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terulakimban · 2 years

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The “cultural Christianity” stuff is making the rounds again. And what I think a lot of people who object are missing about that designation is that you have to actually leave a culture to not be part of it anymore, and even then, it will still shape a lot of how you first react to things.

I’m American. I have spent, collectively, a grand total of four months (rounded up) outside the US. My parents were born here. My grandparents were born here. I am pretty definitively culturally American, for all that literally no one in my family identifies as “American” before they identify as “Jewish.”

I can say American culture sucks. There’s a lot about it (yes, I know there’s more than one. Yes, they can be quite different. Yes, there can be a great deal of tension between them. No, that doesn’t necessarily make that much difference from the outside. Yes, that is quite relevant to the extended metaphor I’m going for here) that does. What I can’t do is say I’m not actually a part of it. I’m a citizen. I’m surrounded by other Americans at pretty much all times. I’m not emigrating, I’m not making a point of immersing myself in specific local expat communities as a cultural immersion thing. I’m certainly not “from no country.” I definitely don’t have a more objective sense of American culture than someone who isn’t American and is living here reluctantly. I may have a more in-depth sense of it, but there’s no way they don’t have the basics down, because it is fucking everywhere, and they are constantly running into people who are trying to make them assimilate into it (further) in some sort of attempt to help them be normal. And they, unlike me, have a sense of what it looks like in comparison to something else.

Now. Let’s say I decide I hate America and everything it stands for and I don’t want to live here. But my family’s here, and I’ve got positive memories. I don’t have the money to go somewhere else. So rather than actually leave, I develop a deep fixation on another country. Maybe it’s based on a shallow understanding from stereotypes, maybe it’s a genuine respectful interest. But surrounding myself with a bunch of other Americans while we go on about... I dunno, how much we love England and tea does not erase how we’ve spent our whole lives being American, and it certainly doesn’t erase how we’re still living in America. Let’s say I take it a step further. Let’s say I actually emigrate somewhere. There’s two extremes. Either I fully immerse myself in my new country. I learn the language, I participate in the culture, I genuinely try to immerse myself. Or, I feel uncomfortable because things are weird and different and not quite what I’m used to, so I surround myself with a bunch of other American expats, and we spend all of our time talking about America. Maybe we talk about how much we hated it and how awesome we are for leaving it and how much it sucks and how everyone who’s there is terrible. Maybe we talk about the good things. But we’re still centering our existence around America.

But even in the first of those options, where I genuinely try to acculturate, there’s still going to be things that pop up for the rest of my life where those initial few decades of life in the US will shape my expectations. Maybe they’ll be small things “oh right, sales tax is listed on prices here.” Maybe they’ll be big things “excuse me, what just happened in parliament?” But I will always have that American lens with me. Even if I hate it. Even if I found it traumatizing. That’s not a moral judgement on me, it’s just how formative life experiences work. I can become not-American. I can’t become never-American.

Cultural existence in a religious framework -any religious framework -works the same way, because religion both has and shapes culture. When I bitch about the omnipresence of cultural Christianity, I’m not calling anyone who is culturally Christian bad. I’m complaining about the pervasiveness of Christian hegemony. When I complain about culturally Christian atheists (which I only ever do in the context of specific behaviors by specific people), I’m not saying “these people are terrible and unredeemable,” I’m saying “there is a very clear pattern of people taking the step of saying they dislike Christianity but then trying to enforce Christian hegemony by claiming the parts they like are secular, thereby effectively coming across from an outside perspective as a continuation of the general attempt at forced Christianization.”

If you hated the Christian family you grew up with and everything about them and Christianity but like Christmas and want to celebrate it, that’s fine. Genuinely happy for you you’ve got something you enjoy! Have fun! Nog your eggs! Deck your halls! Call it Festivus and put up a pole instead of a tree! Do an anti-Christmas where you decorate with Halloween decorations in Santa costumes and celebrate with spooky stuff! But that doesn’t make it secular. It makes it you finding the one bright spot you had in darkness and hanging onto it. I sincerely respect that -it’s difficult to do. The thing is, I’m not in that darkness, and you trying to insist everyone have that light of yours comes across as yet another person shining the interrogation light of “why can’t you just be normal like me” in my face.

I don’t want Christmas. I want freedom from it. “Everyone can have Christmas” in response to “I don’t want Christmas” doesn’t come across as a friendly offer to share. It comes across as an aggressive attempt to force assimilation specifically on people who say they’re actively fighting it.

