rule brittania

i am back by popular demand. you pleaded and tried your hand at flattery and bribery. as i am soft to the needs of my fan(s) and to the fine art of cajolement, i re-emerged from semi-retirement to write about my passing days as a new york monger of cosmopolitan self-adulation.

for the new year, i made it over to the other side of the atlantic pond to revisit my colonial past.

i spent a good number of years in a brighton boarding school learning about metallica and the nuances of lacing doc martens rather than learning how to cut crusts off cucumber sandwiches, to my father's chagrin. i might not make it as a bbc tv announcer with my affected accent, but i do drink my beverages with my pinkie up. the blue blood is so hard to cover up...

i fell in love with london when i first visited as a pre-teen with braces and a bad perm. i loved walking around near st. paul's cathedral gazing over at the thames. the vista is fairly majestic and romantic--classic landmarks i remember from my days watching benny hill.

being in london made me realize that civility was an option. in new york, uttering "please" and "thank you" are seen as signs of weakness. if you talk to strangers, new yorkers glare at you and bolt to the other side of the subway carriage/street/locked bathroom cubicle. maybe it's the drinking in the middle of the afternoon in "public houses" that make the english people nice and give them extra energy to wait in queue patiently. i was in the supermarket in london buying some spices when i came across a broken spice bottle. as a hardened new yorker, i just ignored it and went on with my shopping. the gentleman next to me went and found a shop assistant and helped the assistant remove the offending broken bottle. of course i felt like a prick, but pretended that i spoke no english, nor any language for that matter. surely people that can't speak can be forgiven for their lack of civic responsibility.

besides being sick with some infection i hand-carried over from new york, i spent many of my london days in museums. free museums, that is. in my opinion, the british have been coming out strongly in the arts with their music, theatre and visual arts. i may be wrong, but there is this impression that the british art scene is more focused on the passion of making art rather than the commercial value. thus the $20 entry fee at new york's whitney museum versus the free admission in any of the british museums. the british government tries to nurture arts and culture by making them accessible to the population, which means free. theatre tickets are affordable so that people can proudly rattle their candy charm bracelets in the cheap seats. the alcohol is subsidized in the student union pubs so that all the students can think freely with the flows of alcohol. the true makings of a great country, in my opinion.

life can be good there besides having to pay the highest prices for public transport across europe. things shut down earlier than new york's 24 hour every hour on the hour attitude. but that also means that subways are cleaner and drunk people can be kept out of public harm by having to go somewhere else to drink some good english tea. who needs red bull when you can drink a strong cuppa, completed with scones and clotted cream to clot the arteries. oh yes, keep on keeping on, queenie.