Posted in Britain, Communication, Culture, Culture Shock, ESC, Eurovision, Eurovision 2007, Eurovision Song Contest, Flags, Language, Lasha Tumbai, Morality, Music, Patriotism, Russia, TV, The Rest of the World, Ukraine on May 13, 2007 | 12 Comments »
You adore the Eurovision Song Contest and you say this totally without the kind of qualifiers that Brits usually add at this point. Such as ‘it’s so tragiclly kitsch’.
In fact, you are rather bemused by the fact that the British persist in regarding the thing as a monumental joke and yet follow programmes like Pop Idol with [...]
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By and large you have not embraced the mobile phone.
The last time you had to use one, you spent ten minutes swearing under your breath and had to punch every button on the thing at least three times before you could remember precisely which combination was needed in order to get it to connect with [...]
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You can be very boring on the topic of grammar. And punctuation. Particularly commas. The rules are comforting, even if you do treat them as something of an abstract concept when it actually becomes time to apply them.
You are considerably more interested in how we actually use language, though. And the routines we follow and [...]
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A chap called Hobgoblin, who you came to via Charlotte and Aphra Behn’s postings on the topic, has requested movingly and persuasively that people blog about what it means to support the troops. This seems like an admirable project, even if it didn’t run headlong into your latest train of thought, so here goes.
It’s not something you feel you [...]
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So there you are about to recommend a book in a thread as a result of Midnight Jester’s very thoughtful and sensible post on the nature of responsibility in war. Suddenly you realise that you have done this so frequently over the last few years that rather than wear out the keyboard and encourage people to read it one at [...]
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Posted in Britain, Clothes, Culture Shock, Education, Feminism, Footwear, Morality, Religion, The Rest of the World, Work on February 4, 2007 | 11 Comments »
There are a number of things which colour your attitude towards the whole debate about whether or not Muslim women should be allowed to follow their religious duties and impose their dress codes on the rest of the work force, not least of which is that your stubborn puritan streak puts you much more in [...]
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Posted in Britain, Culture Shock, Education, Feminism, Footwear, Morality, Patriotism, Religion, TV, The Rest of the World, Work on February 1, 2007 | 3 Comments »
You are no longer convinced about the value of the concept of equality.
This is mainly because there’s a common misconception that in order to be equal, things have to be the same.
You can claim until you are blue in the face and ready to stick a fork in someone’s eye that, say, feminism - to take a concept entirely at [...]
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Once upon a time you asked a Russian if he’d enjoyed his recent business trip to Great Britain.
“Yes,” he said, “London was great. But,” he added, a look of slightly shocked disgust sliding over his face, “the British really drink far too much.”
This isn’t an isolated opinion either but pretty much the the first comment on the [...]
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Posted in Morality, Public Transport on December 11, 2006 | 9 Comments »
So there you are last week sometime standing at the bus stop in the early morning gloom, leaning on a lamp post and waiting for your ride to come by.
Suddenly, there it is, lumbering slowly and reddly down the road towards you. You stand up a bit straighter, brace yourself for action and prepare to put out a [...]
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Posted in Marriage, Morality, TV, Work on November 19, 2006 | 4 Comments »
Friday night was a bit unusual as some of it consisted of you sitting in a pub listening to an attractive man tell you that he thinks you have mysterious and intriguing hidden depths.
This was so disconcerting that you couldn’t think of what to do.
Except to settle in for a bit of a flirt. After all, you do [...]
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