Okay so a lot has happened since I last wrote in my blog over a week ago.. Well I need to finish my Barcelona trip story, the week that occurred after, my equally as amazing as Barcelona trip to Scotland and then this week as well. So I have two weeks worth of updates to do. Anyhow I am going to do Barcelona in somewhat detail (as I wrote down an itinery of what I actually did) the week inbetween briefly and the Scotland trip in real detail and the week after briefly as I don’t have all the time in the world to write this blog and I actually think no one is reading it… If you are tell me ;-)… This blog is more a treat to me for later in life… Also a note, I am starting to drink Stella Artois while doing this update and in British fashion am listening to the fab four; the Beatles J.
Okay so Saturday I wake up at the crack of noon. The girls are either still sleeping or have left to explore and Brandon and Marshall have already went out to explore the town. So myself, Mark, Jason and George all get ready and then go out to explore the town.
First stop we go and take a look at an oldschool church that just put me in awe. I do not recall the name of it but I have it on a greeting card and when I find the greeting card I find I’ll be sure to put the name of it either in this blog or my facebook pics.
We then went to a Chinese resturante where we didn’t have as much trouble ordering because the food menu was in Spanish and English. Best egg roll I have ever ate. We then went around the town and were real tourists. Jason or Mark, can’t recall who at this point went on a popsicle binge. It was quite funny. We looked at little souniver shops and what not and looked around the town. Just beautiful.
We saw this like, ski lift over the city in the far distance and decided we needed to go on it to snap the great photos it would have provided and prob. Spent about two hours finding it, and walked past the docks and a lot of cool stuff including a huge statue of Christopher Columbus pointing out toward “The New World”.
We got to the ski lift thing which looked cool but had about an hour and ½ line and it was getting late so we walked to the commercial beach next to it and sat around for a few minutes before heading back. The guys laid down to catch some rest and I decided to explore some more and went “speedo” shopping when I found a cool little shopping district that felt very “Spanishy” because all of the shops were close together and people crammed in in what felt like a 1400s shopping experience (with modern stuff) in todays world. I bought a shirt which I wore out later in the night.
I went back, showered up and we all went out to look for a cheap dinner place. We ended up splitting up with 3 from the group going to a tapas place and the rest going to a sea food place and I spent 35 euros on my meal… YIKES!!! Very expensive place. Hard to find a cheap place when you can’t speak the native tongue. Anyhow, I had shrimp and I do have to say it was the best shrimp I ever had, I also had a few glasses of Sangra, however you spell it.
After we all met up again the girls, Mark and Jason went to the club and the rest of us went and found a small pub, chilled out for a few drinks and then went back in for the night.
Sunday was a rather shorter day because myself, Brandon and George needed to get to the airport where we were spending the night because our plane left first thing in the morning so we could get to work or class early. Kaite came with us as we went to the bus station to get tickets because her plane leaves Sunday night as opposed to Monday morning. Everyone else’s plane leaves Monday afternoon.
So George, Brandon Katie and I goto the bus station and get tickets to the airport, Katie leaves right away and then Brandon, George and I walk about town and kill time because we do not need to take our bus until like 6.
We do some photo ops, and chill around a beach for a bit but no one goes into the ocean due to having to be on a bus in alittle bit. The beach isn’t a nude beach persay but a lot of girls go nude and they for the most part are so-so… Their was also this one nasty as nude dude, so gross…. Luckily for me 99% of the nudes were chicks…
Anyhow we have lunch and go explore the mall a little for air conditioning, look at the little booths people have set outside selling over priced souvineers and then go to our bus and goto the airport.
While in the airport we see if we can get on an earlier flight and the reply is nada. So George and I start buying bottles of wine (bad idea right). So we sit and have dinner in the airport and see Katie who we assume shes getting ready for her flight when she explains that she booked her return flight two weeks from now on accident and is now on our flight (that we each payed only like 60 Euros for our round trip) for a whooping 500 Euros because of the short notice… Wow, that sucks…
Anyhow the four of us drank wine as Brandon gave in to the drinking and Katie started, I’m pretty sure I may have blacked out.
So in Monday morning I go onto the plane, take a train to where I stay in London, get to my politics class like 40 minutes late hung over… But all was good as the professor is cool.
