I’m back from the Pacific Northwest – a little worse for wear (unattractive sneezing and coughing abounds) but with a satisfied feeling of successful travel and the smug afterglow of being moved into United’s ‘Economy Plus’ seats on the way home.
So, Seattle first. The home of Starbucks and Amazon, as well as the famous Pike Place Market, one unexpected thing which we noticed immediately was that its inhabitants can be a little… blunt, let’s say. I grew up in London, and no-one there ever hung up my call on the apartment entryphone in order to let themselves in first.
Not that this stopped us from enjoying the city, and we packed in the obvious tourist destinations: dinner in the Space Needle, taking the ferry to Bainbridge island, touring the EMP Museum (see Dalek, below) and the Central Library. Together with newly-minted Seattle resident (and not at all rude) Michele, I also checked out the Northwest Folklife festival which happened to be on: think handmade “SAVE THE BEES” t-shirts on Greenpeace activists, fun music and a strong smell of pot. (Less predictably, you can also buy jewellery there which is made from ammunition. It takes all sorts.)
Birthplace of Starbucks, Seattle is known for its coffee shops
Coupley photo in Japanese garden #1
Jatherine
“Wait, I’m not actually in shot, am I?”
A concerning discovery
I love this fountain. So do young children, clearly.
Arty shot of the Space Needle from Chihuly Garden and Glass (stolen from Randi)
For the second half, we caught an early Amtrak train down to Portland. (I miss trains.) Portland had an unexpectedly spread-out feel, but still with plenty of parks, green spaces and easy walking. “OUR FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL”, announced large letters in one window we passed, “OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT”. We found fewer obvious landmarks to photograph, but kept eating delicious food: a particular shout-out to Salt & Straw, whose rhubarb crumble ice-cream is something special.
Coupley photo in Japanese garden #2
Don’t just visit nature: photograph nature, in case it disappears or something
The four of us at Mt. Tabor Park
Some people have described the Northwest as their favourite corner of America. It’s not mine, but I can see why it might be. Both cities are certainly well worth a visit!
Campaign Finance Reform! In game form!
For Randi’s birthday on Sunday, I thought it would be fun to make a video game. (That might sound crazy, but she thought it would be fun to run a half-marathon: at least my craziness can be done sitting down.) To do this I chose Construct 2, a lovely bit of software from London-based start-up Scirra. It took a couple of weeks to get the whole thing done, but the learning curve is gentle and the basics quickly understood. If you’ve ever had the itch to make a game yourself, this is an easy yet flexible way of doing so.
I still get tingles from the power of the tools available to us today. It’s something I see with the kids I mentor with, too – with a little effort, it’s remarkably easy to quickly pull together a project which would have required feats of organisation and specialist equipment in the past. I can just about remember doing a primary school assignment on Greece, say, with an out-of-date edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, a Compton’s CD-ROM and possibly a colour printer if it wasn’t out of ink.
This makes me sound so old, I know.
Collect cash, beat turtles, avoid cars, kill zombies and more
Tomorrow night we embark on a long Memorial Day weekend to the West Coast, knocking out two more states from my travel list. I can’t promise to get to 50, but I can try 😀
Well.
Five years ago, I posted some photos of the election night drinking and party games we kept busy with as the unhappy outcome rolled forward. So in the spirit of consistency:
Trying to explain to Jason why we weren’t all that interested in Plaid Cymru
Exit poll sadness
As the night wore on, some imported British chocolate became necessary
Cameron cracks a gag about being a One Nation Tory
Last time I also managed to see the positive side. It’s not something I can really repeat this time. It’s almost the worst possible result: a Tory majority, but not so big that Cameron won’t be beholden to the madder fringes of his backbenchers, and with no moderating influence. The Scottish rift will be used to further cement Conservative power in England, if it doesn’t end the Union entirely. And in two years, we’ll teeter on the brink of isolation from Europe. Quite frankly, it’s enough to sit in exile in the US for a while…
At least Galloway’s gone.
It was fun introducing Americans to some of the stalwarts of British general elections on the BBC: David Dimbleby, public constituency counts, joyously absurd graphics (the Lib Dem house of cards a particular favourite this time around) and lost deposits. (One unfortunate Lib Dem candidate in Essex secured a miserable 80 votes: surely you’d just know more than that in person?) I also realised that all three constituencies I’ve lived in are now Labour, which says something for the happier circles I inhabit. London Independence Party, anyone?
Very much enjoyed seeing John in The Upstairs Concierge last week. It didn’t get great reviews, but I was just so pleased and so ready to see a farce again – and I even followed along with most of the baseball references!
Speaking of farce – it’s almost time for the UK election. Five years ago I posted my first general election vote and crossed my fingers it would actually get there, and this time around I’ll be relying on my mother to vote by proxy on my behalf. (I’ll have to take it on trust that she doesn’t slip up and accidentally vote for UKIP or something.) I’m still looking forward to the day when I can actually do it the ‘proper’ way with a pencil and a cross and a cheerful looking volunteer at the polling station who’s just pleased that someone has turned up, but – in compensation – I do get the nerdish excitement at six extra hours of BBC election night coverage before I give up and go to sleep. Thank you, timezones.
With less than a week to go, then, here are some thoughts:
- I am pleased with Ed Miliband’s performance in this campaign, especially against a tough (although pleasingly sharp) crowd on Question Time the other night. I especially respect his refusal to give in to the EU referendum bandwagon – the ‘trust the people’ soundbite is comfortable to say, but it’s also disingenuous. In a representative system, politicians should stand on a platform and argue for something. And if you really believe that a one-off referendum on the status quo trumps all other issues, don’t vote Labour. Otherwise, I urge you to give him another look.
- Watching the debates from the US, it’s a particular point of pride that – despite our many, many faults – a consensus for universal healthcare, free at the point of use, still prevails in British politics. Let’s never ruin this.
- If we are permanently in an era of multi-party politics, then the Westminster system must adapt. I’m not really sure whether this will be intrinsically ‘better’ or not, but it’s just a statement of fact: just as individual votes must be respected, then general patterns of voting must change things too. More devolution of power and budgets – not just to Scotland, but to English cities – should be part of the answer here.
Incidentally, if you check the sidebar of this blog, you’ll now see ‘anniversary posts’ from the eleven (as of last Monday) years of blogging archives. Easy nostalgia, and part of my motivation for writing this: it’ll serve as a useful reminder to future-me of what I was hoping for this time around. We’ll see.
Finally – my family lost someone very close to them last week. It’s been weighing on my mind, and I will miss her terribly. It feels a strange thing to write that for someone I barely knew, but with some people you just feel the goodness, and the fun, and the kindness. Di was someone like that – someone whose presence enticed teenage-me me to stick around and pull up a stool when my parents ‘had friends over’, because she was always worth the time. My thoughts are with her family.
I know it seems like I’ve spent all of April having religious experiences, but that is not exactly true. A few weeks back I saw Bleachers (not a religious experience, although they did have two drummers, which is a plus) and had brunch at Karol’s (not a religious experience either, although he does have a large map of the world on the wall of his apartment, which is both a plus and a great way to learn about odd little islands in the middle of the ocean which Britain still owns).
Randi and I also enjoyed watching Caius power through to win University Challenge: not just my alma mater, but a team featuring my long-lost college brother Michael! I count myself as having a good episode when I can get up to 5 correct answers, so I didn’t appreciate Will Self popping out at the end to scold viewers at home for not “taking account of the mental agility involved” to play in person. I am taking account of the mental agility, Will, and I am noting it primarily in comparison to my own incompetence.
More non-religious experiences: being treated to dinner by Sharon, who once hosted me in Washington DC many years ago when my main priority in America was to watch new episodes of The Simpsons, and seeing both Balm in Gilead and Eyes of a Thief. The former is a 1965 play following the daily rhythms of social outcasts in and around a boisterous New York café. Hard to get into at first – with lots of unconventional staging, a huge cast and overlapping dialogue – but I enjoyed the second half more.
The latter was Palestine’s Academy Awards entry this year, and I saw it with Katie as part of the Chicago Palestine FIlm Festival last night. Apparently it got some flak for ‘glorifying violence’ – it doesn’t, really, although I do find the main character a bit clean-cut and perfect given his dark past. The director said some interesting things in the Q&A about making him Christian, rather than Muslim, to emphasise Palestine’s struggle as a national rather than a religious one. That as may be, the real message of the film for me was how striking the landscape looks when you watch characters motorbike through it. It almost makes me want to visit.
But I will leave this disjointed and meandering blog post with a different kind of beauty:
One sure-fire moving team
That’s one power-team of U-Haul stackers right there. Go team.
Beth E . Dubowe-Lawrence on China, Part 3: Chongqing & Chengdu: “Again an awesome adventure to share this with you” Apr 21, 19:13
