My idea...

I can't say I ever envisioned myself composing a blog, but graduate student life being what it is, I have a lot of time I need to kill avoiding work.

In all seriousness, this blog may not get updated that often as the demands of the dissertation fall heavier upon me, but I was inspired into action in the past few weeks by some long standing issues and a couple of events.

I am horribly addicted to political coverage. I have been a political person from the point that I ran in a school mock-election at the age of 9, and there are many old ladies from my parents' church back in Wales who remember my actively political youth and are still convinced that I will still become Prime Minister some day. Anyway, the point is that I've become engrossed by presidential politics - from a decidedly partisan angle I will admit. This little obsession of mine constantly highlights to me the distinctions between British and American life and it also tends to illicit countless heated discussions with my intelligent and sagacious wife that go something like this recent conversation:

Paul: "Why are they building yet more banks along Monticello Avenue. I mean, what are they going to do when they eventually come to their senses and merge all these Bank of Podunk entities into a few normal banks? There'll be a mass of derelict buildings!"
Meg: "Why do you assume that they want to merge them all together?"
Paul: "Well, it is just obvious... I mean why do I want to pay ATM fees when I drive more than 20 miles from my house, and big banks make everything so much more convenient in Britain..."
Meg: "Perhaps people like personal service, they are worried about big faceless banks, and besides, they are addressing ATM problems by slowly reducing fees."
Paul: "Yeah, but a few big banks is just the obvious way forward." (You can see I abandoned logic right here!)
Meg: "Why do you assume that everything should or will end up looking like it does in Britain?"

You can see what scintillating conversations Meg and I have on our average car journey! But the bigger point is that after more than 4 years of living in Virginia, a loyalty the Maryland Terrapins, The Orioles and the Baltimore Ravens, a taste for biscuits and barbecue, and even a tendency to say "its all good" occasionally, I am still ultimately a British Ex-pat. I still get the unnerving feeling occasionally that things are going on around me that I can neither appreciate nor fully understand, and I still constantly bombard my innocent wife with an endless stream of "but why...?" questions, rather like an excruciatingly annoying five year old.

But all this doesn't explain why I have decided to inflict these dubious ruminations upon the world in the form of an occasional blog. The root of that is two fold. Firstly, I was inspired by picking up a Bill Bryson book after a long hiatus of contact with his work. For those who don't know Bryson, he's an American journalist who lived in the UK for many years and wrote travel books about America, Europe, and a few other places, with a devious wit and insight that I've never found elsewhere. Anyway, in his more recent book "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" he compiles articles he wrote for a British newspaper after moving back to New Hampshire in the mid-nineties. This is a wonderful book and I'd recommend it to everyone as far more enlightening than anything I might have to say.

However, Bryson's thoughtful and comic portrayal of his transition back into American life - focusing on the little details of everyday existence - was thrown into sharp contrast for me this week by an article I found on the website of the London Times. It was responding to a storm in a teacup controversy created by British comedian Russel Brand made unpleasant comments about George Bush and the Jonas Brothers, and was roundly condemned by the American conservative world for doing so. This article stood up to defend Brand and his admittedly patronising style of comedy and to debate the differences between American and British life. The author, India Knight, asserted that Britain and America have "so much common ground and yet such oceans between us."

The problem was that Ms. Knight was helplessly, perhaps unconsciously, drowning in that very ocean. Her understanding of America, and I fear many Britains' understanding, was that there is New York and California and then some other bit in the middle. Meg was obviously most enraged by India Knight, and for once I was actually kinda hot under the collar myself, especially when I thought back and compared her writing to Bill Bryson.

So, all of this is by way of a long introduction to say that I intend to wade courageously into that deep pond that separates Britain and America, and to try to use personal experiences and personal perspectives to nuance these distinctions; and perhaps even to entertain anyone and everyone who cares to read my ramblings about cultural differences and being self-consciously British in America.

Of course my caveats here are:
I am a Christian, and although that won't make me unable to comment on differences between Christian cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, it will make me somewhat bias - I happen to believe that a culture in which most people attend church (however rotely), seek God, and attempt to maintain at least a veil of public morality, is a better way to live.
I am married to an America and a guest in a foreign country - basically I'll try to stay away from overt criticism of American life.
I am an old fashioned Social Democrat (One of my first observations can be that I hate the American catch-all "Liberal" - please ask me why some time!), decidedly left-of-centre on the American scale, and fighting in my free time for the Obama campaign, so don't expect political neutrality from me - it's more than I could humanely manage.

I hope I can offer something interesting, or at very least that some people might read what I write out of a sense of friendly obligation - Meg says she will, but I'm not chalking up one reader quite yet!