Monday is boring, eat lunch, clean, take a nap… Monday night’s internship class is by St. Paul’s Cathedral and the prof. takes us around central London and the finical district. Showed some really old and narrow streets that date back to the great fire London had and some great background of the city. I forgot my camera and am honestly a bit errked but its all stuff I’ve seen before or will see again. That reminds me I’ve been trying to see Westmister for a few weeks and haven’t yet, that I do need to see…
So Tuesday I have history class, we are reminded that our oral reports are due in a week. Jason and I are partners. Do random shit during the day and then at night I go and see Phantom of the Oprea. It is amazing… That’s all I can say…
Phantom in London, the original production. Better than Toronto in 6th grade… Better acting, better singing, better performance… It was amazing. I love Phantom of the Opera, always have always will… ‘nuff said on that. PS-Theatre is very Londonish!!
Wednesday I can do in a nutshell because all I did is work at my internship besides my lunch (at the fish shop with the crazy dude I talked about earlier and surly will talk about again). Here goes Wednesday: Go to work. Extremely busy day. Go to fish shack with crazy guy for lunch. Go home, work on Oral Report on Battle of Somme w/Jason
Go to bed early because not feeling good. Take Nyquil at 11 and set alarm for 7.
I could go into detail of what our report was on, but I’ll save that to next week when I actually go over the report. Anyhow by this time its coming close to when I go to Scotland… Thursday was a bland day as well… But Thursday night at 11pm I leave on a busride to Scotland where Caitlin Coast and I would have a three day tour…
Wake up at 8:30. Have to rush to get to work. Average day. Go home, put briefcase on table and then go shopping for a backpack. Found clothes on clearance so bought a much needed sweat shirt, and a few really nice shirts that were normally 80 pounds for 5-10 pounds on clearance. Great success. Came home, struggled with internet to get Caitlin Coast’s number and got ready for Scotland. Long bus ride, little sleep…
Until Next time… Peace. Sorry for doing the updates briefer than normal, Scotland will be indepth, hopefully.
Thursday, 11 October 2007
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Driving on the RIGHT side of the road... A Barcelona Dream!
So Thursday night I got two hours of sleep and then myself and all of my flatmates but Marshall (who had a different flight) went to the airport, it was about an hour away from where we live so we needed to take a night taxi and a bus.
Once in the airport we went though customs and I got to hear Mark and Brandon do “Jerky Boys” impressions, haven’t heard the CDs but they seem hilarious, you tube ‘em. Anyhow we meet up with three of the six girls coming along. Katie, Tess and another girl.
So we go on Ryan Air and then once in Spain we have another hour bus ride to get to Barcelona and to get to our hostel. The first thing you notice when you are in Spain is that you feel a lot safer in a Spanish vehicle as they drive on the same side of the road as we do in America, its relaxing.
Oh and before we could get on that bus we needed to go through customs, that was fun. My Spanish is horrible, three years of Spanish for nothing. I should have paid attention in class. Senora Dirta and Forster would be so upset with me.
Anyhow so we arrive in Barcelona and then need to get on the tube to where we are staying and everything is in Spanish. George, who by now is known as the great navigator because he can always get everywhere seemed to even had trouble as we tried to figure out how to get from point A to point B on the tube since it all was in Spanish. We met a dude from Texas or New Mexico or something who knew Spanish and ironically was staying at the same hostel as us so he was a big help and a lot of fun to party with later in the night.
Getting our tube passes was a riot. The lady was so frustrated as we tried to order three day passes, “Tres dias” lol… She hated our guts, we all couldn’t order right and halve of us got the wrong thing. Luckily I ended up getting the right one which makes up for my pass being eating by the machine in a few days.
So soon we got to the Hostel.
Barcelona Dream, that’s the name of the hostel. It was a lot nicer than the one in Liverpool as the internet was free and the 12 of us (Myself, Jay, Mark, Marshall, George, Brandon and a group of six girls) all ended up in the same room. So we check in, put our bags in our closets and lock them and then go out to get lunch. Its about 1:00pm by now.
Lunch was a disaster. Kate, who is a vegetarian and also has worse luck than me tried ordering vegetarian food and got lamb. My hamburger was barely cooked and the food came late… The waitress hated us all… But on the bright side the food was cheaper than in America and so was the beer. Hip-hip hooray for that.
Anyhow so we soon go to the grocery market, get buckets, ice and a couple cases of beer. We go back to the hostel and meet up with Marshall and the other girls, get in our swim stuff and walk to the beach.
We have a great time. Not too hot, not too cold. This beach is small and there are very few people on this particular one. We all sit around on the beach and drink some Astrella Damm or some kind of beer that tastes strangely like American Light and all get shitty.
Myself and some went into the Mediterranean sea. It was really cold but refreshing. It was weird… No sun lotion needed and the sand wasn’t hot yet the astrosphere wasn’t too cold. It was like perfect.
So as we chilled out on the beach soon someone pointed out that their was a group of five airplanes doing loops in the air and stunts. They were obviously practicing but it was an amazing show.
