For once the Atlantic comes up trumps...

It's been a strange few days for me. Being here while the UK is left hanging, waiting for a wink and a nod and a few fingers-crossed-behind-their-backs promises to tip the balance into a Tory government (albeit with a few Lib-Dem concessions, to be weaseled out of at a later date).

I feel more detached and more enamored with Obama with every new report on deals and coalitions and muddled-explanations of what exactly has happened/ could happen/ will happen and why.

I guess it doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of any of the political options right now. Me and the rest of my country it seems, since no consensus was reached. The conservatives keep saying that there's been a decisive rejection of Labour - I don't really see what's so decisive about a hung parliament, but whatever.

I was talking to a young republican recently (always a rare find here in Massachusetts) who, worried that I was unfamiliar with what a republican was, told me that they're kind of like UK conservatives...only different.

Good job I already knew what a republican was.

Because UK conservatives are different. This is by no means a defence of them, but they do try to hide their social-conservative tendencies. They'd be in a lot of trouble if they just came out and said that they don't have much time for gay people. Instead, they give tax breaks to the traditional-nuclear family and hold press interviews of unparalleled incompetence on gay rights issues (seriously - it'd give Palin a run for her money). And they don't align themselves with the Christian Right. Probably because there isn't one. Or if there is, it doesn't have much muscle. And besides championing the rights of people to chase foxes until they're exhausted and then have them torn limb from limb by dogs, they don't really speak of gun laws. And while they moan their heads off about the NHS, they wouldn't dare disband it.

Basically, UK conservatives are just that. UK conservatives. With all the reticence and reserve and feigned politeness that being British entails. Which actually leaves me more suspicious of them than I am of American conservatives - at least with them you know exactly what they are thinking. They shout it, with refrains of 'drill baby drill' and "baby killer" and the like. With UK conservatives, you get the impression that beneath the smirk and Eton polish they are carefully maneuvering their way towards an uncertain but definitely sinister goal.

As a semi-politically aware adult, I have yet to live in a conservative country. My one memory of Margaret Thatcher's policies (John Major just doesn't count) is that she discontinued the distribution of milk to primary schools - something I was disappointed about since I'd read all sorts of picture books where kids got milk with straws at break time. Never-mind that the law was passed before I was even born, or the fact that she did a lot worse than lessen the country's calcium intake, that's still my lasting-thatcher memory.

And now here we are, a few slimy steps away from a conservative government, and for once I'm glad of the distance that the Atlantic gives. My self-interested-master-plan is that Labour will now be forced to get its arse in gear, remember what its values are and be ready to take on Smarmeron in 5 years time. Right about when I'm planning on moving back to England and a couple of years before Obama will have to leave office (I'm working on the assumption that he's getting voted in again - I can't bear the alternative).

So, I'm alright. I just feel sorry for anyone living in England who is poor...or gay...or eastern-european....or a single parent...or an unmarried cohabiter...or principled... oops, didn't mean to say that out-loud. Gonna shut up now before I lose friends.

 So this is the choice we get. Appealing, huh?

Old New Friends

Today I met up with an old friend from (high) school. She got lost on her way to me so I waited for a while outside London Bridge tube station.

Never do this.

I was a sitting-duck for lost tourist and chuggers alike. However as well as doing my best impression of a good Samaritan, redirecting the lost tourists of London to their desired destinations (and, as usual, suppressing the urge to send them into the depths of Elephant and Castle), I also discovered the best answer anyone can give to a chancing chugger who says they're "not asking you for money - just your name and address so we can send you some literature":

"I don't have an address."

"What?" (looks me up and down to check he hasn't chugged a rough sleeper by accident)

"No address we can send stuff to?" (presumably I don't look like one, although I was wearing fingerless gloves)

"No."

And then he was gone. And I didn't even lie. Brilliant.


So I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my long lost friend showed up.

We had a Good London Day (opposed to a Bad London Day which generally involves things like work and smelly people and rain and occasionally inadvisedly worn ballet pumps) - it was sunny and crisp and there was coffee followed by multiple small pieces of cheese and brownie and ham and spicy chili spread, followed by a rather large Styrofoam cup of hot spiced cider (the real English-with- alcohol-kind. Not the crap you get in US Starbucks'...which is yummy, but less fun), followed by a tipsy walk along the river, followed by topped-potato-wedges lunch in Giraffe, followed by shoe shopping and finished with hot chocolate. A better combination of beverages and activities I challenge you to find.

The last time I can properly remember spending time with the longlostfriend was right before I flew to America to visit Jeremy and she was about to go off and gap-year in Africa. We were sat on my bed in Somerton talking about Love and the future and various moral dilemmas (turns out we both went with the funner, less moral option). Cut to 6.5 years later and there's rather a lot to catch up on.

So I feel like today I've given out an edited (for brevity's rather than secrecy's sake ) history of my adult life, and have received a recounted history in return. It's strange to recap on major events to someone who probably most keenly remembers me as having poofy mushroom hair and painting my face white to mimic Ariel from the Tempest (for a school drama, not just for the hell of it) and pretending to shoot my maths teacher from the back of the class. It casts a whole old light on things and I can see all the recountable events of my recent-ish life adding up and standing next to this old poofy-haired version of me and happily it makes comfortable sense (thankfully my hair has moved on...most days).

I love how with some people, the connection and kinship is there whether you see them often or not (the writing of this blog was interrupted by a phone call from another long-lost-but-since-well-recovered friend, who I haven't seen in months but who can make me laugh and relax in an instant). It gives me hope. Because I know that in moving I am not losing these special people in my life (that's not to say you all have permission to go and become long-lost on the basis that I'll find you again in the far-off-future - I'm expecting multiple visits, phone calls and presents [yes, presents]) - that when I see them and speak to them the sparkle of shared history and fondness of mutual-understanding will be there without question.

I just hope that if, in the distant and dimly-planned future, we leave the states to live in England that I'll be leaving with this same knowledge of friendships enduring, that I'll have built up shared histories and kinships, that the Atlantic will have stopped feeling like a barrier and instead feel like a link to the two worlds.

Ha, what schmaltz. Who am I kidding? It's always going to be a bloody barrier. But hopefully I'll be happy whichever side of it I'm on.