AFTER standing in line (and this was no ordinary line, but one devoid of any notion of personal space) for at least an hour, at our second port of call, we were told by the ticket seller that this was not a line in which tickets for foreigners could be bought. Why then may I ask was the word "Tickets" so prominently displayed above the counter. In a country that does not regard, officially or unofficially, English as a second language, for who, other than those of foreign extraction, could this sign be aimed at?
For the sake of the amazing, and seemingly largely undiscovered, beauty that can also be found here, I shall neglect to mention where these words are hammered out from. However, those that have also been here will surely recognise this land. Being away from the mundane humdrum of your own country for an extended period (or otherwise often) makes you appreciate, and deplore, elements of its very nature. Much like the experience one gets after returning to a room with an odor (unpleasant or not) it is the absence that makes the senses more keen. So now the question is begged, is England, (for having embarrassingly only ever travelled to Wales, I do not feel qualified to talk of Britain. In all fairness, I probably am under-qualified to even talk of England) a pleasant or unpleasant odour?
Well, this must of course remain a personal judgement, but I feel on the balance of things, if one really must be forced to draw a smell like parallel (and, alas, the blame for the leading of you down this path can only be placed on my shoulders), I would favour that of the English pub. The English pub has a unique smell, which is neither utterly repulsive nor attractive beyond doubt. There are times when one craves that stale beer and cigarettes smell like no other. Would it be going too far to describe this smell as a redeeming spirit? Probably, but spend time in LA, with its smoke free, ultra modern, supremely hygienically clean restaurants and bars, and then get back to me (but no intrepid reader, I am not in LA at the moment.).
However, as everyone knows (or suspects?) redemption is not absolute, and neither is this notion of the English pub smell. There must be times when the thought of it, or more likely, it, churns one's stomach, and makes one allude to notions such as going to a coffee house (hmmm). And we talk not only of those mornings after those nights before. The berating "could you finish your drinks please", the ridiculous closing hours, and the mixture of crazy men and scary women (sadly most often separately grouped) all are symptoms proving that the pub is most assuredly a microcosm of the English experience.
It draws you in, but at the same time you can never decide if this is really the place to be. Is an English pub really the pinnacle of human existence? It would seem on the balance of things that this is unlikely. Yet to extend the analogy even further (and perhaps completely loose sight of the original point. Which was...?) it is like a old pair of slippers. The ones you simply cannot bring yourself to throw out, even though they are falling to pieces. It takes your husband/wife, girlfriend/boyfriend, live-in-lover, or mum (perhaps dad), to remove them when you are off-guard. Of course a brief period of mourning follows. But can anyone say they still miss those slippers, or even remember what they look like, all these years later.
The smell of a pub is something that perhaps you miss only from time to time. The smell of a pub is something you can sicken of extremely quickly. Perhaps it is not the greatest example of what England has to offer the world. To be honest it would be marginally depressing if this was actually the high point of Englishness. However, in the final analysis sometimes you need to immerse yourself in familiarity. At other times you need to escape.
We love to hate, and we hate to love. Or something profound along those lines. In keeping with my earlier monologue on the excessiveness of my "grass is greener" complex, perhaps this is merely another case. What's my point? As I've supposed already, I fear I may have actually lost sight of it. Every writer at one point or another must talk about travel and their home country. Well this is my stab at understanding why we run away so quickly, yet then look over our shoulders, and wonder if we've not made a big mistake. I think I'm still talking about travel.