So we all started to get shitty as we started drinking at like 3 or 4pm if not earlier. Soon some Spanish guys were doing flips and we went over and took a video of them doing the flips with promises of putting it on You Tube. Anyhow, I tried doing a flip and failed… Good times…
So we go back to the hostel, shower, get ready for the night and then go out to down town Barcelona. We scout out the night clubs and buy cans of beer on the street as we walk and find places to drink. I’m pretty drunk by now.
Barcelona is insane… So many people out partying… People with facepaint on the streets dressed as shadows (and one of the girls in the group made out with one of these statues, I’ll keep her name hush hush so not to embarrass her more than she was).
Anyhow so we all find this nice bar and sit outside, get served beers and I start to fall asleep…. And keep waking up. So I finally pass out a lil and someone buys me a red bull and everything is okay.
It wasn’t so much that I was too drunk but it was the fact I only slept two hours the night before and could not sleep on the flight because I was in the middle seat and couldn’t get comfortable. So I was tired. Anyhow we all walked to a night club and the manager said I couldn’t go in (in Spanish) so I was told not to, we go and look for other night clubs to no luck and come back. I’m wearing an American Eagle T-shirt that’s brown and white and looks the same inside out or normal. I decide to take it off since I have a t-shirt on and try and get in the club with the white t-shirt anyhow the girls told me to just turn my shirt inside out and being drunk I did.
So we went to get back in the night club and I just about did before they told me no. I honestly don’t think I was that drunk, it was more that I was tired and initially was told no. Anyhow, Marshall said he was tired as well so him and I headed back over the tubes and went into the Barcelona Dream at 2am… The tubes closed and everyone else had a bunch of trouble getting home that night, some not getting home to 6am.
Also before we went out my tube card was eaten by the machine… Which was a pain. I tried talking to someone the next day but they didn’t understand English so I had to spend 10 euros to get a new pass (like 13 dollars or something like that).
Anyhow, if the first day was a mix between the beach and drinking the following day… Saturday was me being the biggest possible fucking tourist and having one of the best days of the entire trip and I can honestly say that I 100% did not get drunk (though I did get buzzed).
But seeing how it is 11:58, Saturday and Sunday of the trip will need updated tomorrow or the next day. I also actually need to update up to the current day before Thursday night because I’m going to Scotland to see Nessy and Caitlin Coast. So, Wed I have to work on a project but am going to try and get Saturday done and then Thursday I’ll try and get the rest of the week done.
Then I’ll update about Scotland and try and get more regular updates and talk about British culture. Adios… (That is Spanish btw).
Also, in my next update I’m going to give a good fortay into Spanish culture as we really got out their and experienced it on Saturday with a bunch of tourism and talking to locals… I’ll tell you about the words I had to use and what I learned!
Once in the airport we went though customs and I got to hear Mark and Brandon do “Jerky Boys” impressions, haven’t heard the CDs but they seem hilarious, you tube ‘em. Anyhow we meet up with three of the six girls coming along. Katie, Tess and another girl.
So we go on Ryan Air and then once in Spain we have another hour bus ride to get to Barcelona and to get to our hostel. The first thing you notice when you are in Spain is that you feel a lot safer in a Spanish vehicle as they drive on the same side of the road as we do in America, its relaxing.
Oh and before we could get on that bus we needed to go through customs, that was fun. My Spanish is horrible, three years of Spanish for nothing. I should have paid attention in class. Senora Dirta and Forster would be so upset with me.
Anyhow so we arrive in Barcelona and then need to get on the tube to where we are staying and everything is in Spanish. George, who by now is known as the great navigator because he can always get everywhere seemed to even had trouble as we tried to figure out how to get from point A to point B on the tube since it all was in Spanish. We met a dude from Texas or New Mexico or something who knew Spanish and ironically was staying at the same hostel as us so he was a big help and a lot of fun to party with later in the night.
Getting our tube passes was a riot. The lady was so frustrated as we tried to order three day passes, “Tres dias” lol… She hated our guts, we all couldn’t order right and halve of us got the wrong thing. Luckily I ended up getting the right one which makes up for my pass being eating by the machine in a few days.
So soon we got to the Hostel.
Barcelona Dream, that’s the name of the hostel. It was a lot nicer than the one in Liverpool as the internet was free and the 12 of us (Myself, Jay, Mark, Marshall, George, Brandon and a group of six girls) all ended up in the same room. So we check in, put our bags in our closets and lock them and then go out to get lunch. Its about 1:00pm by now.
Lunch was a disaster. Kate, who is a vegetarian and also has worse luck than me tried ordering vegetarian food and got lamb. My hamburger was barely cooked and the food came late… The waitress hated us all… But on the bright side the food was cheaper than in America and so was the beer. Hip-hip hooray for that.
Anyhow so we soon go to the grocery market, get buckets, ice and a couple cases of beer. We go back to the hostel and meet up with Marshall and the other girls, get in our swim stuff and walk to the beach.
We have a great time. Not too hot, not too cold. This beach is small and there are very few people on this particular one. We all sit around on the beach and drink some Astrella Damm or some kind of beer that tastes strangely like American Light and all get shitty.
Myself and some went into the Mediterranean sea. It was really cold but refreshing. It was weird… No sun lotion needed and the sand wasn’t hot yet the astrosphere wasn’t too cold. It was like perfect.
So as we chilled out on the beach soon someone pointed out that their was a group of five airplanes doing loops in the air and stunts. They were obviously practicing but it was an amazing show.
So we all started to get shitty as we started drinking at like 3 or 4pm if not earlier. Soon some Spanish guys were doing flips and we went over and took a video of them doing the flips with promises of putting it on You Tube. Anyhow, I tried doing a flip and failed… Good times…
So we go back to the hostel, shower, get ready for the night and then go out to down town Barcelona. We scout out the night clubs and buy cans of beer on the street as we walk and find places to drink. I’m pretty drunk by now.
Barcelona is insane… So many people out partying… People with facepaint on the streets dressed as shadows (and one of the girls in the group made out with one of these statues, I’ll keep her name hush hush so not to embarrass her more than she was).
Anyhow so we all find this nice bar and sit outside, get served beers and I start to fall asleep…. And keep waking up. So I finally pass out a lil and someone buys me a red bull and everything is okay.
It wasn’t so much that I was too drunk but it was the fact I only slept two hours the night before and could not sleep on the flight because I was in the middle seat and couldn’t get comfortable. So I was tired. Anyhow we all walked to a night club and the manager said I couldn’t go in (in Spanish) so I was told not to, we go and look for other night clubs to no luck and come back. I’m wearing an American Eagle T-shirt that’s brown and white and looks the same inside out or normal. I decide to take it off since I have a t-shirt on and try and get in the club with the white t-shirt anyhow the girls told me to just turn my shirt inside out and being drunk I did.
So we went to get back in the night club and I just about did before they told me no. I honestly don’t think I was that drunk, it was more that I was tired and initially was told no. Anyhow, Marshall said he was tired as well so him and I headed back over the tubes and went into the Barcelona Dream at 2am… The tubes closed and everyone else had a bunch of trouble getting home that night, some not getting home to 6am.
Also before we went out my tube card was eaten by the machine… Which was a pain. I tried talking to someone the next day but they didn’t understand English so I had to spend 10 euros to get a new pass (like 13 dollars or something like that).
Anyhow, if the first day was a mix between the beach and drinking the following day… Saturday was me being the biggest possible fucking tourist and having one of the best days of the entire trip and I can honestly say that I 100% did not get drunk (though I did get buzzed).
But seeing how it is 11:58, Saturday and Sunday of the trip will need updated tomorrow or the next day. I also actually need to update up to the current day before Thursday night because I’m going to Scotland to see Nessy and Caitlin Coast. So, Wed I have to work on a project but am going to try and get Saturday done and then Thursday I’ll try and get the rest of the week done.
Then I’ll update about Scotland and try and get more regular updates and talk about British culture. Adios… (That is Spanish btw).
Also, in my next update I’m going to give a good fortay into Spanish culture as we really got out their and experienced it on Saturday with a bunch of tourism and talking to locals… I’ll tell you about the words I had to use and what I learned!
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Angry Canadians, Wine, English Football, American Football and Family
So anyhow today is Thursday September 27th and the last time I updated the blog I only got up until a week ago Thursday the 20th of September 2007. I guarantee the start of this post will be very interesting, but the end of it not so much because I spent the last three days saving up for a little trip this weekend. One thing I forgot to mention about that Thursday is that their was a server error at my work and I managed to troubleshoot it and get the printer to be seen on the database without a technician being called in, so they liked me for that.
Anyhow before I start on about Friday morning let me go into a little detail about the October trip my flatmates and I will be going on. We have been talking about going to Italy for our week break and over all of this time we have been procrastinating on actually booking our flight and doing everything necessary for the trip.
So anyhow Thursday everyone decided that Friday morning we’d go and book our flight and then I’d go into my internship a bit late, so I called on Thursday night and it was all cool or whatever…
Anyhow reading yesterdays blog entry you know we went to the Verve or whatever, and I mean… Let’s face it… I got kicked out. We drank a lot…
No one got up in the morning but me. So I went into work hung over and had an okay time. This time though, I was doing more of the same, working with the database and whatever.
