It’s about 9am in London now at the time I start to write this.
I’m not going to have a formula for any of my posts here, but I guess I should say a little something about why I started this.
First I had an idea for a food blog, then a TV blog, then a tea blog, and now a personal blog. I had to somehow combine them. And then I thought: I like blogs where the person is being funny while still honest, and narrative while still rambling a bit. I had to find the one thing I could be brutally and unflinchingly honest about, while still remaining humorous and maybe even informative, yet still having a point of view.
And then it came to me.
I’ve never been to England, Great Britain, The United Kingdom, Across The Pond, Old Blighty, or any of the others ways I’m going to refer to it. For the most part, aside from my Welsh first name, I’ve got no real connections there. And before I was about 9 years old, I had never even met anyone from there.
[For those of you keeping score, I was in third grade and his name was Graham. He was VERY tall and blonde and only stayed in my primary school until the middle of the following year, when he inexplicably disappeared, only to return later in the form of nostalgic mentions in yearbook signings.]
So where did this fascination come from? Why am I so fascinated with the territory, its culture, its community, or even I daresay, its cuisine?
It all started when I was 11. I can’t remember what brought it on. I had watched some TV shows from England, seen films with English actors, and tried fish and chips before, but somewhere between age 11 and 12, it began.
I became fascinated with all things British. Union Jacks started appearing in my room: wallets, pins, stickers. I had to watch TV with English actors so I could emulate their accents. I needed to know what a quid was, how I could find one, and how many dollars it equaled. But most of all, I needed their food.
All. The. Time.
This meant junk food in the mind of an 11-year-old, but it also meant an obsession with tea, scones, Heinz beans, clotted cream, crisps, and all the different recipes I could lay my hands on.
And on it went. With the internet came access to British music, more TV, more movies, more culture. And it’s never stopped.
I’ve tried to explain it to people who I meet and it usually is difficult to explain and maybe that’s why I think this is a good topic. The short answer is that I think the English have a way of doing thins “better” than the Americans, but that’s cheating. Like giving an answer without really answering the question.
Maybe this is what Lady Gaga meant when she wrote Born This Way.
I don’t know how to not love all things British. Granted, there are personalities i could do without and topics I don’t understand, but I think that on the whole, that world just makes more sense to me.
I’m going to try to write in this every day about how my Anglophilia stretches into my daily life and why I find England and its surrounding territories so wonderful. And maybe this title will inspire some future posts, but I don’t like sticking to themes, so I’m not bothered.
I’ve never been to Britain, but maybe someday, when I do get there…I’ll actually know why I’ve wanted to go for the past 16 years.
Never Been To Britain 