Margo's off to a site visit for a project shes working on today so asked me on the tube this morning if i would write a blog entry! so apologies if it isnt up to scratch!
so the topic is relationships, in particular country to country relationships. Margo forwarded some statistics i think her mom sent her which were quite interesting and in it it spoke about the UK's special relationship with the US. Now we both questioned this special relationship on the tube together - yes we have some interesting convos! (dont mention when i started talking about convection and conduction before bed one night and by the time id finished margo was pretty much asleep!) Anyways coming from a UK perspective i think the UK has many relationships with other countries in the world - i guess the main ones would be the commonwealth - like in particular Australia. There is also Europe - now Europe is an interesting topic...like many including some senior politicians in Germany and France and the UK would want to make it the United States of Europe and in my uneducated opinion this is probably the only way Europe will have any political say after the rise of China and maybe India with the US as world powers in the future. However it is very unlikely to happen in my life time mainly due to history. Anyways today the UK's relationship with Europe is interesting. I am very pro europe but many are not - for some reason many don't want the single currency because the currency will lose our national identity - i'm like so what! it is not your currency that makes you who you are...but anyways we are still very close to countries in Europe, especially if you listened to what the french president said beneth huge paintings of the battle of Waterloo and Trafalgar in London a couple weeks ago!
but then there is always this relatinship with the US. Now i think there is a relationship there but i would question whether it was 'special'. I know culturally we are definatley closer to parts of America than parts of Europe but this is probably due to language. I'm not sure its an interesting one. I think it is important though that both the UK and the US continue to be good friends....
i'll stop now as its getting a bit boring and id better start work!
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Anglo Mango and Busy Miss Lizzie
The true story of what happens when I stop being in America, and start getting English.
Anglo Mango and Busy Miss Lizzie
Hello!
The Anglo Timeline
- September 2006 - Arrive in Southampton
- October 2006 - Start course
- February 2007 - Amsterdam Passport Incident
- May 2007 - Start dating Mark
- June 2007 - Finish taught course
- September 2007 - Move to London
- September 2007 - Start work
- December 2007 - Turn in dissertation
- February 2008 - Visa extended
- June 2008 - Move to second London place
- October 2008 - Move to new work group
- January 2009 - Move into new flat
Visits & Travels
- September 2006 - London
- October 2006 - Winchester, Salisbury, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth
- December 2006 - Oxford, Chichester
- February 2007 - Kelly and MA visit, New Forest, Bath, Amsterdam
- March 2007 - Brighton
- April 2007 - Family visit, Lisa visit, Bournemouth, Edinburgh, Beaulieu, Uttoxeter
- May 2007 - Madrid!
- June/July 2007 - Portland, Seattle
- December 2007 - Portland
- February 2008 - Munich
- March 2008 - Canterbury, Switzerland
- April/ May 2008 - Family visit, Paris, Seattle
- July 2008 - Edinburgh
- August 2008 - Kari visit, Dublin, Malahide
- Novermber/December 2008 - Portland, Las Vegas
- February 2009 - Barcelona
8 comments:
In my mind, if the relationship really was 'special' we would get respective breaks going into each others' countries! Like some sort of express line at customs... although I did beat Mark at Heathrow the other day as the EU folk vastly out-numbered the 'all other countries' folk!
Getting into the states is like taking your driving test its just scary! and i speak the language...i think the first time i went over they thought i was some guy on the FBIs most wanted list who was called Mark Turner - even though i was 16 and he was like 40!
I met an attorney at a party. I don't remember his name, but it happened that he had the same name AND birth date of a know international criminal. The Canadians actually held this poor man at gun point! Not sure how he got out of that one.
I also met a family where the dad and the 14 year old daughter have their names on the terrorist watch list. They said flying is quite the ordeal for them.
If anyone is interested, you can read the survey of Anglo-Saxon attitudes: a survey of British and American views of the world. It was done by The Economist.
I think Churchill started the whole "special relationship" thing between the U.S. and the U.K. So it's really a political thing, and doesn't seem to carry over into anything practical, and of course common sense doesn't enter into the "relationship" at all!
Churchill was recently voted the greatest Briton ever in a bbc national poll - beating people like Darwin, Brunel and Newton!
Isn't Churchill really a bit of a special relationship all in himself? I recall seeing somewhere that his father was English and his mother was actually American, which in my mind would explain why he would claim a certain closeness between the nations...
I went to Churchill High School. I think that makes me special.
i went to churchers high school - so close but yet so far!
Post a Comment