So anyhow, as I should have mentioned in the last post everyone from work was going out to eat because someone was leaving so we got let out at 4:30 instead of 5. We all then proceeded to walk to an Italian restaurant about a mile away from the Green Party HQ and about 10 of us went to dinner.
This place was amazing. Its name started with a Z, I think Zizzi or something and it had really authentic Italian food to the point where the menu was in Italian, though descriptions were in English as well. So I ordered something I couldn’t describe, it had like ham wrapped around something else and had peas on the side. I don’t know what the fuck it was and it was alright. My meal was about £10 (£ = pound) or so. Anyhow, things got interesting before I even ate my meal as they ordered wine for the table…
I was never one to like wine and this is the start of a real love-hate relationship as I have drank wine (forcing it down) at weddings and even at dinner here, but never drank more than a glass or two. In fact at dinner earlier in the week we had red wine and I didn’t finish my glass handing it off to someone else… I never liked wine…
Until now… So I downed a glass of wine, and another, and another… It was free so I intended to get drunk before I go out with my friends wherever they are… Anyhow after a couple glasses of wine I found that everyone was going to a local pub so I went their with my Green Party peeps.
This place was like a 200 year old building and felt like the bat cave inside, at some points you had to duck to walk through to different areas where you could drink. It was quite an interesting place and had prob. 100 people outside at tables drinking.
We soon found our place outside at a table and the 10 or so Green Party peeps sat around and I got a few drinks bought for me by people who were trying to convince me that tradional English Ale and Larger is better than American beer. I drank a few of those and then bought myself a Stella.
So anyhow myself, Adam and this one older guy who escapes me now were talking about some of the differences between England and America, particularly how professional sports teams can actually up and move city in America but in England it is very rare. We also talked about football(Soccer) as my school gave me tickets to the QPR v. Watford match up and all week they were explaining it to me and whatnot, but I’ll go over that more on the post about Saturday. And also how cities like Pittsburgh help finance the stadiums, a very foreign idea in European leagues apparently. Also we talked about general “green” politics, as I am working for the Green Party…
Strangely enough while I was talking strictly about European and Green politics an older gentlemen, likely sixty who had a big beer gut and pissed(drunk) out of his mind stumbled over and pointed at me and said “We don’t like your kind around here boy!”
To which some of the gents around me all just looked around as if to say “What” but than the man continued and told me his story about how he’s from Canada and how he understands but he has lived in the UK for ten years and has duel citizenship. He said that Americans are hated by the English because of what our government has done and that if I don’t be careful at a pub like the one I may get beat up.
Now, you wouldn’t believe this if I told you but my voice really carries so I guess he heard me talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins or something. But anyhow so he told me stories about him going around the States, how he’s been to Pittsburgh and New Orleans and then when he got to New Orleans he was like “We don’t like that… What you did” accusing me personally of flooding New Orleans and not doing anything about it I guess to which I replied “Well, the state should have done a better job evacuating the people” and then watched the smiles of everyone around me as I stood up for myself with this drunken bum. He told me to be careful and went on his way.
So me and my Green Party peeps laughed at how drunk he was and they told me not to worry about it that I’m not going to be beaten up for being American and that the guy was just drunk. So I drank more and we talked about religion and politics and general party functions. Turns out my own manager Adam is a Mormon which was interesting because he wasn’t actually drinking. We talked about Mitt Romney and some of the stuff Mormons have gone through in American and world history and even talked about Catholism and things but not in a pushing way (as a lot of Greens are Atheists).
I passed around a copy of my speech how to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party so Sian Berry could read about how I called her Hillary as she was in the press room while the speech was made and as I started to get a bit drunk I’m pretty sure that I started to hit on some of the girls I work with, but oh well.. So anyhow, all was going well enough when my favorite person in the world the drunken Canadian came over again. He might have been as interesting as that blue haired guy…
So he tells me to be careful and I thank him. And then he sits down and starts talking again… He starts talking about his friends in New Orleans and how they know the blues and how they taught him the blues and how he has dedicated his life to playing the blues…
He goes “Can you play the blues?” to which I reply “no” to which he goes “I can!” and takes out a harmonica and starts playing the blues a little bit. Not great, but not bad.
He tosses the harmonica at me and says “Play” to which I decline and then he insists and insists so I toot the harmonica real quick and to no ones surprise I don’t play a fucking note right.
So he then tells me “You are an American… Play the blues”
When I try again and cant he starts yelling at me that all Americans can play the blues. Talk about stereotypes.
