All posts by Beth

I'm a Canadian crochet-obsessed mum living in the UK who used to make a living teaching English to teenagers. Current distractions: babies, baking and baby sign language!
Politics

What makes a citizen?

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OK – time to get a bit serious here. For those of you that don’t know (and I’m sure there are some Canadians among you), today is Election Day in Canada. If it seems like it’s come around again rather quickly (for those of you that were paying attention!), that’s because it has – the last government was a minority government and a non-confidence vote was called, hence the early election.

And I have to say that despite being Canadian, that is all I know about it. I had even forgotten that there was an election in Canada until Richard looked up my friend Carla’s blog and found a posting on it. Mom did tell me the last time I spoke to her, but it slipped my mind. Which is a shame, since if the Conservatives win, it’ll be the first time in history that Canada has a Prime Mininster from western Canada – Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party, is from Calgary.

I do feel guilty that I don’t stay in touch with Canadian politics – mind you, I didn’t really stay in touch with Canadian politics when I lived there, except for the bits that concerned me. I do feel that I’m more politically aware since I’ve been living in the UK, but that may also be because Richard is rather aware of political trends, and, hey – I live with the guy. I’ve got to pick up on some things…

But that did get me thinking – who do I owe my allegiance to?

Sure, I have a Canadian passport, and those who know me know that I am quite proud to be Canadian (cue beer advert here…). But – I live in the UK. I pay taxes here. I contribute to the education of UK young people. I drive on the left side of the road. I still haven’t got used to warm beer (or beer of any sort, really…) but I think that’s probably a minor point. I can sing ‘God Save the Queen’ and I attend a Church of England church. I’m even contemplating becoming a clergy-person in said church. Any of my Canadian friends can tell you that my vocabulary is slowly changing, even if my accent isn’t. I think I officially got rid of the last t-shirt I bought in Canada last week. So why do I need to vote in the Canadian election?

I can see the argument – I have a duty to do so because that’s where I was born, and I should take responsibility for the running of ‘my’ country. But who am I to stick my nose in? I hear a very bitty version of the political situation when I talk to my parents (the recent BSE situation and the political reaction to it hit them rather hard, being cattle farmers) but as to the wider views, I really haven’t a clue. So what right do I have to put my two cents in and vote? I will say that I vote regulary here in the UK – being a member of the Commonwealth I don’t have to wait for a passport to do this – and I do think that those people who don’t vote have no right to complain about the government. But I do it because it’s relevant to my life right now, not my parent’s lives or a life I had five years ago.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not knocking the people like Carla who keep abreast of the political situation in their home country and vote regularly there. But I can’t see the relevance it has to my life here and now. To me it’s holding onto the past, and I’ve got a pretty good present and future to look forward to, thank-you-very-much.

Just one thing I’m annoyed with – it’s going to cost me £312 to become a British citizen. That includes the test to demonstrate knowledge of life in the UK (£34) and the book you need to pass it (£9.99). And yes, they make you go through the citizenship ceremony, and then make you pay for it…

Update:

Canadian Election Results:

Conservatives – 124 seats
Liberals – 103 seats
Bloc Quebecois – 51 seats
New Democratic Party – 29 seats
Independant – 1 seat

This means the Conservatives form the new government, but it, too is a minority government. It also means that an MP from Alberta is PM for the first time ever…

Writing

Poetry – but No Toast!

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Taking into account the comments from a friend, here is a toast-free posting…

The toast haiku did get me thinking, however, and I unearthed a notebook that I used in university to copy down poems that struck me at the time. What’s incredible is that they all seem to be less than 10 lines (with the exception of a William Carlos Williams poem – which is 12). But what fascinates me, I think, is how much feeling and emotion you can get from just a few lines of poetry. Here’s one of my all-time faves:

In a Station at the Metro

The apparition of these faces in a crowd –
Petals on a wet, black bough.

– Ezra Pound

Pound was an American poet, and this poem ‘struck me between the eyes’, as it were, when I first read it at uni. It felt true, as if I’d just discovered something important – that you don’t have to use a thousand words to explain an experience, but that just a small, but important, image will do. Pound explained it himself, comparing his work to Asian forms of poetry such as haiku.

And I continued to find short poems with a powerful image interesting. My favourite of the afore-mentioned William Carlos Williams is this:

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

For me, it evokes the sweetness (and sometime frustration) of married life – you come home to discover that Your Beloved has eaten the chocolate bar you’ve been saving, etc (except he never has – he has this very annoying habit of not snacking between meals…) , but also the sharp sweetness of the plums against your teeth, and the coldness hitting the roof of your mouth on a hot day. I also love that the title is so integral to the meaning of the poem – it gives the rest of it context, and without it the resonances of the relationship would be non-existant, or at least changed.

But haiku also can evoke the same kind of reaction. One of my favourites is from a Croatian poet, Darko Plazanin. (I did a search earlier, and there seem to be a lot of Croatian poets who write haiku – similarities in the language, perhaps?? ) My understanding is that haiku is supposed to recall an image, but also embody an emotion or link to humanity’s condition. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!) This seemed to evoke a wonder, as well as a feeling of – futility perphaps? –

After the storm
a boy wipes the sky
from the tables.

– Darko Plazanin

Here’s another that I found today:

Waterfall roaring –
though the sparrow sings unheard –
still he keeps singing.

– James Kirkup

How many different ways has that sentiment been expressed? And yet, it still seems to give new insight.

So, since this whole post has been about expressing emotion in poetry, I suppose I should leave you with one of my own. Please don’t laugh – but also, feel free to comment if you wish.

Cold night lurks outside
freezing all in its piercing grip.
Heart still in my chest

– Beth Peat

Toast

Toast Haiku

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Thank you, O Dr Toast!

You have merged my two passions! Toast and poetry – poetry and toast – how could I have lived without such eloquence at breakfast? (And the occasional slice of cinnamon toast in the early evening?)

This is for you:

(ahem…)

Cinnamon

Sugar and spices
Meld with the warm buttery
Crunch – ecstatic bite!

(But my offering is so little – check out the Doc’s wurdz…)

Toast

YEAH, TOAST!

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I blame Jasper Fforde.

It was in the back of ‘The Big Over Easy‘ that I first discovered the comic properties of toast. His advert for the Toast Marketing Board really did make me laugh out loud.

And then, while harmlessly shopping for an amusing card for a friend, I discovered Edward Monkton and his Interesting Thoughts on toast.

And now this.

It’s amazing what Google allows you to discover – this is perhaps why it is one of the best search engines in the world – but I’d like to you try this:

1. Open another window (so you can do this and still read the instructions, of course…)

2. Go to Google.

3. Type in ‘toast’. (Yes, I may be crazy, but it’s necessary. I’m a teacher. I teach English to teenagers. It’s a requirement. Just humour me.)

4. Hit the ‘return’ key.

One of the things you are likely to find, once you get past all the pictures of Jesus on toast, is a link to Comedyhome.com, on which you will find a little flash animated cartoon called ‘Toast‘. Inventive use of the machine, I will say…

By the way, if you are ever stuck without a toaster, the Internet always has a solution. Try The Toast Shop – six different varieties of Toast by Post, all for a modest charge…

Beth's Reading Log, Books

Toast – Not Just for Breakfast Anymore…

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I decided to get ‘Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger’ by the TV chef Nigel Slater for a couple of reasons – first, I seem to have this obsession with toast recently – see The Interesting Thoughts of Edward Monkton and Jasper Fforde’s creations – but also I thought perhaps it would be good to read a biography, as I’ve been rather obsessed with fiction lately. And it got good reviews on Amazon, so, hey…

I was both intrigued by the writing style and saddened by the story. Because of his culinary interest, the book is not written in a general ‘when I was 6, this happened…’ style, but is broken down into memories centred around food. It starts with a memory about toast – seemingly the most perfect food, according to Slater – but charts his relationship with food as it relates to his mother (who was a horrible cook, apparently), through the tensions in his relationship with his father, and to the competitive nature of his relationship with his stepmother. Although the memories are grouped in generally chronological order, there is no sense of a continuous narrative. To me, this meant that it always seemed fresh, and was never boring.

But neither was it always comfortable. Slater did not have a terribly happy childhood. His mother died, presumably from asthma although it is never stated directly, when he was about 10. What I found crushingly sad was that he wasn’t even allowed to go to the funeral – he wasn’t even told it was happening. He was packed off to his aunt’s house, and brought home again when it was all over. No wonder his relationship with his father was strained! And although the reader can sympathise with the way his father actively sought companionship after his wife’s death, you ache for the boy Nigel as he is pushed aside in favour of the not-so-fairy tale wicked-ish stepmother.

Toast: The Story of a Boy\'s Hunger

What I found disturbing (although I do hate to admit it – I’ve obviously led a sheltered life…) were the overt sexual references throughout the book. There were a few rather dodgy experiences with uncles or men that worked at the house – Nigel must have been a vulnerable target, as he was the youngest by far in a household with an ill parent – but also the frankness with which he describes his sexual experiences during and after completing culinary college and during his first jobs gave me pause a few times. It’s not graphic – he does have a way of being frank, but not explicit in his descriptions – but it did make me feel uncomfortable to think that people felt they had to behave like that. Like I said – sheltered life, me.

So – verdict? I enjoyed the style, as I found it refreshing not to be a diary or chronology but rather a genuine collection of memories, although – as is realistic, if you tell the truth – I did find some of the content difficult and heart-wrenching. But that’s life isn’t it? Not everyone lives a fairy tale…