice it up. My tours of late have been a bit lack-lustre. Of course, it does help that I am getting paid more this weekend :)

6) I am still poor. It is annoying but I am accepting it! I want a purple dress and since I am in debt anyway I am just going to go and buy it. It is £12 worth of joy I am willing to depart with.

7) I am getting back into cooking again, and it is all healthy!! I made Chicken a la Provincale (and that 'c' has a funny 5 underneath in). Tis French don't ya know... It was tasty and I am just nailing the juice/sauce factor at the moment. It was good, and I ahve some left for lunch tomorrow at work. Good times.

8)Hayfever- IT IS ANNOYING!! Apart from the fact that I can't afford to buy any more contacts, I can't wear them anyway because of the itchy eye syndrome!! Grrrr however I have blossom on my cherry-blossom tree. It is a sure sign of spring :)

9) After reading an Erica James book (one I have read a hundred times before) about a writing group, it has galvanised me to get back on the writing front again. Looking over some of my old stuff, it is good, but I can see where I ahve matured. Some of the descriptions surprised me, butthe turn of phrase in some parts was... to be honest cliched at best, bloody awful at worst. Still I am back on the writing front and venting all that fervour, the mental chaos in my mind. When I write, even here, I find that my thoughts seem to order themselves just by writing them down somewhere.

10) And finally, since I am poor- by the way did I mention this?- I am staying in a lot more but I am loving the fact that Jools Holland is back on TV. This is my Dad and I's favourite bonding moment of the week. We like obscure music, we relate to each other on two cultural things- films and music, though I am still trying to make him watch Blood Diamond and The Departed as two of the best films ever. He thinks I like them because Leonardo Di Caprio is in them. He is a hotty that I would happily stalk, but he is amazing in those films, a defo Daddy-friendly film.

And that is all for today, more updates as always to follow!!

Something of a National Identity Crisis?!

Spurred on my receiving yet another amazing gift from my Japanese pen-pal (this time the most beautiful book ever of photographic views of Japan and all written in English- so no need to bust out the ye olde Japanese dictionary!) but it made me wonder: WHAT IS TRADITIONALLY ENGLISH?

Now, I am not going all BNP on you or anything, but I am generally not sure what I can send back. We are such a mish-mash of cultures, which I personally love by the way- I like being able to get decent Indian curry paste and Polish poppy-seed cake from my high street- but it throws into question whether my friend will think I am being obnoxious/weird/odd/other to send her what is technically another culture's object (for want of a better word).

Now tea is a traditional English thing, but to be honest I think Japan has enough tea leaves to be going on with. Plus I am fairly sure we still import all tea leaves from Asia. Maybe a teacup??... Tis puzzling me... And in addition to me worrying about what to send and what is appropriate, I am also concerned at the same time by delineating this some much, am I being racist? ignorant? other? I am unsure. However, I am fairly sure my mother would say I am looking too deep into this!!

I am sending her a Cadbury's 'Creme Egg' for Easter (yes, belatedly so) but I thought that was fairly iconic English item, right? I also sent her some cute, kitschy English-related Christmas trinket things along with the necessary "Mars" bar- made in mine home town SLOUGH! Yay! Give it up for Slough... or... not? I also home-made the box it went in with all manner of ice-skating polar bears and cute Christmas-decorating penguins and ballet-dancing angels. You know. Real kitsch stuff. I like that kinda stuff and I think we English do that well...

Anyhoo the problem still stands, what is English and packageable to Japan? Shall I send her the entire collected works of Jane Austen in Japanese? Dickens? A teapot? A teapot probably isn't all that travel safe by royal mail to be honest...

Well, what really got me thinking about this was reading the foreword of the book I was sent. It is written by the fashion designer Kenzo Takada, and really highlights how he found his own national identity whilst in Paris, so maybe I should take myself off somewhere and find what is typically British or English... that would be nice, eh? :)

So this is a part of what he says: "2005 marks the fortieth year since I left for France to try my hand in the fashion world. At the time, I doubt I really gave much thought to Japan's traditions or the country's culture. Of course, Japanese culture has, like a cut diamond, many wonderful facets... Strangely enough, it was only after I had started living in Paris that I came to realise the value of Japan's traditional culture. When I had my first show as a designer and began thinking about who I was and what I was doing, I came to the conclusion that my identity lay in my home country, Japan, and in Asia."

I don't see myself as "European" as Kenzo locates himself not only within his country's borders but within his land, although some might, but I do consider myself as British but short of sending chicken tikka masala, fish and chips or bubble-and-squeak, or even alternatively some chintzy cushion covers, I am abashed at how to reply. However, as an aside, I think as a people, the British suffer severely from Island syndrome. We are part of the continent yet physically not really.

In addition, Masayo (my friend) always sends me the most amazing cards and letterheads ever! I mean really nice. Even in Paperchase and other fine stationary-related places I have been unable to find writing stuff to parallel this!! When I have a functioning camera again I shall be taking pictures of it all for you!! Please let me know of anywhere good to get great writing paper!!

And running simultaneously to this self/national identity crisis I/we are having, I am reading about Queen Victoria and how she made the national identity by being a passive female, yet a strong ruler and combining different levels of her own identity to fit in within that of society's and at the same time influence it. With that I am also looking into the Great Exhibition of 1851- I would love to go back and see this in the flesh; I think it would have been truly amazing! The Great Exhibition was about promoting market competition, providing 'rational recreation' for the masses i.e. education, it was to show off the best of what Britain and its colonies had to offer, to promote world peace (enter Miss World) and help all nations to follow Britain's great steps to 'progress' themselves and reach the ultimate civilisation. Modest, weren't we? Lol.

The Victorians really had it nailed what they were, what they wanted and quintessentially what was British. Foreign influences were introduced as part of the everyday culture of Britain (like the Great Exhibition) but yet it was always distinctly different. Perhaps I am not as confused as I thought- despite tikka masala being invented over here and not in England, I still realise that it is really an 'Indian' dish. That 'separateness' still exists in some ways, but hopefully that irritatingly superior tone of the Great Exhibition is absent from today's discourse. In fact on a political note, I don;t think we could lead anyone to "progress" and "civilisation" now.

On an additional and ironic note, the Crimean War ended the "world peace" and international trade competition fairly rapidly after the Great Exhibition had concluded... just under 3 years I think???

However, all thoughts and ideas welcome... I am going to stop waffling. I apologise for the very extended and weird rant. I have been sitting at this computer now for 8 hours researching into "civic publicness" of Queen Victoria and perusing hundreds of The Times newspapers :)

Nighty night, looking forward to a less-confused-more-happy-bunny tomorrow!!