West Country & Windsor

Fægen ealra hālgena mæssedæg!*

(*and mind you, that's English)

My life here in Bloomsbury has by now taken shape as definite and orderly as the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. However, right now there's slight flaw in the picture: the zombie invasion of London is roaring out in the streets and that is good enough reason for me to spend most of this Monday (which also happens to be the official day of All Hallows Eve here on the island) at home writing once again some more stuff about my life, the universe and everything.

1. West Country


Last time I promised some more information about Glastonbury, Bristol and of West Country in general. My trip to Bristol turned out to be as great as I could have ever hoped for but, unfortunately, I also bite bit more than I could chew. My aim and idea was to experience nothing more and nothing less but a simple weekend without any fuss or touristy merchandise ("while in Bristol do as the Bristolians do"). In the West Country capital I enjoyed the company and hospitality of my friends Ian and Alice. Among many other interesting things I got to see and experience in Bristol one thing was definitely above all else: football!

I spend better part of my Saturday afternoon on a common (a word which here means non-private) football field watching a game between two local Bristolian football clubs: the Easton Cowboys vs. the Jersey Rangers. Frankly speaking the game itself wasn't really awe-inspiring but it was, after all, genuine passionate English football. So I decided to stay and watch. And once I had joined the supporters the passion of the cheering fellows around me and the seriousness and the shouts (never mind the swearing) of the eagle-eyed yet humorous coach hooked me completely to the course of the game. Furthermore, the game wasn't that clean or courtly at any stage. At times it turned out even quite nasty but this fact only contributed to the overall excitement I suddenly had for the game (was this notion a positive thing or not I leave for you to judge).

Here's a picture for you. At this point the situation is still 1 -1 (second round just started). The Easton Cowboys (that's the one we're supporting) play with yellow tops and black bits and the Jersey Rangers play in blue. Here we have Easton Cowboys building up an offence and my friend Ian climbing up (on the left) right after an effective pass.  

I had first planned to watch only the first round but when the intermission came I simply couldn't leave. The situation was 1 - 1. First goal was done by Cowboys and it was almost sublimely beautiful or at least very classical. The only goal the Rangers were able to score was done by mere force and luck (they literally drove themselves with the ball right into the goal). The game ended 2 - 1 for the Cowboys after one more successful and consistent offensive, which, to tell you the truth, did not happen very often during the match.

After the game and all the smells of the dressing room we continued to a pub called the Plough. The pub claims to be the finest boozer in Bristol and it has been the home and sponsor of the Easton Cowboys since the club was founded. Here at Plough I learned that it's not "just" football that keeps the club and its member going. There is in fact somewhat wholesome idea or an ethos behind it. Here's a piece for you:

The Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls are a club who recognise the fundamental equality of all people, irrespective of age, class, culture, disability, gender, race, religion, or sexuality. We seek to enjoy sport as part of strengthening local and international solidarity, performing to the best of our potential, and enjoying being part of a team.

Don't know about you but some of that vocabulary or lexicon in this paragraph makes me feel good and very optimistic about the whole concept of football community. On this note I must underline that the idea of English football in my personal perspective has so far been bogged down to boneheads and hooligans. This match (followed by the pub session) served to teach me a good lesson about football and life in Britain in general.

In the evening we headed to a famous Bristol music club called Canteen. In addition to West Country cider, beer and rum (West Country has almost throughout its history been connected with smuggling and piracy, hence yarr! belongs to the lexicon of the local dialect) we enjoyed some groovy live music preformed by a Namibian-born bass player Willie Mbuende. Together with some local jazz musicians Mbuende provided the crowd with some great Afro-Caribbean music. Almost needless to say I enjoyed my evening even more than my afternoon session (judging from my consumption of liqueur) and came to regret it the next day.

One more thing worth sharing from my trip to Bristol is my new fancy (or rather obsession) for a certain yeast extract. First morning in Bristol I got a great breakfast with toast, scrambled eggs and something completely strange and new: Marmite (one more peculiarity of Britons that goes to proof my regeneration to become one.)! They claim that people can either love it or hate it but not be neutral about it. But honestly my first Marmite sandwich (with scrambled eggs and handsome amount of butter) left me positively surprise but not really graving for more. But ever since I bought a jar of Marmite at my local Sainsbury's and made some classic cucumber sandwiches with this extract I'm always left with a hunger for some more. If you are not familiar with this product I would like to suggest for you to try it. Here's a picture and a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmite.

