They hey day when appearance mattered
Business Cards
Having recently had both my passports stolen; again, I’ve had to make my annual pilgrimage to my embassies.
It’s a strange one, that trip, or even that “pretrip”. If you are not going to your own embassy, the experience usually precedes an ‘exotic’ holiday or a request for a visa to stay in your new home. All quite exciting stuff.
However, if you have to go to your own embassy, it’s usually not for pleasant reasons ie you’ve been arrested, you have to report a death, you’re seeking refuge from a ‘war etc.’
When thinking of embassies I imagine old european capitals like Vienna, balls gown, waltzes, crystal champagne glasses and regal toasts. Whether this was a figment of my imagination which was fueled by watching the entire collection of sissi imperatrice as a child or pure fantasy, the truth about embassies is far from it.
What you do get from embassies however is a concentrated flavor of that nations psyche coupled with an idea of how they treat foreigners.
The Swiss embassy is a sterile glass box where you have an appointment set at the minute (mine was at 11.18) they have all the facilities in house (photo booth finger print machine eye ball scanner) and they take a 2 hour lunch break. Nice! I had my temporary passport before lunch and my full passport the next week. Delivered. On time.
The us embassy. Ah. That’s another story. It’s a terrifying 80s megalith by bond street crawling with machine guns and security. They tax you of 30% of your worth at the entrance (iPhone I pod all other electronic devices) scan you twice and swab you. Then despite the size of the 80s fort Knox style block you are shoved in a tiny room which doubles up as a refugee camp come embassy. Having been robbed of my passport and filled our police reports galore I was treated with suspicion and made to wait 4 hours with the screaming babies begging their parents not to condemn them to a life of blame and mockery from the rest of the world (and the us if they made serious$)
my passport came with a punishment. It would have to be replaced every year. In that embassy. Great. My pilgrimage to the US refugee camp, sorry embassy, was to be a yearly shlep.
Perhaps this is a physical representation of how they feel about being seen abroad. Ie they don’t care. What a far turn from anything remotely PR related, Champagne related or even Business card related. One, which I confirm is printed form an inkjet printer on pre-perforated cards from Rymans. The glorious american is indeed over, and perhaps our first indication was in their business cards.
The wood from the trees?
Don’t focus on the one guy who hates you. You don’t go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit.
—@shitmydadsays
I think therefore I am
I was in the North of England this weekend. One of my great friends had organized a village fete on his peacocked lawns, and we were supposed to help make mulled wine. We went for epic walks up the fell instead. Many of my friends turned into human exclamation marks oohing and aahing at the “amazing” views (amazing is over used, grr) the clean air and the feeling of using their sleepy muscles. I pointed out: a nuclear power station, a 300 strong caravan park and a pile of dog excrement about the same size. I felt pretty terrible but then sometimes I feel like we avoid saying the obvious when it doesn’t fit our expectation of what we wanted to see.
We walked down and one of my girlfriends asked to read through my very meager/mediocre blog, which I write on the tube to and from work. She obviously hated it. She couldn’t understand the value I brought the the “blog world” and that possibly the disguised opinions weaved in were irrelevant. To her, the content I have been posting is the self indulgent rubbish of a Shoreditch (being a dickhead’s cool/Asos east London) pretentious twat, and I should be using this blogging opportunity to participate in a global discussion in current events. Like me, she pointed out the dog turd in the huge field of gold. Well, I might do that sometime. But what I think it highlighted was this still quite powerful misconception of meritocracy. Can it still happen? This weekend seemed to demostrate the opposite for many in search of a home, and that you must claim you space first in order to even get one sometimes.
Do people deserve to write everthing they think? yes. Does it merit publication? No. Do I deserve to write what I think? Maybe. Do I deserve to be published. No. Do I let it stop me? No. My blog may be matter out of place (MOOP!) to some, but it exists. and one this is for sure, if i am taking someone elses blog space or if i am ased by the blog UN to share, I will stry and recognise it.
North by northwest
Fat cats in the city
One of the definitions of luxury is something that’s enjoyable but not necessary. This came up as my colleagues and I were discussing cats and Italian, followed by Italian cats (3pm on Thursday, so no) which we decided that these were ultimately useless, thus potentially extremely luxurious. I was wondering how we then defined necessity. Basic food, water, sleep, loo roll and human rights? But what about when you need to make it to New York for a meeting in 6hours or the stock market will collapse and your only solution is a private jet? That is definitely not a luxury, by ‘definition’, not a luxury.
I’m thinking about naming my cat giovanni.
From Minnie Riperton to Rammstein
I don’t know why it is about some mornings. They start out perfectly nicely: you went to bed at 10.30 having had a nice meal and fizzy water, woke up feeling fresh as a daisy because you were able to judge the amounts of fizzy water to perfection (ie no getting up in the night), had a tender moment with the love of your life as the sun shone through the window, had your clean clothes laid out for you to jump into after a hot shower with all the sweet smelling gels and scents you bought the night before, and the thought of your nesspresso coffee machine fills you with happiness.
Then, you can find your coat. You Run upstairs… Clack clack clack the loud sound of your boots disturbing the naive peace and serenity that was lingering just seconds before. Clack clack clack… You run downstairs and scream in a shrill voice: “baiiibyyyyy’!!! Where is my coat?” (as if he would have any interest in secretly waking up in the middle of the night to cross dress in your everyday Mac…). It’s downhill from there. You can’t find your jeys, you can’t find your bag It went from a Minnie riperton moment to rammstein. Crap. You’re late.
You run/walk/run the 15mins to the tube that you just missed, watching the empty seats go buy. Your tube arrives ten endless minutes later. Its jam packed. The lady behind you keeps banging you with her fake “it-bag” and the tourist to your left is hitting you with his huge, scratchy northface back pack. You smell curry. Gag. Three stations in, its the human sardine can. Some jerk in and ill fitting suit and a brief case the size of his ego, smacks you in the legs and makes a ladder in your brand new wolford stockings (nice- 30£ in the bin…) you only have space to check you phone, at this point, frantically.
This is the cherry on top. Flanked on both sides by huge bags and curry and facing the rent-a-ferrari, the guy behind you asks you to move. You say “where?”. He then adds, “you should relax. I see your stressed”. I say “thanks, I m relaxed now”. He says “trust me, I m a therapist”. I think dark thoughts.
