My very own Ground Zero? Sainsbury's Car Park, Stanmore, North-West London, England!

Alright already, I'm sorry!
It seems that some of you didn't take too kindly to a being called 'a bunch of nutters' in this colyoom a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I never understand people who take things out of context simply in order to become outraged.
Yes, indeed I did say that a large chunk of the Irish population were a 'bunch of nutters', but then I went on to explain how, coming from me, that was a compliment.
But sure enough, there were the angry emails, flying into my inbox, the general theme of which was the horribly familiar cry of:
"If you don't like it here, go back to where you come from."
Sorry, lads, even if I wanted to, I can't, because I'm not sure where that is. Born in London, but only 2 generations British, and before that, who knows? One night many years ago, my much-loved recently-departed father was in his armchair, knocking back the scotch, when an item appeared on the news about Lithuania.
"Ah yes, that's where we are from!" he uttered in guttural croak.
"Really? But I thought you always said your side came from Germany?"
Having reached that point of his evening's drinking when it was more important to be right than accurate, he insisted his point by pointing at the tele with a swaying arm, and once more asserting,
"There. That's it. Where we come from."
Admittedly, when I mentioned this exchange to him many years later, he looked at me with utter amazement.
"Don't be ridiculous! I'd never say such a thing!"
But if you loved and respected Dad as I did and do, which Dad do you believe?
Add in the fact that I have spent far more adult years living outside England than in it; the fact that as a Jew, I resent and despise the historical and ethnic implications involved in being 'sent' from a country (especially from this country, which reflexively and ignorantly opposes everything about Israel) and you start to see why I don't know where is 'back'.
Anyway, my point is that I don't want to leave. I love living here.
If you only knew how I go on and on about loving my life in the west of Ireland whilst visiting my family and friends in England. There is something completely fascinating to me about belonging to two nations (three, if you count the Jewish Diaspora), particularly when the lucky winners are England and Ireland.
My countries share an uncomfortable history (a euphemism only an Englishman could use!), and (ex-Gaeilge!) a language. The really significant difference is population size, with Ireland having only 4 million lucky individuals, compared to 65 million English people having to get along with each other. Obviously, the English need different 'coping strategies', as they are wont to say these days; which brings me to my identity's very own Ground Zero: Sainsbury's Car Park in my family's North-West London suburb.
Underground, yellow-jacketed security men direct the traffic around in slow moving snakey jams, which come to a stop each time somebody finds a car leaving a space. The process requires good humour and patience, but the English are a warrior race, and soon enough, geezer in Ghia decides he's had enough, and swings around the wrong way, going against the arrows and all that is good, in order to 'alf-inch my parking spot.
Being now invested with Galway mentality, I smile and point and wave my hand, telling him in what I felt was more than reasonable mime that the space he coveted was mine.
Does he give a damn? Dropping a gear, he leaves tyre rubber on the car park concrete, and shoots his hatchback prematurely into my space.
Getting out of his car, he pushes his chin forward twice, like he's a Mitchell brother, staring at me, eager for me to 'ave a go if think I'm 'ard enough.
Despite knowing that a parking space is not really one of life's worthy causes, I am furious, and being a product of the same society as himself, want to beat him to a messy pulp of bone and gore.
But if I did that, how would I explain to my mum about the blood on her dry cleaning?
Instead I think back a few days, to a similar situation in the Claddagh.
I was just turning my car around so that I could slide into a parking space, when another car pulled up and started to park in my spot.
I waved my hands and smiled.
The bloke in the car waved his hand back, smiled, laughed a bit, pulled out of the space and drove off.
Of course I'm not saying that there are no aggressive arseholes in Ireland. What I am saying is that the chances of you getting into a physical fight over a parking space are infinitesimally smaller in this country than that.
The next morning I went down to the Maxol in Lower Salthill, my mind still severely tested from over-exuberance the night before. After visiting the cashpoint, I was walking to the garage shop, listening in the background to a rapid
'BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!'
'That sounds like a cashpoint machine with money hanging out of it.' thought I to myself. 'Oh shit! That is a cashpoint machine with money hanging out of it, and that money is mine! And if I don't get the money out in time, the machine will pull it back in, although it's already been deducted from my account, leaving me broke, with all hell to pay with the bank to make sure that I get my money back, and anyway, I need the bloomin' cash, right now, and-'
The beeping stopped. My heart sank. And then, from around the corner came a charming smiling local woman, clutching my cash.
"Oh hello! Is this yours? I thought I'd better grab it for you!"
To that woman, whoever you are, I say many thanks.
Thanks for being a wonderful warm trustworthy human being.
Thanks for restoring my faith in our species.
And thanks for reminding me why I live here.
Chances of that happening in England? Less than zero.
One country feels like my past, the other feels like my home; the rest of my life.
So sorry, you're stuck with me. And if that makes me a nutter, I'm sure you'll not hesitate to tell me.

We English are a polite bunch of pirates!

