So it’s week 9-and-counting of the death germs, but one look at the post-Italy damage and I decided, screw it, I’m going to start running again anyway. After having a close pastoral encounter with one too many heroin addicts, ticking and twitching on otherwise pristine British woodland near my flat, I decided a new route was in order. So, I’ve been going down to the seaside and running along the promenade. It’s no Sea Point, girls, but it’ll do nicely.
A clear case of publicity photoshopping, and it's almost passable!
There’s only one problem: the locals. Now, the assiduous blog readers amongst you might remember my ode to urban running. I’m going to break it to you quickly, reader: it ain’t no happy trackathon here. While CT commentary is loud, brash and good humoured, the Brits are something else (I can say “the Brits” because I am both one and not one. Perfect for claiming any good things – see later in the post – whilst disassociating from anything cringeworthy – see most of this blog).
While part of the CT quirk is hearing the quick-witted slogans most sensibly slower commuters come up with (“lekker soos ‘n krecker, girlfriend”), Bournemouth, as might be expected, does not yield such fine strings of assonance. No, the only comments I got as I ran were strings of noises. These ranged from kissing to clucking to a sort of ape-esque bellow, but rarely involve anything discernably linguistic.
Now, it struck little me as I was running and had little else to ponder, that one generally uses such noises to attract two things: animals and small children. In both cases, the noises are useful because one assumes the almost complete lack of linguistic comprehension or advanced cognitive ability on the behalf of the intended recipient. Curiosity awakened, I thought it best to stop a moment and ask my would-be friends which of the two they thought I might be. I explained my case (very simply, I believe) and asked – earnestly – for their help to understand this communicative device which must be a cultural difference of potentially fascinating proportions. What a pity, then, to find them retreating, proverbial tail between legs. “No, no, don’t flee,” I cried, “I really want to know!” Useless. The English male, it turns out, is a flighty creature indeed, given to prolonged bouts of hiding when surprised or confronted. I recommend extreme care when cornering this delicate speci-man.
Having had more than enough local culture for the week, Dad (who is down here for a few days) and I took a road trip out somewhere really dull this weekend: Salisbury. Who wants to go to Salisbury? It’s only a medieval town dripping in history with one of the most beautiful examples of ancient architecture in England. Still, life can’t be all fits and giggles, so we dragged ourselves off on the 30 minute drive.
Ah Salisbury. 30 minutes away, but a bloody world apart. Culture! Architecture! Music! Ye Olde Worlde, with happy modern conveniences. Sort of Tesco ‘n time travel. It’s just an absolutely magnificent medieval town – I was blown away by Florence’s marks of the Renaissance/Medici urban playground on every street corner, but this was so different, so Anglo-Saxon. Also, it’s older. While the dark ages were going on and Romans grubbing around keeping pigs in the ancient temples, the common English muck were building things like this. Ok, so the spire only came in the 1400’s, but the body was completed in the 1200’s. Dude, seriously. And here we have it. It’s enough to make you come over all patriotic. (Well, it would be, if the inside weren’t adorned with the battle-scarred troop colours of pretty much every bloody colonial war the British fought from the 1700’s onwards).
Guess what Dad and Oliver Cromwell have in common?
We arrived at the cathedral smack in the middle of choir practise – there’s nothing like medieval vaulted ceilings and mood music. They’ve also go the world’s oldest working mechanical clock (1386) that someone discovered in an attic in the 80’s. Come ON. Oh, and one of only 4 copies of the Magna Carta – the 1215 document that most modern constitutions found their basic principals on. Bloody ‘ell.
Old and new: reflections in the font
I reflected on how British culture seemed to have taken a turn for the oxymoronic (with an emphasis on the moronic) since we stopped having a monarchy we would blindly die/slaughter for and a church we’d pile big stones up in honour of (Stonehenge is 10 miles away on Salisbury plain, but that’s another story). Have we lost our culture and become loutish yobbos and stuttering apologists? How can Salisbury’s grand past and Bournemouth’s grim present be within 30 minutes of each other?
It began to get me down somewhat, until I stopped by the document cabinet on the way past the Magna Carta. In between magnificent royal letters from King Henry, asking Salisbury to send the largest of its gold plates to suppliment the King’s coffers, which were getting low and Queen Elizabeth 1st ‘s rantings about Sir Walter’s “intrigues” with her lady-in-waiting, there was a homely local gem. It was a simple affidavit from one Mary of the parish who solemnly swears that on the … day of sixteen hundred and something, she was “vilely assaulted” in the cathedral grounds. The charge? That “Anne of this parish did slape her in the face and call her whore.”
Ah well. The more things change…
……………………………
Mense. I’m off to Edinburgh for a week to watch some theatre – I hear there’s a spot of amdram happening. Probably just a rumour.
Don’t wait up.
