encapsulating with one image everything that’s wrong with living in a surveillance society – most notably, that it doesn’t work to stop crime – banksy’s latest artwork is the very definition of irony:

Banksy pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London.

The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera.

Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on “big brother” society.

Yesterday the scaffolding gang returned to remove all evidence — again without the camera operator stopping them.

The work, above a Post Office yard in Newman Street near Oxford Circus shows a small boy, watched by a security guard, painting the words: “One nation under CCTV”.

Andrew Newman, 35, a businessman from Dulwich who works locally, said: “It was only on Sunday morning that the Post Offices guys realised what had happened.”

you can see exactly where the cctv camera is in relation to the painting here.

Like this post

Unlike

five years ago today, i landed at heathrow airport, to begin what i did not know would be a new life.

each year as i reflect on my u.k. anniversary, i’m struck by how my perspective has changed from the years before. this relationship is a complicated, ever-evolving bond, that confuses even myself at times with its fluctuations and intensity. surprises me with how i can hold both love and disdain for my adopted/adoptive country in the same hand. how i can feel both tenderly protective, and angry. how i can feel grateful for some aspects and disgusted by others.

stopping to think about it, however, i guess i shouldn’t be so surprised. it is, after all, much the same way i feel about america.

and now we have plans to leave. shed this cramped city like a too tight skin. i think about leaving a lot lately, and it brings a quick lump to my throat. i’ve always known this would not be somewhere i would live forever, even as i wanted so desperately to become a permanent part of it. as eager as i am to move on, there is so much i am loathe to say goodbye to – family, friends, identity and lifestyle. the tension of being pulled apart by so many contradictory feelings is overwhelming and heartrending at times. yanking up roots is sometimes necessary, but always painful.

because if there’s anything i’ve learned since getting off the plane back in 2003, it’s that it’s impossible to leave home without leaving some part of yourself behind.

arriving at this place was damn hard.

but leaving will be even harder still.

foo fighters – home

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

off to a meeting in kingston this afternoon, i headed into the tube station at vauxhall. i’d just missed a train so the platform was empty and i sat on the bench to wait. i had my ipod firmly plugged into my ears and was just zoning out when out of the corner of my eye i saw this guy walk slowly and unevenly down the platform. he walked with the sort of weaving unsteady gait and contracted body posture that some people with cerebral palsy have, and on a second glance, he also had the unbalanced look in his eyes of someone with mental health problems – a look i’ve seen often enough living in big cities and working in social services, but have come to dismiss as a sadly common part of urban daily life.

he came and sat down on the bench next to me – near enough, but not uncomfortably close, hovering only at the periphery of my awareness. he had a newspaper and pen, and after sitting for a few moments started scribbling in an unsteady hand.

the wind picked up as the train approached from the depths of the tunnel. i began to sling my bag across my shoulder and prepare to stand.

he nudged me gently with his elbow, and i turned to give him a quizzical look. he nodded at me with a small smile as the train squealed to a stop and the doors opened spilling out people.

with a tremorous finger he pointed to something he’d written shakily in the margins of the newspaper. it was written so shakily that i had to look closely to read it, as he reached his hand inside the lining of his jacket.

and then i was flying down the platform, running as fast as i could, ricocheting off the crowds of people to the furthest train car, leaping aboard just as the doors slammed close, and tripping down the aisles over bags and legs til i could go no further and my legs gave way dumping me into the nearest seat, my body overcome with shaking, my lungs gasping for air.

it was only then that my brain finally caught up with my racing heart and registered what it had seen written there in blue scrawled ink:

“i will shoot you.”

Like this post

Unlike

i got into work today and wrote this email to jonno:

From: J
Sent: 4 March 2008 10:00
To: J
Subject: okay then

let’s go. i can’t take it any more. i’m tired of commutes where i can’t even get on the train. i’m tired of stepping over piles of vomit. i’m tired of the incredible passivity. i’m tired of inept public services. i’m tired of the invasion of privacy. i’m tired of the incredible expense.

let’s go. let’s get out of here as soon as possible. let’s go tomorrow.

and so we’re going. we’ve decided that it’s full steam ahead with the plans to leave.

it feels good to have made a decision, to finally have a direction.

i feel like i’m breaking free of a giant weight.

shout out louds – tonight i have to leave it

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

5 years
4 visas
£3K pounds
2 citizenship applications
1 deportation

finally, irrevocably, amazingly… i am here. i am full fledged, and bonafide. i am a loyal subject of the queen. i am an insider. i am a voter. i am a complete and equal citizen under the law. i am someone who counts.

i am thankful and brimming with emotion.

i *am* british.