2. Windsor

This weekend I decided to stay closer to home (and, admittedly, to take it more easy). On Saturday I, Ville & Vallu made a day trip to Windsor in order to pay homage to Her Majesty the Queen. Unfortunately she wasn't there to meet us and in fact had preferred to get as far away from us as possible (for some reason she had fled to the British Siberia aka Australia). Honestly speaking there wasn't really anything special in Windsor except perhaps the castle but the entrance price even for a student was 15£. Needless to say we didn't go there. Moreover, I must add that this "tourists are money" custom has taken the world by storm but I would argue that never and nowhere else has this idea more effectively been put to action than in United Kingdom.

Soon we found our way out of the town of Windsor (absolutely crammed with hordes of tourists from all around the globe) onto the Long Walk: straight as an arrow pedestrian walkway with Windsor Castle in the one end of it and the equestrian statue (Roman style!) of king George III the Mad German or "The King Who Lost America" in the other. Walk to the statue is about three miles and it took us almost an hour to get there. We paused on the top the hill, enjoyed the scenery only to discover that we had in fact reached the Northern part of the Windsor Great Park or what used to be the private hunting ground of Windsor Castle.

Positively surprised both by the beautiful weather, autumnal wind and our relative solitude we decided to go roaming around the park. This one afternoon brought me closer to Mother Nature than I had so far been during this whole period of time here in Britain. Consequently, we took our time wondering around the lush fields, the woods and vast open fields with few paths and roads. In short we discovered ourselves in the Shire. Here's picture of us (the three hobbits) in one of the woods drinking some cheap cider:

I enjoyed myself thoroughly just walking around breathing this fresh countryside air not further than just few miles away from London. When we finally reached Windsor I made yet an other plunge into British cuisine (steak and ale pie with a pint of local porter). By now I feel myself confident enough to say that the local food is no haute cuisine but it is proper decent home food none the less and personally I know nothing better than proper decent home food. After all that culinary on the Southern side of the Alps is also just an other adaptation of basic home food. The question is: do we really prefer sun-dried tomatoes, olives and wines drier than Sahara over crisp apples, berries and proper hop brews? I think "Pop" Larkin would agree with me and with my choice: I'll stick with my native transalpine cuisine and culture. Here's a toast to sauerkraut, soup and beer!

And now I'm off to learn some more Esperanto!

La via en rapidemo,

-Stefan

PS. As you might remember I'm off to Scotland soon so it might well be that you won't hear from me for a while. I'm still eager for any suggestion as to what I should write about here. I'm planning on writing a text about Britishness (as requested) and also about a certain course I'm currently taking at SSEES considering the living dead. :[

There is a Green Hill Far Away...

As I might have pointed out already I'm currently living the most interesting period of my life so far. So forgive me if I do get a bit carried away or if it seems that I've even got an overdose of euphoria while writing this. After all, I've finally emigrated to a climate where I do not have to suffer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) on regular basis and thus have no excuse for being grumpy or gloomy. I really feel that I've done already enough whining on this blog so now it's high time for me to take you on a tour through the best bits of my life here in London. Let us start!

1. The Yerfaslav Inklings
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Many of you might be familiar with a certain group of informal literary discussion associated with the Oxford University. This particular group was called the Inklings. You might have heard of them (if not then shame on you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings). Well, in order to honour their legacy a small group of UCL affiliate students has now officially formed an unofficial group of informal academic discussion which meets ever Wednesday at the Jeremy Bentham (or the Old Jerry) pub. Less fancifully expressed me and my two friends (Ville & Vallu) got this idea on a day trip to the Stonehenge and Bath about two weeks ago. Here's a picture from that trip with both Vallu & Ville in it.

And what's in the name? Why Yerfaslav? Well, as you might have guessed, it is indeed sort of an anagram from our names (and 'fa' stands for Stefan).

2. The Oxford Pilgrimage

On this trip to the Stonehenge and Bath it was proposed that we should do a similar visit to Oxford and to pay homage to Tolkien in his home town. The Yerfaslav Inklings met for the first time last week in order to prepare for this trip which turned out to be quite a success. Among other things we befriended a Moldavian guy with exquisitely ragged sense of humour, drank real ale at the original Inklings home pub the Eagle and the Child (or the Bird and the Baby as the Inklings called it), ended up in a fancy dress party (at some guy's house) of freshmen from the New College of Oxford University and finally - got hammered. We returned to London on a night bus and were at home around 6 am. Needless to say I was very thirsty next afternoon (once I woke up). Here's a cheerful picture and a somewhat grim reminder from our epic journey to Oxford. 

(psst! it says: Remember what happened to the dinosaurs!)