So anyhow his lady comes over and says their going, what a relief. He tells her to start the car and keeps talking to us. The Brits around me are upset he’s in their “personal” space (I will talk about the British Reserve one of these days). He talks about how he has a wife in Noreighway and this is his neighbor and that it doesn’t matter because his wife doesn’t know. Needless to say this guy is fucked up.
So he leaves and I sit and talk with my Green Party Peeps for some more. So its about 11pm and the pub closes and this girl Kayte and I hit on her (I was a champion this night, though this was one of my more sober nights.)
So her and I walk and talk about politics… And I place myself as a moderate and she warns me about becoming too conservative because people become more conservative with age and I warn her about being too liberal and tell her she should use her best judgment in each individual situation and choose her particular political belief on the issue and not on some arch, out of wack ideology made up by some politician looking to gain points at the polling places. OWNED.
Anyhow the conservation was good and what not but when I get to the tube station its closed, and I’m an hour tube ride from home… With night buses that is at least two hours, give me a break… I’m fucked…
So Kayde directs me to the right Bus and I meet a group of five girls heading somewhat in the right direction (they were looking for Piccadilly Circus which I could get home from) so I followed them bus to bus and made small conversation and then the 6 of us got a taxi which eliminated a lot of the fair, but they had decided not to go to Piccadilly so I got off at a stop close by but had no idea of where to go.
Luckily outside of a KFC (I didn’t have anything) I found a bus stop with some people heading to Earls court. The one dude was Scottish and the girl Australian and they were a couple. The Scottish guy was piss drunk but I followed them and made small talk.
We got to a close stop and split a cab, where this Scottish dude was swearing and mother f-ing the cab driver because he didn’t take credit(I had no cash on me at this point)… The cab driver almost kicked us out because of the irate Scottish dude but luckily he was nice enough to stop by an ATM and allow me to get out money. Once we were out of the cab I split ways with them glad never to see that Scottish dude again because he was just a plain dick, I honestly felt bad for the cab driver who was by far the best and nicest cab driver I’ve had here, period.
So anyhow I finally get home and go to bed…
I wake up on Saturday after sleeping in, top up my cell phone and then try calling my Aunt Shelia who at this point I have yet to meet about meeting her tonight… No answer. Anyhow, so I find out that the guys from Flat 2 are going to the Queen Park Ranger(QPR from this point on) versus Watford Soccer(Football from this point on) game and decide to go with them.
Anyhow, my roommates spring on me the fact that they never booked the Italy trip but they decided we are going to Spain next weekend so I need to hurry up and book my ticket and hostel before I go to the game. I barely did it in time due to a blooper in pricing and having to talk to customer service to get money back on my debit card, they informed me that it would appear on my card in 3-7 days but sometimes it may take 3 weeks… I was pissed but no time to be concerned had to go to the QPR game.
Anyone who has ever said Soccer is for pussies has never seen English football. This was their ‘B’ league and QPR is the worst team in the league and this was unlike anything I have seen before. From the crazy fans to the crazyiness of the game it was amazing.
Let me set the stage… The people from my work informed me that QPR is a ‘recovering’ team for all intents and purposes, having a bad year. They are like 0-6. Watford hasn’t really lost any games this season and just fell down from the premier league… So it should be a blowout!
Anyhow, so we get off the tube and me and the guys from Flat 2 are running behind… You can hear the stadium singing… SINGING… Think of Irish drinking songs and then their you go. The stadium, which felt like a cross between a high school football stadium and Europe… It only held 14,000 ¾ of which were QPR fans and one ¼ of the stadium was reserved for traveling Watford fans.
The fans sang against each other… No chanting… Singing… And everyone knew the words except me… It was insane… So many drunk people… When Watford scored the QPR fans were giving them the double finger (as opposed to the middle finger).
It was insane and now onto the actual game…
It was suspenseful… The saves were amazing and the speed of the game was amazing. You have not seen football until you’ve seen it live… Its phenomenal. Its amazing. The head butts, the slide dives, the over all strategic play of the game. That mixed with six head butts in a row and the crowd breaking out in song was an experience that I’ll never forget…
I’d dare say the adreline level is as much and I hate to admit if not more than a Steelers Regular Season game though the level of drunkenness is about 10x more at the Steelers games I have been at(side note, I still prefer Steelers and Penguins games over this but God Damn this is the ‘B’ league wait til I get to a Manchester United or Chelsa game).
The only bad part about this entire game was I forgot my camera and didn’t get to take any memorable picks…
Speaking or memorable, Saturday Night was memorable as it was the first time I got real drunk off of wine.