Like this post

Unlike

i finally got a chance to sit down and watch michael moore’s movie “sicko” – his scathing indictment of the healthcare industry in america.

and it is scathing. is it manipulative, simplistic and cheaply sentimental? of course. but that doesn’t detract from the single most pointedly undeniable fact: in the one country in the world which has enough resources to take care of every citizen, people routinely die from lack of basic healthcare and/or corporate greed by insurance companies.

once you’ve lived somewhere where healthcare is considered a basic human right – irrespective of age, employment, finances, medical history – you can never go back to looking at the madness of hmos and medicaid and insurance claims as “just the way things are”. socialised healthcare has its problems to be sure, but i would never want to live without it.

and as someone who once spent 2 months uninsured, praying fervently that nothing bad would befall me in that 8 week time period, i realised that probably the single biggest benefit of becoming a british citizen, is that i will never, ever have to be in that position again. no matter what happens to me throughout the rest of my life, i can always move back to the uk and receive medical treatment.

there’s a part of the movie where moore is meeting with american citizens who live in france, and they’re discussing the socialised healthcare there. and one woman talks about how she feels guilty that she enjoys the security of free healthcare, and the rest of her family who live back in the u.s. do not.

and i feel the same. i know people who’ve stayed at shitty jobs – the kind that make you cry every day – because they needed the insurance. i know people with serious health issues, who get bottom of the barrel care and are grateful for it, because they have no money. i know people who would never be accepted under any private policy because of their pre-existing conditions. i know people who’ve been pregnant and uninsured. and i feel guilty that i’ll never have to be faced with those problems.

it’s insanity. it is the sign of a terminally sick society when someone has to choose which severed finger they can afford to have re-attached, and which one they can do without (as someone at the beginning of the movie had to do).

and i’m so lucky it will never be me.

the star spangles – take care of us

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

i’ve been laughing all day at the dire weather warnings over a predicted 4 cm of snow (2 cm in london). headlines in yesterdays evening papers screamed about the “travel chaos” that would ensue, warning that by rush hour this evening the nation would be held hostage in the grip of a few snowflakes. everyone eagerly anticipated a snow day on friday.

and what has materialised? almost less than nothing. as usual, the scottish highlands got a little. a few other northern areas got “drifts of up to 4 cm”.

newsflash: 4 cm is not, by any stretch of the wildfire imagination, a “drift”.

for purposes of comparison, boston got more than 2 feet of snow in december alone.

sometimes life in london is sublimely absurd.

the gris gris – winter weather

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

guess who is *finally* a british citizen!!!

just got home quite late from several christmas “do”s… to find my citizenship letter sitting on the counter with the bills.

i’m crying even as i write this. i have to show up and sing “god save the queen”… but the long wait is over at last.

1727 days after first getting off the plane… i have finally arrived.

christmas really has come early.

katrina and the waves – walking on sunshine

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

from “christmas” – John Betjeman

Like this post

Unlike

happy thanksgiving!

thanksgiving is traditionally a day to reflect on those people in your life who mean the most to you. which is why it can be such a difficult holiday for an expat – not only are we far from our families, but we live in a country which doesn’t recognise or understand the deeply emotional significance of the day. the longing to be close to those we love, to share food, to share time with the people who make our lives rich.

but for me, this day reminds me that i am extraordinarily lucky to have such people on *both* sides of the atlantic – people who make my life full to overflowing. friends and family and friends-who-are-family… i truly want for nothing in this world.

so thank you to all those near and far who are so important to me. on this day, may you all feel as lucky as i do.

peter bjorn and john – objects of my affection

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

elbow deep in preparations for tomorrow’s feast. amity and i have decided to combine forces (”wonder-twin powers activate! form of a turkey dinner!”) and friends once again for a big festive meal. the traditional menu:

turkey
sausage stuffing with apples and cranberries
homemade gravy
mashed potatoes
yams
green bean casserole with shallots, mushrooms and almonds
roasted butternut squash
pumpkin pie
apple pie

brits are a bit fuzzy on this thanksgiving thing – thinking there must be gifts involved, or some sort of commercial aspect, as there is with so many other american holidays.

but that’s the beauty of thanksgiving – it’s remained relatively pure of marketing influence even after all these years. it’s not even particularly religious, in spite of the whole “giving thanks” theme. and sure, there are decorations and cards you can buy, but by and large, it’s still all about the three “f” elements: family, food, and football.

you don’t get much more american than that.

rusted root – food & creative love

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

and once again, i am prostrating myself before the immigration and naturalisation department. filling in forms in tidy block letters, queuing quietly, handing over nearly £700 ($1400), submitting for inspection details about my marriage, my previous marriage, my husband, my husband’s previous marriage, my job, my taxes, my knowledge of “life in the uk” as demonstrated by exam, my character, my friend’s assessment of my character, all my travels, and my addresses (including u.s.) for the past five years.

did i mention the £700? (not including, of course, the non-refundable £200 from the failed first attempt.) i’m not so sure why i want this so badly, but clearly i do.

they say the third second time is the charm.

but if they ask me to do a british accent, i’ll never get in.

nada surf – do it again

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

bonfire night is one of my favourite u.k. holidays. our flat is on the 4th floor, and throughout the weekend I’ve been watching the long stretch of horizon from Canary Wharf to Wimbledon bloom with electric neon flowers across the sky, gazing mesmerised with childlike delight every time another show begins.

giant gaudy chrysanthemums, tall spiky larkspurs, small clusters of baby’s breath, big fluffy peonies, bold bursting stargazer lillies. i have no garden, but i have these beautiful blossoms on display every year.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

this morning i participated in the london demonstrations in support of burma.

there is nothing so moving to me as being part of a show of numbers, taking to the streets in force, demanding attention from the government on behalf of a cause you feel in your bones to be right. to be passionate and vocal and strident, and to be surrounded by others who feel the same.

it’s a beautiful thing.

a few photos (though it is difficult to march and snap pics at the same time!)

more photos here

the go! team – we just won’t be defeated

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

in the midst of a gloomy friday morning, there was this (with apologies for sharing, but it was too sweet not to):

“after clicking through pages and pages of people homesick *FOR* London rather than homesick *IN* London I found your blog, and you. Just had to reach out and say hello.

I’ve been here nearly 3 years …so it is with great empathy that I am perusing your writing and finding comfort in your “voice.”

… there’s peace to be found in the notion that we are perpetual outsiders here…the outsider has the power to change lives… we’ll somehow soldier on, because I really don’t really want to give up the challenge, my identity at my core, of being someone who lives loves works and learns in the wider world. The only people who understand what that feels like are those of us doing it.

Nice to meet you. Thanks for helping.”

How pleasantly surprising to open my inbox, wade through the spam, and find this lovely email waiting for me this morning!

So much of what you write rings true. I have been where you are, and will (I’m sure) be back there again. Autumn makes me more than a little nostalgic, and it’s hard not to linger in the feeling of “what might also have been”.

So often it’s hard to know anything about who reads what I write, and why. So it’s nice to hear there are other travellers out there on similar journeys. Trying to make our home in the world, wherever we find it…

“I have a mentor here in London, another American on the journey. He told me something that his mentor told him, so I’ll pass it on. He said:

There’s a place in the world where your soul lives, and you have to go and find it.

And noneother than Siouxsie Sioux had a lyric: where you come from isn’t always home…

I’m going to do my best to find a country walk that’s a train ride away this weekend, and breathe in some early autumn sensations.

Enjoy your Friday, and your weekend!”

…while it will never be “home” to me, London has its charms. On a good day I can even appreciate them.

I’m sorry you’re feeling homesick at the moment. Somehow each new ache is a surprising one, isn’t it? Platitudes are trite but true… “this too, shall pass.” It really does come on without warning sometimes – at the grocery store, in the afternoon light, upon waking from broken sleep…

…and then some days, you’re out and about and feeling ALIVE in the city, and it’s as if you were *born* to be here at this moment.

{{shrug}} Go figure.

No recommendations for country walks… I do hope you enjoy your weekend. Thanks to this little exchange, mine’s already off to a lovely start…

modest mouse – the world at large

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

and after all that… they’ve denied my citizenship application.

they “normally disregard” absences of up to 180 days in the previous 12 months for applicants married to british citizens, (provided you’ve shown substantial ties to the uk otherwise – i.e. job, bank accounts, etc.)

i was absent for 182 days, and while they “have discretion to waive absences in excess of the permitted maximum”, they are “not prepared to do so in this particular case”.

needless to say, i’m gutted. i was *so* ready for this whole rigamarole to be over. i feel like the last four years, all i’ve done is worry about bloody immigration requirements. organising papers and filling out forms and paying money and jumping through hoops and having to ask which immigration queue to go through and being nervous and answering questions at the fucking border every time i come and go about the one stupid time i was refused entry.