 3. Life in a dormitory

Even if the rent is quite steep in Bloomsbury my bachelors way of life allows me some everyday treats like this brand new haute cuisine invention of mine. I'm not quite sure how to call this dish. It does have a codename though. It's the buckwheat surprise! After you learn what's in it I hope you could give me some proposals as to how to call this treat.

The Ingredients:

a) half a cup of buckwheat
b) 8-12 pieces of sausage OR tofu
c) one good sized onion
d) 4-7 champignon mushrooms
e) two eggs
f) some sour cream (if you have any) + spices

Procedure:

Basically there's nothing much to this. You take a small saucepan where you boil the buckwheat for a quarter of an hour (remember to spice it up with salt or butter). Then you take a biggish frying pan and start frying the rest of the (by now sliced!) components starting from the sausages or the tofu (depending whether you're vegetarian or not!) and continuing with the onion and mushrooms. Once the buckwheat is ready through it into the frying pan with the rest of the ingredients. When most of the moisture has boiled away you add the eggs in order to get more doughy feeling to this dish. Make sure the eggs are well scrambled (in fact you shouldn't be able to tell that there are any). As you must know the eggs also make any food much more substantial so personally I wouldn't leave them out even if I were a vegetarian (well okay, ovovegetarian!). N.B. tofu takes quite a while to fry up so, please, just trust me: you don't want to end up with underdone tofu in your mouth. Be patient.

And here we have the less photogenic picture of this thoroughly bachelor style food:

4. All the things awaiting

In two weeks time my girlfriend will come over to London! We've got many ideas how to spend the weekend of a lifetime in this city but let it suffice to say that there's a punk rock concert of Flogging Molly (boyah!) and some nocturnal wandering included. Right after her departure I'm off to my first proper holiday away from London. I'm going to the Outer Hebrides to visit an old friend of mine. He lives with his wife in the quite little village of Grosebay on the Isle of Harris. Just today I received a call from him confirming that they are looking forward meeting me in the Stornoway harbour. I can hardly believe that after these four long years of studying and working I'm actually going back to the sites of those old euphoric days.

5. ... I'm going back there one fine day!

But tomorrow I'm leaving London for Bristol! There I'm going to stay with my two CS friends I met and befriended this summer in Moscow. One of my them is originally from the smallest city in England called Wells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells) and on a day trip there I'm also going to re-experience by favourite town in all West Country: Glastonbury! There are many things I could tell you about Glastonbury based on my last visit there. One things is sure: it is probably the best place in all of England to smoke some pipe, to taste some local cider and I'll probably return with a backpack full of bottles filled with the water from the Chalice Well (btw, what kind of an Atheist does that make me tough?). I'll tell you more once I get back. Okay?

Yours in high expectations,

-Stefan 

PS. Now instead of a picture I'll share a song with you to demonstrate properly this ongoing euphoria of mine (the song deals very much with the idea of god but please note that all references to any god are completely unintentional here):

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Glastonbury Song - The Waterboys

I dreamed myself from the sultry plains to the old green square back in old Maybole
Rode the wind up to Stornoway paused at the peak, pacified my soul
Caught the bus at the faery fort made it to the mansion on the Boyne
See I come around to the ancient ways I took a tip from the Buddha boy

I just found god, I just found god, I just found god where he always was

We came down from the hill of dreams Bernadette, mother earth and you and me
Through Carraroe, down the wild wood side blinding our eyes in the shallow seas
Drank fire with the King of the Blues, plugged in to the medicine way
Took a long last look at Crazy Horse push now for a golden age

I just found god, I just found god, I just found god where he always was

I found myself on the roof of the world just waiting for to get my wings
Strange angel in the changing light said "Brother, you forgot something!"
My heart beat from the inside out so lucky just to be alive!
Can you tell what I'm talking about? Any day now the Sun's gonna rise!

I just found god, I just found god
I just found god where he always was
I just found god where he always was

There is a green hill far away I'm going back there one fine day.
There is a green hill far away I'm going back there one fine day!

Some Peculiarities of the Perfidious Albion

"Гдѣ Англичанинъ, тамъ коварство и корысть!... «Царствія небеснаго нѣтъ», закричалъ, умирая, несчастный невѣрующій... «А если бы оно было, такъ англичане давно бы туда пробрались и заняли всѣ мѣста»." - Писемскій

I've finally decided to gather some thoughts of the past few weeks here in London. I might as well start with the most obvious and important remark: Great Britain is indeed an island. Yeah, I know, you knew this, didn't you? Well then, you might as well noticed that the people living on any isles tend to have certain necessity to hedge and differ themselves not just from the continent but from the rest of the world. I'm not a Briton and it's yet difficult for me to say where exactly does this phenomenon derive from but as a friend of mine already suggested I'm going to study this question more closely, observe my environment and try to come up with some answers about what makes Britain tick and indeed - what does it mean to be British? Is Britishness just an other national myth or does it still exist outside of Buckingham and Windsor? But these questions will have to wait for different time and occasion. This text is once more all about me.