Take into calculation everything that I have done so far… And consider than anytime I go out that a beer is more expensive (except when Tex is working) than in America, the Metro Newspaper recently wrote an article about how London is now the most expensive city in the world to eat out in, and the dollar is worth ½ what a pound is, the American economy is the weakest its been in 30 years and the United Kingdom economy is the strongest its ever been… I’ve gone to the bank and more… I’m financially spent… And its been like 2 weeks or so!!! (By this point I also booked a trip to Spain and am in the process of finding booking to Italy which ended up being a flight for 79penece(35 cents) + 25 pounds (50 dollars) tax… That’s right, my one way trip from UK to Italy was only 79 pence before tax, God I love Ryan Air… Like I said transportation is cheaper here, and water!)
So Saturday, considering finances and we need to chill down on spending myself and the flatmates decide we need to stay in and not spend a lot of money so they talk about getting wine and ask me what kind of beer I want (knowing I don’t like wine) so I pitch in and tell them to get me a bottle of white wine…
So the 6 of us drink and two girls come down for a little bit. Some uker is played, a card game that I don’t understand and we just drink and converse and everyone starts to get a little drunk. My debit card is over its limit for ATM withdrawls for the day due to my plane ticket, so even though I have 300 USD in it I don’t have the allowance to pay for my wine until tomorrow so George spotted me.
Me, Mark, George, Brandon, Marshall and Jason all drank a lot, a real lot… Each killed our bottle and I walked to Sainsbury’s to get a second bottle… My card wasn’t declined (I think I was 20 pounds away from my limit, so it was cool)… I came back, buzzed, maybe even drunk from the first bottle…
I drink the bottle and am obnoxious about it… I was dared not to drink for 20 seconds and did… I was really wasted and then walked to Sainsbury’s again for a third bottle of wine… Sainsbury’s is closed… I walk to the big Sainsbury’s… It is closed (they close at midnight on Saturdays) so I walk even further to another supermarket and get a third bottle of wine…
BLACK OUT.
The last thing I remember is apologizing and being told to go to bed…
The next morning I wake up earlier than everyone else and try to figure out what happened… I find some videos on my camera once I put the memory card in the computer and theirs a video of me trying to get Brandon to tell me that I’m fucked up and when he will not I call him names for about five minutes and then try to get him to cook me a delicious breakfast if I drink the rest of my wine…
Now I’m not one who blacks out to this point very often. Freshman year, yea it happened… Sophomore year their were those occasional times when I don’t recall exactly the order things happened or black out a little bit but not the entire night… Even here, in this blog if I used the term black out it was the kind of black out where someone goes “Oh remember when you did this?” and then you go “Oh yea! I did do that.”
So I thought really hard… Nothing.
Could not come up with anything, all I remember is being put to bed and apologizing, cannot recall anything before that. Well sure enough I found out what happened, and father don’t get too mad as this was the most drunk I have been since the night I accused you of being a Power Ranger off of the vodaka (and it was the cheapest drunk of the entire trip) I just didn’t realize that wine was that powerful because 14% doesn’t seem like its bad…
Well so I killed my third bottle and I passed out on the couch… One of my roomies, Mark woke me up and said “John how was the burger?” referring to a hamburger I made earlier to which I just got up and then leaned forward and threw up everywhere all over HIS shoes… That’s why I was sent to bed.
Apparently Jason went “I hate seeing people throw up” when they were deciding how to clean the massive amount of throw up to which Mark went “I hate seeing people throw up on my SHOES”
No one was too mad, as “We’ve all been their” but that was the first time in recent memory I was that bad… (Save for my 21st birthday)… I had the worst hangover but I felt bad so I went to Sainsbury’s and bought a mop and floor cleaner which I had a hell of a time finding because I kept asking for Pine sol and no one knew what it was. But I got some floor cleaner and mopped up real good and everything was okay.
Sunday after cleaning and a shower I rocked out the white t and jeans which was a change from dressing nicer and I actually was really impressed with how well I pulled it off. I looked good. Anyhow I went to High Street Kensington and went shopping, bought some headphones for my mp3 player and some shades. I also looked around at some clothes shops and “scouted” some long sleeve shirts and a possible winter coat should it get colder. Damn are prices expensive, but High Street Kensington is a shoppers wet dream. It is just an experience and I cannot wait to do some shopping their at some point.
Anyhow so I wondered into a park and kind of had this revelation that London is sweet and how happy I am. That I can walk around and just find a park this nice and that life is so unstressful that I do not have a worry in the world. As some of you know I had a breakdown from stress first semester last year from getting my 3.9 and working and than almost had another one being president of the lacrosse club, quartermaster of Acacia, on the student senate, fighting the new alcohol parties and getting a 3.925(yes it went up!).
