Thursday 29 September 2016
Sunday 18 September 2016
Friday 16 September 2016
WHAT TO DO?
At its inception, this blog was meant to be nothing more than a place to dump (quotidian/banal) photos of my country of birth, which forms the largest part of a North Sea island just off the coast of Europe. I happened to be living there at the time. Mostly for my own amusement, I had decided to catalogue the small details of the small world of my immediate surroundings. I was going through a phase of seeing more beauty in everyday things such as paving stones, pillar boxes and weathered shop fascias than in songbirds, cherry blossom or a flash of well-turned ankle. As I felt myself retreating from a really deep interest in the fate of the country and from any sense of being able to do anything about it, MY england seemed to have shrunk down to the eye being drawn to little things and ephemera. Hence the name of this blog or whatever this thing is.
Time passed and I ended up saying more than I probably should have done, thereby getting drawn into time-wasting arguments with weird pieces of shit (see the comments section here). At this stage, hilarious (not really) consequences of choosing the name this is my england began to unfold. How rum it was to be a bed-wetting, triggered, metropolitan, effete, latte-sipping, elitist, left(ie)y snowflake yet often be initially mistaken for an alt-right cunt or white nationalist or whatever on account of the name of this blog and its associated twitter handle! The fun we had. Not really.
Around that time, for the first time, I thought of rebranding. But I didn't.
Now I'm entertaining the same thoughts, but this time for a different reason. I have, you see, left England and have no intention of returning, other than for shortish visits to see friends and family. All you who remain there and who have some place in my heart: I wish you well. But it's not for me any more. I was born there and have spent most of my life there up to now. But I don't think I ever felt that I wasn't out of place in England. I daresay I will feel out of place where I am now. But at least it's warmer and a majority of people here seem to be closer to my worldview.
From a few hundred miles away, I can pick up dim echoes of the braying, barking banalities of Brexit Britain: a coterie of bird-brained (and/or actually evil) vandals fucking everything over for no obvious good reason while dimwits in horrible pubs fulminate darkly about fucking foreigners coming over here and taking the jobs we're not prepared to do ourselves. and that. I couldn't have done anything about it if I'd stayed. There's no opposition. There's no plan.
Good luck. You'll need it. So will I. But the wine here is cheap and the tiny little gherkins taste of anchovies and you can swim in the lake for months and months without a wet suit or whatever.
Still not sure if I'll change the name of the blog.
Time passed and I ended up saying more than I probably should have done, thereby getting drawn into time-wasting arguments with weird pieces of shit (see the comments section here). At this stage, hilarious (not really) consequences of choosing the name this is my england began to unfold. How rum it was to be a bed-wetting, triggered, metropolitan, effete, latte-sipping, elitist, left(
Around that time, for the first time, I thought of rebranding. But I didn't.
Now I'm entertaining the same thoughts, but this time for a different reason. I have, you see, left England and have no intention of returning, other than for shortish visits to see friends and family. All you who remain there and who have some place in my heart: I wish you well. But it's not for me any more. I was born there and have spent most of my life there up to now. But I don't think I ever felt that I wasn't out of place in England. I daresay I will feel out of place where I am now. But at least it's warmer and a majority of people here seem to be closer to my worldview.
From a few hundred miles away, I can pick up dim echoes of the braying, barking banalities of Brexit Britain: a coterie of bird-brained (and/or actually evil) vandals fucking everything over for no obvious good reason while dimwits in horrible pubs fulminate darkly about fucking foreigners coming over here and taking the jobs we're not prepared to do ourselves. and that. I couldn't have done anything about it if I'd stayed. There's no opposition. There's no plan.
Good luck. You'll need it. So will I. But the wine here is cheap and the tiny little gherkins taste of anchovies and you can swim in the lake for months and months without a wet suit or whatever.
Still not sure if I'll change the name of the blog.
Sunday 11 September 2016
Tuesday 6 September 2016
Sunday 4 September 2016
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