#longpost #Silamy likes to ramble

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taste-thewaste · 5 months

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wip Wednesday 5.8.24 ❤️

Hi friends! Hope your week is going well! Thanks so much for the tags @onthewaytosomewhere @duchessdepolignaca03 @tailsbeth-writes @priincebutt @luainthewild and stealing the open tag from @eusuntgratie bc I want her to read this lmao.

Today I come to you with more of tummy fic 3.0, the smuttiest bit yet. y’all are basically reading this in bits as it gets written, but I’m really loving it so here we go. I’m throwing it under a cut bc it is a little ~filthy~

“You wanted to look like the upper-crust Brit that you are, not the pudgy little expat you’ve become.” Alex’s eyes are smoldering, a fire of arousal and control lighting them up. Henry is rutting himself against his boyfriend, and the words Alex is saying are lodging into his very center. He can’t do anything but grind against Alex, tangling his fingers into those curls he loves so much, low moans falling from his lips.

“But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Alex asks, and then Henry interrupts.

“Alex, oh, fuck,” Henry gasps, and he lets out a low scream, tugs on Alex’s hair as he comes, hard, in his trousers. Alex’s eyes widen as he realizes what’s happening, and he grips Henry’s hips steadily, helps him through it. Henry’s body shudders for a few moments and then he stills, breathing heavily.

There’s a silent beat between them, and Henry feels his cheeks flood with a different kind of heat. The reality of what happened, what he did, courses through his body and he’s filled with hot, sticky embarrassment.

Tagging @england-would-fall @henrysfox @bigassbowlingballhead @lfg1986-2 @agostobuwan @piratefalls @bitbybitwrites @captainjunglegym @doublecheekedkinard @billyharris @blueeyedgrlwrites

(New friends, do you write? If so, tag you’re it! @ad-astra13 @mylucayathoughts @insecuregodcomplex) and open tag!!

#wip Wednesday #whew I’m nervous about posting this one lol

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copperbadge · 11 months

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Just finished the Pirates short story and loved it, like all the Shivadhverse (though maybe warn for slight spoilers for R&R?) but have a slight nitpick - I've been involved with the rich yachting crowd in Australia and Olly does not at all strike me as a native Aussie. British expat brought up in the country maybe, but most of the uber-wealthy in Australia are linked to manufacturing or mining and still nouveau riche enough they'd disdain a hoity-toity place like Institut Alpin for young kids.

Anon, this is hilarious to me because you absolutely nailed it. Oliver McAllister was originally written as British :D

I changed it over basically because it felt more natural for him to be from the region, but I didn't really change much of his diction or behavior. I thought about it, but it's so easy to slide into stereotypes with Kiwi or Australian characters that I didn't want to risk it.

I may just shift it back. No reason he couldn't live there now but have grown up in England, and it makes a lot more sense in terms of attending Institut Alpin.

Still I will be laughing about this all day. Well done :D

#shivadhverse

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sednonamoris · 1 year

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vienna waits for you

Pairing: John Price x gn!reader

Summary: After a one-off meeting with a young Lieutenant Price, you assume you'll never meet again. A mission in Vienna proves you wrong.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, description of knife wounds, lots of blood, strong language, excessive dog puns, pre-relationship, pre-slowburn

Word count: 3,027

A/N: A little prequel action for hellhound (cross-posted to AO3)!! Thank you thank you thank you to the people who love this series as much as I do - your enthusiasm and joy has written this series just as much as I have 🩷

—

Ever since Belfast they’ve called you Hound.

Ever since Price, really. Hellhound, he had said, but it got shortened quick enough. One less syllable to trip through as they tease you.

Dog’s dinner again, eh, Hound? in the mess hall.

Well sure, every dog has its day, when you make top marks in training.

Pretty as a speckled pup, you are, cooed mockingly on a rare night spent out of fatigues drinking with the lads just off base.

One of the newer recruits even tried whistling at you during a sparring match. He ended up in the med bay for that one, while you were reprimanded by Command yet again.

In the dog house, your squadmates titter as you march out of your captain’s office with nothing more than a slap on the wrist and anger itching beneath your skin.