Well then! Let's start from the beginning. On my first week here at UCL I paid a compulsory visit to NHS clinic here on UCL's central campus in order to register for the National Health Service (for which I am eligible for because I'll be staying here for more than those six required months). At the doctor's reception I was told that I'm both smoker and a drinker. This, to be honest, came quite as blow to me: never in my life would I have though that drinking approximately three pints of ale about once in a week or smoking some pipe tobacco approximately twice in a month is a serious threat to my health. It so happens that in Britain the consumption of alcohol is measured in units. Naturally one would presume that one pint of beer equals to one unit of liqueur (well that is what I first thought) but in fact one pint is two units of alcohol. The official NHS recommendation is four units (that is two pints) per drinking session. Smoking, according to NHS, is completely unacceptable in any amount. I am perfectly aware that both drinking and smoking are rather unhealthy but then again - what is life without some indulgence? And then again, as the Irish say, you will never leave this world alive.

There's more. The most tedious thing about Britain, as I see it, is the complete commercialization of all things possible and impossible. I suppose one example should be enough: I visited the Victoria & Albert museum already a while ago and among other things decided to see the additional exhibition of post-modern art. At some point of that exhibition there was a film with some music by Eurythmics ('Sweet dreams are made of this' etc.) there and I wasn't really surprised to see this. After all the group was considered to be very much post-modern already when they started back in the 80's. However, the thing that did surprise me almost beyond belief was the sight when I left the exhibition and came out into the lobby: the museum shop was completely without proportions. Among other things you could buy the full discography of Eurythmics there. I wonder: since when has haute culture been synonym to merchandise?

There's still something else that has been bothering me. Yesterday I visited the British Museum with a CS friend of mine. There was nothing British there. To tell the truth this British pompousness about and pride for their Imperialist past is slowly getting to my nerves. Well, to be honest I somewhat understand this 'brilliant' thing these islanders have and it goes like this: "we are a small nation state with glorious past, spectacular present and great future" but to me it still sounds like yet another magnificent vision of the Third Rome.

The actual studying at UCL is great. This is not really due the simple fact that this university is one of the best universities in the UK (it's usually ranked in the top three or top five) but rather due to the way the courses are conducted. Only one third part of actual course consists of sitting on lectures and writing down your notes - almost two third part of the course is spent on tutorials (active discussion in small groups with the professor or doctor who is rapidly bombarding the students with questions in order to keep the debate intense). Naturally on every course you have to write two or three essays and undertake an exam in the end of the year.
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To be completely honest I expected bit less work since I'm merely an affiliate student but then again UCL is not really a university for Erasmus programme. On one hand UCL (as I suppose) is merely taking part in the EU student exchange programme in order to send their third year students abroad without too many difficulties or bureaucracy.  On the other hand those students who come to study in UCL as affiliate students are expected to work the same amount as normal undergraduates (mind you the freshmen have it more easy though). When I get back to my home university in Finland I ought to get about 60 credits in return for only seven courses. Considering the amount of work here at UCL I think that the deal is rather fair.
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Now then. I've saved the best bit for the last (and I promise there's no more whining involved) because during these last few weeks I've become positively obsessed with something completely and definitely British: the world's longest running science fiction TV series - the Doctor Who. Seeing that I've gone as far as ordering a CD of Timelord (that's to say Doctor Who related) rock with my brand new British Visa debit card I dare to say my obsession has reached a chronic stage. Here's a piece of music for you (mind the link):

Travelling man... Such secrets to be told.
Alien man... Running from the days of old.
Out of his world, with nothing left to lose.
Travelling man... Coming down to rescue you.

I can finish this long text with the only logical and obvious conclusion: regardless of my whining and cynicism I'm slowly becoming more and more British. I do enjoy my life here and by now I'm beginning to understand this truly global city and country. There are more peculiarities to Britain and if you would like me to relate more about them I will oblige gladly.

And tomorrow I'm off to Oxford to do some Tolkien pilgrimage with my two very good friends Ville (Guillermo) and Vallu (Václav)!

Yours on the Road that goes ever on and on,

-Stefan

PS. Here's a peculiar dessert for you: