I’m a terrible European. Unlike my parents, I only speak English, and have never lived in any European country outside of the UK. The world around me is overwhelmingly British and American: friends, TV programmes, films, books, social networks, news, politics, all of it. Years ago, when I visited Robert in California, he said that living in the US had made him discover his hidden ‘European’ identity: the things we have in common as opposed to the Americans. I really wish I could say the same for me, but it’s just not true.
I can think of lots of nice things to say about ‘Europe’ – the place, its people – but they are vague generalisations, and I lack any confidence that they apply in Hamburg as in Bucharest as in Rhodes or wherever. Yes, all national myths are fantasies: but my British fantasies are instinctive. I ‘know’ that Britain is a country like this, with a people like that, even if these assertions break down under serious scrutiny. It doesn’t matter. It’s about the identity, and the sense of belonging, not the facts.
It’s not even my mug
I’m thinking about this, obviously, because the date of the UK’s referendum on its membership of the European Union has been announced. As it happens, I should be in London on 23 June, so I will be able to vote in person. And while I do plan to think about it, and listen to the arguments, it’s very hard to imagine I won’t vote to stay. But I am surprised at how sad I feel about it – how obvious the hole is where my heartfelt sense of European identity should be.
And I don’t think this is just a British problem. Yes, of course it is true that Britain – the island nation – is uniquely detached from its neighbours. Of course those European countries who speak each other’s languages, and share borders, and still remember how easily armies marched across them, are driven to shared institutions with greater inevitability and less fuss. But I have yet to meet a French person who didn’t feel French, or a German who didn’t feel German. Maybe I am imposing my categories onto them, but Europe’s failure to respond to the great moral test of our time – the migration crisis – in anything like a coordinated fashion suggests that at the end of the day, the nation state still rules everything.
The campaign to remain in the EU likes to describe leaving as a jump in the dark for the UK. It would be, and I think it is motivated largely (though not entirely) by bad instincts and silly conceits. But in truth, a vote to stay is also a leap in the dark. Because we can’t go on like this. For the European Union to avoid paralysis whenever anything difficult comes up, there has to be some meaningful sense of European identity, some patriotic glue which holds people together in something more than a trade pact. I don’t think this means a United States of Europe, or that national identities are about to disappear, and any bureaucratic attempt to engineer a common culture will surely fail. Honestly, I find it hard to even imagine what the EU should look like. But I hope that a vote to remain gives us longer to figure it out.
Would I Lie To You? Yes.
It didn’t feel right to leave without remembering the night Todd and Carolyn came round to play Would I Lie To You? against me and Randi. Because they are some of my favourite Americans, for sure. And now, it’s off to the airport for the longest plane journey of my life…
The Railcar
Last weekend, Randi and I turned up to play The Railcar: an escape room adventure which was an inspired Christmas present for us from Tash. We didn’t escape the train – we got really close! – but we did succeed in saving the city of Chicago from certain disaster. And our friendly team of strangers proved pleasingly competent too. If this blog’s existing stream of escape room testimonials haven’t persuaded you to try one yet, then this is also highly recommended.
In other “people just give us tickets to stuff now” news, our first theatre trip of 2016 was Bruise Easy (thank you, Grace!), a play about two separated siblings who share an awkward reunion in Southern California. After my lovely Christmas in Malibu, this provided a much-needed corrective by insisting that all families there are really deeply miserable. To repay Grace’s generosity I invited her and Kevin round to catch up and enjoy Abbi’s sweet potato cottage pie (so deceptively easy the last time I made it) and promptly risked all our lives by using outdated vegetable broth. Maybe the gifts will stop once people learn how I repay them.
I blame Emily’s blog for inciting wanderlust, so I’ve spent the rest of my spare time so far this year sitting indoors booking trains, planes and snowmobiles…
There’s maybe a 50/50 chance I have seen The Merry Wives of Windsor. I have some memory of doing so, but it’s also quite possible I dreamt it, and there’s no record on this blog. If I did, it didn’t leave me with an abiding appreciation for Sir John Falstaff, which is a shame because Sir John is a great comic character: the fat, drunken, cowardly knight who is subject to endless practical jokes. (Originally the character was called John Oldcastle, but then one of his descendants complained, forcing Shakespeare to change the name and add an epilogue promising that any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, was purely coincidental.)
I bring this up in gratitude to Marti for inviting us to the Backroom Shakespeare Project’s take on Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2 mashed together) which, as the name suggests, takes place in a relaxed setting at the back of a pub and finally got me properly acquainted with Sir John. Chatting and wandering about among the audience is encouraged – which explains how I was able to scan Wikipedia for so many facts while trying to follow along with the plot – as is improvisation and levity up on stage. The result is a performance which simultaneously diverges from the original (I’m pretty sure Prince Hal didn’t always steal cheeseburgers) and more authentically recreates the rowdy and boisterous atmosphere of actual Elizabethan theatre. (I’m not a time-traveller, so I’m trusting in what we were taught in GCSE English.)
On the theme of authentic recreations, I should mention Star Wars: The Force Awakens which I saw with Randi, Nolan, Todd and Carolyn on Saturday. As a group, we ranged from “Star Wars was the most perfect movie from my childhood” to “I’ve never seen Star Wars before”, so it must be a good sign that everyone enjoyed themselves, and were still talking about it at Robert and Julie’s leaving party later that night. J.J. Abrams certainly has a gift for taking a tired old franchise and making it fun again. [Insert joke about taking on the presidential debates here. Seriously, though, they are not even fun anymore. Karol can attest to this.]
Salt-N-Pepa! (photo credit: Sheri Whitko Photography, flickr.com/photos/grouponcorporate/)
Left of centre
Other things: I fulfilled a life’s ambition I didn’t even know I had by seeing Salt-N-Pepa perform at Groupon’s 007-themed holiday party. It was especially nice to prelude this year’s party with a game of drinking Jenga at Todd’s. And speaking of drinking games, for Hanukkah we came up with an inspired game of dreidel which included shouts of “power gimel!” (two in a row) and then Hanukkah transfer tattoos.
Merry Chrismukkah!
Necessary alcohol (and it sure was necessary) was provided by Nisreen’s lightning-fast Bundle Club company, and in turn this reminded me that I hadn’t seen Nisreen in far too long, so we followed-up with a lunch to set the world to rights.
It’s a mahoosive one this year:
On a mission
And the whole way home I was terrified of being arrested and/or deported and/or shot and killed for ‘borrowing’ the cart. But it was totally worth it.
In other news, I was finally part of an escape room team which actually escaped a room! And a room menaced by a zombie, no less.
Very proud of team One Slaybook
Julie Nygaard on The countdown continues: all the visitors: “Just a note to say we are missing y’all here in Chicago as the weather finally turns to an acceptable…” Aug 25, 00:58