The teasing is fine. You like it, even, making your fair share of awful puns just to get a laugh out of the boys. What you can’t shake is the feeling of discontent with your superior officers. You joined up with the Irish Armed Forces at eighteen to do something. When they sent you up the ranks to the ARW just a few years later it was supposed to matter more. Save the good guys when you could, take down the bad ones when you couldn’t. ACTION had been promised by every recruitment poster in big bold letters. And yet, it seems like every time you take some all they do is give out to you.

You’re not good for much more than taking orders and pulling triggers, you know, but still it feels like something’s missing. Like you could do more if they’d just let you.

—

Weeks later you get your chance: another team-up with the SAS. When it’s announced to the regiment you’re the first one geared up and ready to go.

For a silly, self-indulgent moment you let yourself wonder if Lieutenant Price will be there, too.

—

Between the SAS and ARW, a burgeoning terror cell has been tracked to Vienna. It’s being run by Wesley Martin, an English expat coming off a dishonourable discharge from MI6. Rather than fading quietly into obscurity, he’s taken the opportunity to sell out his country’s secrets and incite insurrection not just against them, but most of Europe as well. He staged an attack on Irish soil months ago, but the trail had gone cold - until now. England was the one to find him again, and Austria’s task force has offered its support, working out negotiations between the three nations as to who gets to make the arrest and on exactly what counts and which soil he will be tried. If the whispers up the chain of command are true, Ireland gets dibs on cuffing him.

But that’s all above your pay grade. You’d just like to nab the prick.

When your boots hit the tarmac you have a stretch and breathe deep. It was a cramped plane ride with your squadmates. Jacks had snored on your shoulder the whole way, and Murph wouldn’t shut up about his latest shag, who apparently gave him quite a memorable experience in a pub stall over leave. He’d spared no detail. Lieutenant Doyle, of course, was the one who kept egging him on; even a glare from Captain Guiney hadn’t been enough to stop him from asking what color her knickers were. He produced a rather spectacular lacy red thong from one of his pockets in answer.

Chatter cuts as you make your way over to where the SAS team stands in formation.

“Pint short as usual, Guinness,” Captain MacMillan’s thick brogue snarks. “You’re late.”

“They are early,” a less amused Austrian woman corrects. Anna Ebner, if it’s the same person who coordinated and shared all the intel reports.

“Only by Paddy standards, which is to say none at all.”

Ebner rolls her eyes.

“Je-sus,” Guiney says in greeting, “how’d I get stuck working with you cunts?” His wide grin and open arms counteract the words.

A series of warm handshakes are exchanged, but then it’s right to business.

Ebner informs the group that Austria has opted to sideline its men with the promise of support only if things go very, very wrong. They’ll be on comms for the whole operation. That leaves two mixed-company teams to infiltrate the safehouse apartment; one from the front and one from the back. Once the ground floor is secured, Alpha Team will head upstairs while Bravo covers the cellar and makes sure no one gets in or out of the building.

Team assignments are handed out with efficiency before everyone piles into the vans. Most of your squadron ends up with Alpha, headed by Guiney. You and Jacks are the only ARW soldiers on Bravo, which will be led by MacMillan and his lieutenant.

“Looks like we’re top dogs today, Hound,” Murph crows, elbowing you in the ribs before heading over to join the others with Alpha.

You grin and flip him off while Jacks tells the lot of them to go fuck themselves, and turn to find Lieutenant John Price looking right at you. Your eyes go wide and your spine snaps straight.

“Hound, is it?” Barely-there amusement curls at the edge of his mouth.

“It is, yeah.” There should probably be a sir attached to that, but you’re too caught up in the starstruck realization that he remembers you to care.

It’s a stroke of luck that he doesn’t seem to mind. Just hums at the back of his throat with a twinkle in his eye before nodding his head toward the van behind him. “With me.”

—

It’s tight quarters inside the vans, so many soldiers pressed knee to knee. Price is seated across from you. At your side, Jacks is shooting shit with the other Brits in your temporary squad. Already he’s insulted the Queen - your favourite pastime, usually - but you ignore him in favor of quietly observing Price, who in turn is quietly observing you.

He hasn’t changed much in the months since your last meeting.

His face is clean-shaven with an ever-present threat of stubble. The rest of his hair is tucked beneath a dark beanie that either hides a buzz cut or a seriously impressive cowlick - it’s hard to say which would suit him more. His broad frame fills his tactical suit, and the stars in your eyes make him seem that much broader. But it’s his eyes that strike you the most. Clear-cut, no-nonsense blue that sees straight to the heart of you.