As time goes by, my relationship with the land of my birth becomes ever more complicated.
I'm sitting in a service station car park, off England's M11 motorway, a couple of miles away from London's Stansted Airport.
In a little while I'll drive off to meet the Snapper, who is flying in from Knock, so that we can attend her brother's 40th birthday party.
All around me there wails howls and cries a cacophony of sirens from the many fire engines, police cars and ambulances making their way towards the petrol station forecourt not 200 metres away.
The English blithely go about their business. Having happily lived in Ireland for many years, I now twitch and react to the sound of sirens, but I never used to.
When you're born into a city that has more than double the population of Ireland, you can't afford to worry about strangers that much.
England is not so much a country of 70 million people, but a collection of a million villages of 70 people.
That's how you survive.
To be fair, I'm probably a little sensitive to the sound of sirens at the moment as my father is once more in hospital. Originally herself and I were due to take this flight together, but I've already been here for a week, and a hard week at that.
Aye, a hard week.
The sunshine is baking the interior of my rental car, and I'm having trouble staying awake, so as soon as I'm inside the aiport I head off to buy a bucket of coffee.
The guy on the coffee station is having a terrible time, As his colleague yells constant and complex orders, ("Double skinny latte no foam! Medium double house blend non fat choccomochacino! Blend with a shot, caramel. Cappuccino nutmeg no choc grande to go!) he struggles to keep up.
He spills an entire jug of foamed milk. He runs out of beans and has to abandon his post to grind a new pack. None of his orders are written down, and all of us in the ever-lengthening queue know he has lost the plot.
As he hands me the wrong drink I thank him profusely, aware that on another day I'd dedicate the whole colyoom to an angry tirade about the entire debacle, but right now, in the order of things, I couldn't give a damn.
Evidently Grumpy Charlie Bear is the creation of easier times.
Collapsing into a chair that feels far to small, I finally breathe out.
Opening my eyes, I realise that I am part of a world full of people. The life and death decisions we have collectively made this week sucked me out of your universe, down into a wormhole of family intensity, and now I've been spat out, into the seating area of Costa Coffee in Stansted's International Arrivals Hall on Friday at 5 o'clock on a Bank Holiday weekend.
I smile at the little boy sitting at the table in front of me. He smiles back and we launch into a happy exchange. I wiggle my eyebrows and he roars with laughter.
I do it again and he laughs again.
His mummy stares at me with cold hatred as she assertively says
"Face this way Charlie! Look this way!"
My young namesake turns his happy head away from me as I feel overwhelmed with more sadness.
Sorry.
Forgot that strangers aren't allowed to make children laugh any more, especially if they are men.
Even though the place is packed, it is quiet and calm.
This is another side of the English. Away from the violent abrasive multi-siren-inducing thugs, enslavers and criminals, we are an attractive and amazing bunch.
We ooze poise and patience, and when not off invading countries and massacring and enslaving entire populations, we're exceptionally polite people.
All of a sudden young Charlie falls off his seat, landing headfirst with a loud and nauseating 'clunk'.
Just a tad selfish, I immediately think 'All I need! Now there's gonna be a screaming child at the next table!' but his mummy calmly picks him up and puts him back on his seat, wonderfully embarrassed at how we must all think her the most terrible mother on the planet, her head twitching in peer pressure agony from side to side.
Charlie is smiling, bouncing with joy, his rosy cheeks, blond hair and blue eyes so very English; just as his mummy is also perfectly English, with her dark brown hair, pale skin and hazel eyes; just as his daddy is also perfectly English with his dark skin, green eyes and curly black hair.
Yes, all so English, and for a moment, already brittle with emotion and exhaustion, I worry I might cry with a collective love of the English.
As I fight back the tears, I hear a deep male South African voice behind me mutter
"Yeh, Britain sure does get the lot!"
'Yeh!' think I, 'that is what I love about it!'
Before you get the hump, I love Ireland and the Irish too, and even though English extremists wallow in fascism, I long for the day when the Irish learn to love all our differences as much as the English have.
A couple of days later I'm once again immersed into my little self-indulgent debate about what it is to be English. The Snapper's friends have brought us out into the Essex countryside, where the leaves of ancient oak and majestic poplar glisten fresh green and silver. We are ensconced in a sixteenth century pub, which famously serves a traditional steak and kidney pudding.
The romance of my surrounding is just about to get me feeling all gooey about being English again, when behind me there once more rings out a deep guttural male voice;this time unmistakably Essex-London English (think drunk Ray Winstone at 3 in the morning):
" 'E's a prick, 'e is! 'E's a prick, 'e's a criminalŠ and 'e's a Spaniard!"
I almost choke with laughter. A Spaniard? Did that bloke just call someone a Spaniard! Okay, that's good enough for me. Mr. Essex wins this week's Award for Quintessential English Behaviour.
Whoever yer man's subject was, to you and me he would be Spanish.
But to that Englishman he's a Spaniard, with enough Francis Drake historical piratical baggage to make any Englishman stand proud, or cringe wincing.

cadley1@eircom.net