So, my time is almost up here on my trip of
wonder and discovery and let me be honest, am kinda glad. Yes it’s been fun but
am proper homesick. Homesick for me mates, for PROPER TEA (these Americans really don't have the hang of it), for rubbish Saturday
night telly and my mum (NB not for rain, I will never get homesick for British
weather!). I have met up with friends over here obviously, and a right pleasure
it was, but as much as I love them, and I do truly, it’s not HOME. Oh I know,
one ought not complain, and I am right lucky to have this time, and a trip to
sights not yet seen and places not yet been. And I know, it is true that travel
broadens the mind, and indeed can broaden the friend circle, and mine most
certainly has. Broadened the friend circle that is, not the mind so much,
though I did spend 2 weeks in San Francisco, not so much the place for
broadening the mind, more wildly expanding it (certainly as a rather wide eyed
hairy resident of Haight Ashbury excitedly assured me whilst exuberantly waving
around his smoking fist).
But don't pity me, after all, why would you? But into a slight homesick slump I have sloped and in doing so, some rather strange traits have emerged, not least a renewed passion for the fair old BBC's Radio 4. Called 'Radio For Old People' by one person whose views I instantaneously distain for reasons more than, but chiefly this, Radio 4 is my home from home on this 3 month mission of discovery, and what a lovely home it is.
Where else would you get a hour long history of the knife, a documentary about the last rites, a music quiz show covering everything from Abba to advert theme music all by way of Gershwin and somehow Ford Maddox Ford. And let us not forget, The Archers, the longest running, rural farming soap opera in the world (you mention that to an American and the look on their face is priceless), somehow Radio 4 always seems to represent home to me. It's a bastion of a long dead empire, reaching out across the oceans and mountains connecting us homesick Brits to a homeland that exists only within its Radio 4 imagery, a country jammed to the rafters with ship captains, sheep farmers, ruddy cheeked white men arguing politics at the crack of dawn, left wing media liberals and doddering dears with pressing queries about their begonias.
Now I have long been a fan of Radio 4, extraordinarily British, diverse, amusing, and sometimes just damned odd, I could go on (but I won't because frankly it has all been said before and probably much better) but a fan I remain. When I was a youth, epic car journeys were passed with the aid of long gone BBC radio dramas, including the fear inducing 1950s Sci Fi drama Journey into Space (imagine my 9 year old face pressed fearfully into the back of the drivers seat, dreading the oft repeated "Orders must be obeyed without question at all times" intoned by the frankly terrifying James Edward Whittaker) to the utterly brilliant 1980s adaptation of Lord of the Rings, which I still have on tape (despite there not being a tape player to be found anywhere in my flat). It was this which introduced me to the works of Tolkien and sparked a lifelong love for his work, and to which not even Peter Jackson's epic films can match up.
And let us not forget Alan Bennett's amazing storytelling, whose cassette tapes I had almost worn out by repeated listenings so when upon I once had the pleasure taking a phone call from The Man Himself, I assured him he had absolutely no need to tell me who he was as his voice was etched into my brain like no other. I am sure I sounded like a total geek, but when I proceeded to ring up my mum excitedly, almost falling off my office chair with joy, to tell her to whom I had just spoken, Mum was jealous, and I knew I was not alone, certainly not in the geekdom anyways.
As for where that leaves me now, well, although headed home soon and straight into the arms of my mum and my chums (for which I cannot wait), I am still in a land far away, and distant from those I love even with the mediums of skype, Facebook & Twitter to connect us. But it is Radio 4 that brings me closest to home, wrapped up in a cocoon of Britishness, safe in the knowledge that should ever my begonias stubbornly refuse to bloom, I'll know exactly where to go to remedy the problem.
But don't pity me, after all, why would you? But into a slight homesick slump I have sloped and in doing so, some rather strange traits have emerged, not least a renewed passion for the fair old BBC's Radio 4. Called 'Radio For Old People' by one person whose views I instantaneously distain for reasons more than, but chiefly this, Radio 4 is my home from home on this 3 month mission of discovery, and what a lovely home it is.
Where else would you get a hour long history of the knife, a documentary about the last rites, a music quiz show covering everything from Abba to advert theme music all by way of Gershwin and somehow Ford Maddox Ford. And let us not forget, The Archers, the longest running, rural farming soap opera in the world (you mention that to an American and the look on their face is priceless), somehow Radio 4 always seems to represent home to me. It's a bastion of a long dead empire, reaching out across the oceans and mountains connecting us homesick Brits to a homeland that exists only within its Radio 4 imagery, a country jammed to the rafters with ship captains, sheep farmers, ruddy cheeked white men arguing politics at the crack of dawn, left wing media liberals and doddering dears with pressing queries about their begonias.
Now I have long been a fan of Radio 4, extraordinarily British, diverse, amusing, and sometimes just damned odd, I could go on (but I won't because frankly it has all been said before and probably much better) but a fan I remain. When I was a youth, epic car journeys were passed with the aid of long gone BBC radio dramas, including the fear inducing 1950s Sci Fi drama Journey into Space (imagine my 9 year old face pressed fearfully into the back of the drivers seat, dreading the oft repeated "Orders must be obeyed without question at all times" intoned by the frankly terrifying James Edward Whittaker) to the utterly brilliant 1980s adaptation of Lord of the Rings, which I still have on tape (despite there not being a tape player to be found anywhere in my flat). It was this which introduced me to the works of Tolkien and sparked a lifelong love for his work, and to which not even Peter Jackson's epic films can match up.
And let us not forget Alan Bennett's amazing storytelling, whose cassette tapes I had almost worn out by repeated listenings so when upon I once had the pleasure taking a phone call from The Man Himself, I assured him he had absolutely no need to tell me who he was as his voice was etched into my brain like no other. I am sure I sounded like a total geek, but when I proceeded to ring up my mum excitedly, almost falling off my office chair with joy, to tell her to whom I had just spoken, Mum was jealous, and I knew I was not alone, certainly not in the geekdom anyways.
As for where that leaves me now, well, although headed home soon and straight into the arms of my mum and my chums (for which I cannot wait), I am still in a land far away, and distant from those I love even with the mediums of skype, Facebook & Twitter to connect us. But it is Radio 4 that brings me closest to home, wrapped up in a cocoon of Britishness, safe in the knowledge that should ever my begonias stubbornly refuse to bloom, I'll know exactly where to go to remedy the problem.
 |
| Home. Rain not included |