What has he found there, you wonder?

In Price it feels like you’ve found the answer to a question that’s been difficult to put to words. He’s so sure. Sure of himself, of his team, of his mission. Every doubt you house is a certainty in him - it’s no wonder they’ve already named him a lieutenant while you can barely keep your rank as sergeant.

“They didn’t court marshal you, then,” he breaches the silence between you.

“Not for lack of trying.” Your smile is crooked and self-deprecating. “I’m fairly certain ‘loose cannon’ is at the top of my file in red ink.”

He huffs a laugh. “Better than ‘temper management issues’.”

“Oh, please,” you say. “Yours has got to be something like ‘hero’ or ‘patriot’. Maybe ‘golden boy’. I bet the recruitment campaigns can’t get enough of you.”

“They tried to get me to pose for a commercial,” he admits.

“Yeah?”

“Told them to sod off.”

You cackle. “Too right!”

The rest of the van ride is spent trading quips back and forth, bantering like you’ve known each other for ages and not just from a one-off meeting months ago. In the time that’s lapsed between then and now you’ve imagined working beside him plenty— more than you should have, being honest. It should be impossible for the man to live up to the myth you’ve manufactured in your mind.

Somehow he exceeds it.

Somehow you’re not surprised.

—

The muffled sound of Bravo team breaching the cellar door is the only thing that breaks the midnight silence of Vienna’s neighborhoods. Combat boots creak down wooden steps, guns at the ready and night vision gear engaged. Captain Macmillan leads the charge, sweeping the space with practiced authority.

“Clear,” he announces. His voice is too-loud and rough in the cramped space.

Though no targets are on this level, a wealth of information seems to be. There’s not an ounce of modern technology to be seen, but every inch of unfinished wall is covered in the paper trail three respective countries have been chasing in vain for months.

“Seems like your man is starting to lose the plot, eh?” Jacks says with his crooked smile, gesturing to documents pinned on corkboards and clipped across strings that hang from the low ceilings.

Your mouth snaps shut on your reply at MacMillan’s warning to keep quiet, but disagreement is plain across your features. Martin is paranoid, certainly, but you wouldn’t call him crazy. Though this organization system is beyond you, it makes sense in theory; Who better than a former MI6 operative can appreciate how insecure cyber storage is, even with encryptions in place?

Paper maps cover one of the walls wholly, marked up in unfamiliar code you’re sure some poor interns will have a field day with. Whatever his next moves are, they must be hidden there. Many of the hanging sheets read like weapons orders, others like mercenary pay stubs, all in a myriad of languages. Everything else is too much text to be anything but a manifesto. You snag one of the sheets for yourself and read a few cursory lines of down with the status quo and death to the Other - nothing that hasn’t been done before.

With a nod from his captain, Price starts barking orders. Everything must be taken down and packed away; this kind of evidence is every operation’s dream. You all set about the work as quietly as you can in case things still aren’t clear inside. MacMillan radios Guiney for a sitrep off to the side before he joins in.

In all of a second it isn’t necessary.

Shouting sounds from inside, then gunfire.

You hear the tinkling of broken glass and the impact of a body hitting the ground and the thunk, thunk of a flashbang falling down cellar stairs before it goes off. Harsh, blinding white overwhelms your senses and forces your eyes to close in a painful squeeze. There’s a ringing in your ears that feels like it’s coming from everywhere. Someone screams. You tear your night vision gear off in a blind panic and blink sightlessly at the chaos.

Fuck.

Fuck!

There’s a dark shape at the foot of the stairwell going up, and before you register what your body is doing you can feel yourself lurch after them. You’re not even sure if you have your gun.

You stagger outside to see Price giving chase to someone who can only be Wesley Martin - him or one of his close associates. Doesn’t matter now. You join in hot pursuit, the thick soles of your boots pounding across Vienna’s pavement. Your lungs burn and your vision is still blurred but you can’t afford to slow down. Price is still several metres ahead.

Without breaking stride he takes aim with his gun and nails Martin squarely in the back. The crack of the shot echoes sharp in the night and lays him flat out in the street. Price continues his sprint, only slowing a few steps out from the body.

Except it isn’t just a body; he’s still alive. You see him move - he must be wearing kevlar - but before you can shout a warning he whips his body around and takes Price out at the legs. Moonlight flashes off the wicked threat of his unsheathed knife. He shoves the blade up hard into Price’s ribs and slashes a wide arc through his belly. You swear it’s happening in slow motion, like those nightmares where you run and run and run but your legs won’t move.