and i got my hopes up and thought i’d finally done enough to be done. i wanted so very badly to be done. so badly. i wanted this weight off so badly. it’s so stupid, but i can’t seem to even stop crying over it.

and instead, i have to do it all. over. again.

i can’t bear the thought right now.

which i just perfect, since i can’t even reapply until october anyway. another £600. another application with forms and copies and signatures and grovelling. another 4+ months of watching the post. waiting.

waiting for it all to be done.

fuck.

zero 7 – in the waiting line

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

fugazi – waiting room

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

so i bet you’re all wondering, “what ever happened to that citizenship lark?”

bloody good question, i might add.

well, so it would seem that there were a *lot* of applications submitted before the deadline for the fee increases, and mine was one of zillions. so i submitted it back at the end of march, finally got acknowledgement that they’d received it the first week of may… and have been trying to put it out of my mind ever since, with little to no success.

three months seems to be my limit because by monday i just couldn’t take it any more. so i rang up the home office’s nationality hotline, who helpfully told me that they’d just made a decision on my application, and that i should be hearing in a few days. they *unhelpfully* were unable to give me any hints as to what that decision might be.

and of course, with the rolling royal mail strikes and ensuing postal backlog (which could take weeks to clear), i’ll be lucky to get anything before i leave for my trip to the states.

i wish i’d never even called and just continued on in blissful ignorance! this must be god’s way of torturing me.

pj harvey – hardly wait

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

via NobleSavage – an expat meme!

5) Name five things you love in your new country

* The exchange rate
* Proximity to mainland Europe
* Beer
* National health care
* 20 days minimum annual leave

4) Name four things you miss from your native country

* Driving
* Big varied salads
* Sand beaches
* Proximity to nature

3) Name three things that annoy you in your new country

* Lack of privacy rights
* Tiny, inefficient appliances
* Inept public transportation

2) Name two things that surprise you (or surprised you when you arrived) in your new country

* CCTV everywhere
* Public’s acceptance of poor services

1) Name one thing you would miss in your new country if you had to leave

* Pub culture

Like this post

Unlike

i finally get my wish – great bolts crack the sky wide open, shaking the doldrums loose, hailing down the wrath of nature.

it’s fantastic.

“a symphony orchestra.
there is a thunderstorm,
they are playing a Wagner overture
and the people leave their seats under the trees
and run inside to the pavilion
the women giggling, the men pretending calm,
wet cigarettes being thrown away,
Wagner plays on, and then they are all under the
pavilion. the birds even come in from the trees
and enter the pavilion and then it is the Hungarian
Rhapsody #2 by Lizst, and it still rains, but look,
one man sits alone in the rain
listening. the audience notices him. they turn
and look. the orchestra goes about its
business. the man sits in the night in the rain,
listening. there is something wrong with him,
isn’t there?
he came to hear the
music.”

“rain” – charles bukowski

anglofille has some gorgeous photos of the storm

Like this post

Unlike

well, now. this is just getting altogether too annoying.

i was at a birthday party this evening when it all came on the news. and of course, we all immediately started taking the piss – because, i mean… what else are you going to do? there is nothing *to* do. nothing you change about the way you live will change this reality. and so, we all kept joking and drinking and a girl left the party early to go pack for her scheduled holiday flight for tomorrow morning.

life just keeps going on, even when everything is exploding around you. something londoners (through the blitz, through the i.r.a. years, through the tube attacks and recent bombings/attempted bombings) have known for a long time, but which i now feel i truly understand.

Cibelle w/ Devendra Banhart – London, London

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

uk, airport, glasgow, car bomb

i suppose i should mention the little wannabe suicide car bomb we had here in london - except that tackling that topic seems so tremendously tiring right about now. blah blah blah, al qaeda, blah blah blah, terrorism, blah blah blah, high alert.

a former expat reported that in her workplace, where there are little televisions which scroll news blurbs, it was summarised this way:

“US officials are closely watching a London car bomb situation but have determined that it will not impact the US.”

typical.

ted leo and the pharmacists – bomb.repeat.bomb (yes, i know it’s crass. whatever.)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MTA; well now, even though i kept checking in on this story all day, it turns out it was actually *2* car bombs, which i didn’t hear about until late this evening. eh. one, two, a dozen… it’s all the same. and of course, cctv will help them catch the evil-doers.

1 person likes this post.

Unlike