“Get off him, you bastard!” you shout. Martin’s head turns to see you come barrelling at him. He smiles. The knife drips blood. Price gasps and stumbles backward where he’s shoved aside, fingers clutching desperately at the wound.

Your hands feel for the familiar weight of your gun only to find it gone. You must have lost it in the confusion. Martin could easily kill Price now - it’s what you would do, if the situation was reversed - but instead he takes your momentary distraction as a chance to take off again.

It’s his mistake.

You’re close enough and determined enough now that it takes only a few strides to overtake him, and while you don’t have your gun you sure as shit have a knife. The collision happens all at once and in fragments. Your body against his. Your knife in his neck. The scalding spray of blood as you pull it out. The sluice of flesh as you drive it back in. You’re not sure when you stop stabbing, but it’s long after he stops twitching.

His body is limp and strange beneath you. You roll off and stagger to your feet only to retch in the street beside it. Bile bites the back of your throat and you wipe at your mouth with a grimace. Your hands are shaking. Command is going to fucking kill you.

Sirens sound in the distance, now, but the only thing that breaks your thousand yard stare from the man you just killed is the sound of Price’s labored breathing a few metres away.

You blink and all of the sudden you’re knelt in front of him. It takes a moment for him to register that you’ve come back; his eyes stare unseeing, clouded with pain.

“You killed ‘im,” he slurs. “K-I-bloody-A.”

“That’s not important right now,” you snap. “Focus on staying alive. One breath at a time, yeah?” You move his hands from the wound to assess the situation and nearly retch again. Martin stabbed clean through the kevlar, and now his guts are threatening to spill into the street. “Did you radio anyone?”

He just blinks up at you, dumb with shock and bloodloss.

You curse.

With one hand you fish around for the meager med supplies you keep on you, and with the other you call in for help. The radio is sticky with blood. You’re not sure whose. Price has gone so pale. Blood leaks at the corner of his mouth. His teeth are stained red.

You’re only a block over from whatever remains of your squadron but it might as well be miles. They say they’re on the way, but there are so many wounded already. Looking at Price, you know it won’t be fast enough, anyway. You only have a disinfectant wipe, a needle, and surgical thread. Sutures have never been your strong suit, but if it’s not you and it’s not here and now then it’s lights out. You’ll just have to make do.

“No bloody dying,” you warn. “This is gonna hurt.”

You lay Price back carefully, carefully, and smear the alcohol wipe around the edge of the wound. It stings - it must - but he only sucks a sharp breath in without complain. Pinching the skin together, hands slick with blood that isn’t yours, you poise the needle over him.

“Ready?” You’re not sure if you’re asking him or yourself.

He stares up at you with the most lucidity he’s managed since being stabbed. Clear-cut. No-nonsense. So very blue. “Ready.”

—

Your stitch job is crooked and atrocious, but the hospital staff inform you later that it saves his life.

“Be a hell of a scar,” Price laughs from the sterile white of his hospital bed. The sound wheezes out of him. You can tell it hurts, but he seems in good spirits.

So good, in fact, that he’s managed once again to talk you out of a court marshal. He didn’t let up until he’d convinced Command that Wesley Martin had to be put down. That there was no salvaging the mission otherwise and that your actions saved not just his life, but the lives of many. Once those interns deciphered the rest of his plans they were quick to agree. Now you’re all done up in your service dress for an award ceremony later this afternoon. You wanted Price there, but the hospital staff wouldn’t release him from their clutches. A visit just before will have to suffice.

“Something to remember me by,” you say.

There’s something fond and familiar in his eyes that makes your throat hurt. “I would be hard-pressed to forget someone like you, Hound.”

“Running with the big dogs, now,” you grin. He rolls his eyes at the pun. “Next time I kill a target I’m not supposed to I bet they promote me.”

“I don’t doubt it. You do good work.”

“So do you, Lieutenant.”

There’s more you want to say, questions you want to ask him, but they all die in your throat the longer you look at him lying there. Even battered and beaten he’s still so sure. Certainty stinging in the creases of his eyes. Sunshine slatted past hospital window blinds. Dated rock music filtering grainy through the radio one of his lads must’ve brought in. Half-wilted flowers at his bedside. Sitting upright in an uncomfortable bed wrapped in starchy white sheets he is every inch the soldier you’ll never be.

“If you’re ever in England again…” he starts. Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised he’s offering, but you are. A delighted smile lights your face.

“I’m never in England if I can help it,” you say honestly. He laughs. “But give us a call if you hop the channel, yeah?”

“I will do,” he says.

It’s silly to think you’ll actually meet again. Truly, why would you? But it feels like he means it. Like you’re dogs of war, set on intersecting paths to hell.

Somehow, some way, the two of you are always going to find each other.

Somehow, some way, you don’t think you mind.

#john price x reader #captain john price x reader #cod x reader #cod mwii x reader #hellhound #fran writes

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rjnello · 7 months

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“When the streets are largely quiet”

If you know Daphne Du Maurier’s books, you know she loved Cornwall – the county just west of here in Devon. At around her age 20, in 1926, her parents – the family was from London – bought a (in need of repair) river house just across from the town of Fowey (pronounced “foy”). Fowey is about an hour and a half drive southwest of Dartmouth; I haven’t been to Fowey yet, but I intend to get down…

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#authors #books #Daphne du Maurier #Dartmouth #England #expats #fiction #novels #photography #romance #travel #writers #writing

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anonymoushouseplantfan · 1 year

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...... Is there actually any evidence that Meghan had any effect on British fashion when it was part of her daily job?....she wore shockingly little British designers to actually measure even her wedding dress was Givenchy 🙈

Even when she was supposed to be selling British brands, she expanded that to Commonwealth brands.

But it’s a big problem for her representatives. Ideally your expat British duchess would be in Manhattan or DC wearing McQueen and Burberry to charity galas and UN/government events, doing safari vacays in Africa with her adorable kids, visiting England four times a year to hang out with her royal relatives, and getting millions of dollars of free UK media coverage. That’s what the pr people thought they were getting after Megxit.

But that’s not what the Harkles did. They fought with the family and the media and are now trying to sell this incongruous California royals lifestyle that is not really marketable to anyone.

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rhinexstone · 1 year

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Hey queens just a reminder that Palestine, the region, is one of the oldest cities in the world that people still live in. Before Palestine was a colony of England/Egypt, they were part of the Ottoman Empire, was part of a long line of other dynasties and empires, and sometimes just doing their own thing without that kind of government

But Palestine has always had a long and nuanced history of Jewish communities and so on. In fact, prior to being a colony, Palestine had a fairly large Jewish population with multiple communities, some even being immigrants from Russia and other Slavic countries, mostly as religious refugees.

Now in an apartheid state, Jewish Palestinians aren’t being treated differently than non-jewish Palestinians, because Israel isn’t actually concerned about jewish solidarity or a return to homeland, it’s actual motives are rooted in colonial rule and power. That’s why Israel was FORMED by colonial powers, rather than the actually people who lived there (be it indigenous to the region, having a long family history there, or just expats from other regions)

TL;DR: Look into the history of the formation of Israel, and then the pre-history to modern history of Palestine.

#Palestine #Judaism #semitism #colonization #native rights

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robotslenderman · 10 months

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So I never did a summary post of my London trip, did I? I came back and got sick and bleh'd and never did it lol.

Well okay, roundup post (kinda) below! It's actually all over the place but yeah. Thoughts.

Overall, had a complete fucking blast.

Holy shit the public transport is AMAZING. I will never get over packing onto the Tube with a crowd on a weeknight at 10PM and having a train RIGHT THERE. Next train was coming in 4 minutes. Train after that was coming in 6 minutes. In Sydney if you're in the CBD at the same time you're waiting twenty minutes for the next train. London Tube is just AMAZING

(when I'm not lugging luggage up ALL THOSE FUCKING STAIRS)

ALSO IT GOES NYOOOOOOOOM

Australian driving sucks because Aussies are shit drivers. UK driving sucks because the streets suck and were built for horses and carts and not cars. I have always been told Sydneysiders are bad drivers but had no idea until I went to the UK, where Brits politely merged in front of me without a blinker but never, ever cut me off. British drivers use their blinkers less than Aussies (in fact they barely used them at all in north Wales/England border) but somehow are still better drivers than Aussies, who use blinkers more, but won't actually turn them on until they've already pulled right in front of you and almost caused an accident.

Having said that London drivers are really, really vocal. You can't walk down a street without them honking the shit out of each other. Like Australians are constantly trying to kill each other on the road but we're pretty quiet when someone tries to murder us with bad driving.

I still can't get over how strong the accents are. like look. I feel like an idiot admitting that. but I didn't realise that my idea of a "British accent" was actually very watered down due to British expats losing their accents over time. I know that's a "no shit Sherlock" moment that I should have seen coming and I have no idea why I didn't.

I got to meet two friends! I met @nightingaletrash and @starsilvereld. I still have no idea what either of their names are. They have no idea what mine was. I am very amused by this.

Nothing you have read, or even seen on TV, about the acoustics in British cathedrals will prepare you for walking into St Paul's while a choir is on and hearing the world glow with music.

I mean, FUCK, I went into this tiny little chapel in Beaumaris and the acoustics in there, alone, was mind blowing. Tiny. You could whisper to someone and it's like you're holding a mic. I'd love to be in the castle courtyard when a choir is singing.

Remembrance Day is a Big Deal in the UK. In Australia it's majorly overshadowed by ANZAC Day, a commemoration of the Battle of Gallipoli, which was our first major conflict as a country where we lost so many people (despite losing as many over several months as we lost in a day in a later battle I'd never actually heard of, but learned about in the Imperial War Museum). In the UK Gallipoli was barely a footnote in the Imperial War Museum, a quick "yeah that got fucked up and failed miserably" footnote.

It wasn't until the morning I spent in the IWM that I actually put two and two together as to why there were so many poppies everywhere. Like -- I feel dumb for admitting this, but when I first saw the poppies my brain immediately went "oh, there's poppies and it's cold, ANZAC day must be coming up" before it record scratched and went "wait it's November."

London is old and wet. Like you have no idea just how old everything in the UK is until you actually go there. Everything is so old. You walk past buildings with chunks taken out of them -- I just subconsciously assumed they'd deteriorated. Nope. Those chunks are from where shrapnel hit the buildings during the Blitz.

And yeah it's also soaking wet all the time despite most rain being very light. I guess it's because of the humidity and all the cloud cover? Like with how soaked the streets are you'd expect the rain to be much heavier, but I guess in Aus the streets here dry out so much faster so it only gets that wet here when the rain is torrential.

UK's accessibility is awful. Most crossings don't make noise (and the ones that do sound exactly like shoplifting alarms in Sydney so that was a trip lmao), their pedestrian lights (IIRC) don't flash, and there's no somatic component to the crossings either. In Aus, you can be deaf and blind and you will know when it's safe to cross because the button you press to cross will vibrate heavily when it's time. And I'm not talking about heritage listing places, but very modern buildings -- newly renovated Tube stations would have maybe one or two benches on a platform and that's it.

But. The one thing the UK does right was drawing attention to invisible disabilities. Australia's infrastructure is way more disability friendly than in the UK, and intuitively so -- you don't need apps, you can cross a road safely in Sydney deaf and blind -- but I haven't seen a single PSA here regarding invisible disabilities once in my life. At the UK those signs were everywhere that accessibility related stuff was. "Please give up this seat for someone who needs it. Please remember not all disabilities are visible."

I've had people complain to me Sydney had no night life any more after the lockout laws, and I thought they were being overdramatic, until I stepped out of a Tube station for the first time in Leiscter Square (bitching internally about the stairs) on a Sunday night and holy shit London was vibing. Music and packed crowds everywhere, light and laughter and... yeah. Sydney's nightlife is fucking dead.

Pretty surprising, given how loud London was, how many nooks and crannies there were that were completely insulated from the racket of the rest of the city. Especially in Temple and St Dunstan in the East Church Garden.

THEY HAD SQUIRRELS!!!!!

It's really hard to describe the difference between British cold and Australian cold. I can finally see why people like winter: British cold is energising. It feels fantastic, and whenever the chill sets in you can step inside somewhere and you'll be warm in seconds, and the heating is turned up so high that you carry that heat with you.

In Australia, you don't get that. It's just cold. Once the chill sets in it doesn't leave. You go inside and it's just as cold inside as it is outside. People have heaters going on full blast under their desks all day because the heat never stays, but the cold is always there. You don't carry the warm with you when you leave, it's gone in a flash. I can see why British expats tell me it's colder here than in Britain, even though an autumn London is, by far, objectively far colder than the dead of an Australian winter. It's because in Australia the heat is so fleeting in winter.

Things I wished I'd known before I went:

The stairs thing. It's actually fine if you have the right apps. There are accessibility apps that can give you step-free routes through London. Would've saved me SO much misery that first week but I didn't find out they existed until after I'd already done all the lugging. There ARE lifts at the disability friendly stations they're just fucking hiding and you have to hunt the buggers down.

I can't stand for very long before I need to sit lol and there's like one bench per room in the British Museum. If I'd known that, I would've divided the British Museum up over a week and done an hour each afternoon, schedule permitting, so that I could actually take my time and absorb everything. But alas, the back went "nope fuck this."

Should've arrived a day earlier so I could actually GO to the Hallowe'en thing without worrying about crashing and dying horribly. I'm really sad I didn't go, but at the same time... yeah, I couldn't have made that trip safely, so at the end I made the right decision even if I'm always going to wish I had gone.

Water pressure sucked in each hotel room I had, so wish I'd used half a braincell and just bought dry shampoo.

Final note:

Singapore has bidet toilets and I've felt like a caveman ever since.

TL;DR:

It was awesome, wish I could do it again one day :(

#London 2023 #I had a great time thank you Britland <3

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misscammiedawn · 4 months

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Signed up to the library streaming site and put in London (1994). It's a documentary where the narrator returns to tumultuous London after being absent for 7 years. I'd seen a clip or two on but never the whole thing. It's pretty much 80 odd minutes of footage from day-to-day life in the city I grew up in during the time I grew up.

Fact is when we visited again in 2018 it weren't the same. Not really. The old shit's still old but the vibe is off. It ain't home anymore. The past is a country I can't hop a plane to and have a holiday in. A topic that funny enough the docu actually goes over with its own subject's memories of places which are no longer in the city when it was recorded.

I reckon London's just like that, though? Something about the ancient history of a city that has been alive so long you can still feel its pulse and the new and old mingle so seamlessly that it haunts you with its familiarity juxtaposed with its strangeness. Like an old friend you've not seen for decades. The voice has changed, the way they carry themselves is different, the light in the eyes ain't the same but the eyes themselves are. Eff knows I know that well. I grew up noting the scar tissue of The Blitz, still apparent in where history was wiped out in an explosion and you see Edwardian structures and modern chic glass monoliths protruding like new growth in an ancient specimen.

Makes me feel even more of an expat to know the London I grew up in only exists in film. For better or worse I grew up a stones throw from "Cardboard City" the homeless settlement which is now home to the UK's biggest IMAX. My home was within the grimey nostalgia of a piss soaked graffiti stained city. It was just second nature-- as was the constant threat of IRA bombs.

I don't think I miss the messy old piss and cigarettes of the town I grew up in. Not really. But I identify with it. Call it home.

I think London just has that effect on people.

I don't glorify that shit. Na, on the contrary, I recognize it was a small hell that's been sanitized as best it could be. But I feel at home with the imperfections. It's kinda making me a tad homesick, y'know?

To take a touch to actually sit with that and kind of think about why this docu catches bits of the place in my memory that I can't see even walking down those same streets I wanted to go through the film and take a couple screenshots of places I'd been to in my childhood that show up and show them in the film versus how they look on Google Street Maps today. See that vibe change I mentioned.

Movie on the left, Google on the right.

Vauxhall Park

Brixton Market

Spitalfields Market

Elephant and Castle

and ...Fuck...

I had no idea they took down The Elephant. This is legit how I'm finding out about it. I clicked about to see when it happened and get a shot with the elephant statue to prove it was the right spot. Here's an image from 2020 with the shopping centre and statue still standing.

My memory is in locations. I close my eyes and I see places. That damned area is always with me. I can still see the giant billboard for 1994's The Mask next to the old swimming pool that used to be there. I remember before I even left England seeing a social media post about the frog slide being tossed in a skip and people of the area mourning a childhood memory.

Guess it all has to go in the end. Elephant just got wrecked. First with the big bougie flats then the Heygate Estate getting taken down and I guess the old shopping centre's gone too, ey?

And so it goes.

But yeah, the photography in the film was gorgeous and caught a slither of a world condemned to the past. To quote the movie "There is no town in the world which is more adapted for training one away from people and training one into solitude than London." She raised me and part of me will always be there, wandering the halls of the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre; a place that can only possibly exist in memories.

Anyway-- that's a big ole wander down memory lane. I love my city. One day I'll see her again.

#craig posting #london #the second constant #personal

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