Anyhow so I walk around this park watch the kids play football(soccer) and what not and look at all the people taking picnics and whatnot. So I walk into to this entrance for Kensington Gardens right outside of Kensington palace the home of the late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales(as in the place not the animal).
The gardens and statues were amazing. I snapped some photos. The palace outside was okay, it just looked like a large old building not like some of the castles I’ve seen already and that I am sure to see in Scotland when I go or when I go tour more of London.
So I continue to rock out the shades, white t-shirt and blue jeans… Go on the tube and go back to my flat, grab my terrible towel and head down to the Sports Café. Before I go I talk to the flatmates and all but George (Whose at the Globe Theator, I need to get their and see some authentic Shakespeare) are going to meet me down their (I didn’t want to miss kickoff, though I did).
Anyhow, the terrible towel hanging off my belt buckle, white t-shirt and shades at six pm… I was rocking it out!!! Anyhow when I get to Picadelly Circus I see this dude with a “7” jersey and run up to him figuring with him rocking out the Pittsburgh jersey he’s from the ‘burgh” or at least the states…
”Hey buddy”-me”How are you there ‘ol chap” in an extremely English accent
This guy followed the Steelers since he was young and is from London. He is currently dating a girl from Pittsburgh and in Nov. they are going to Pittsburgh to see the Steelers. How bad ass is that?
His girlfriend and I talked in Pittsburghese and lost everyone of their friends, classic. Though neither of us did good Pittsburghese. So I watched the first quarter of the Steelers game and then all the flatmates came and we got a booth and ordered food.
I keep saying I’m going to hold off on talking about English culture and its differences but the one thing I need to say here is that the English are bad on customer service. They got the entire money thing but the wait for drinks, food, paycheck and then for them to process it was so long that if I was in an American resturante in Pittsburgh I would have walked out. I have never had such bad service as when we ordered food at the Sports Café, ontop of that it didn’t taste good and was overly expensive.
Anyhow, we all sat their and thanks to 20 tvs around us we were all able to watch the game we were interested in. I only had one beer while their… and dinner… Anyhow after the Steelers beat the 49ers everyone was getting ready to leave but I said I was going to stay back, I had some unfinished business.
I still have not received an e-mail back from that bartender who I drunk e-mailed and she was working. So I go to the loo (English for restroom) and go to the bar she was working at, shes gone… Great…
So I grab a beer, talk to some chicks from South America about their developing countries citing what I remember about the culture of Columbia from various classes, mostly Dr. H’s Comparative Developing Systems.
So I find the bartender, talk to her… Get the number after a bit of flirting, got invited to her bday party again (though I’ll be in Spain) so I smoothed everything over, I think. (Though a sidenote its been 4 or 5 days and I haven’t talked to her, sent one text… Don’t want to be too pushy… I’m going to wait until I’m back from Spain).
So anyhow, I go home and then write in my blog a bit and then goto bed…
Monday I wake up and have my first politics class. The professor gives everyone who missed the notes and was really really good. He reminded me of a mix between Dr. Wrabley and Dr. Heinisch in teaching styles. I’d say he’s in their league, he knows what he’s talking about and knows how to convey it to the students. For me to put him in the league with professors I respect that much, it’s a real complement to him and his teaching style. For the class Western European Politics, it’s a case study of several different countries and then a look at how they work together. We did the United Kingdom on this class and I honestly think it stuck so well I could explain how the United Kingdom government works as good as the United States government after one class… Well not really, but it was one of the most informative three hour classes I have ever had, ever… Save for some of Dr. H’s in National Policy Making… I think I enjoyed it so much because it was challenging and something I had little to no background in.
Monday after class I went to my internship and stuffed envelopes to make up for me missing Friday for a few hours and then Monday night I more or less stayed in and worked on this blog. I think I explored a little bit… And we went shopping… I know I stayed up late working on this blog and almost slept in on my Tuesday morning class of History.
History was the same old, still interesting but didn’t seem as much so after the poly sci class yesterday. Tuesday after class at 1230 I went to the tube station and found a scale and found I weigh a little less than 17 stone (translation I’m 235lbs) that’s 3lbs more than when I came here, even though I have been getting complements that it looks like I lost weight… My legs are sore everyday from the amount of walking and I no longer get winded when going up a bunch of flights of steps and have been eating healthier, way too much beer I guess. Eitherway I feel healthier.
Anyhow Tuesday was by far the specialist day of the entire trip. It’s the day that I came to do what I was destined to do when I came to London, meet my family from over here. You see my Grandmother is from the United Kingdom and met my Grandfather, an American Solider, in World War II in one of those love stories meant for Hollywood and fairytales that never happen in real life… But luckily for me it did.
You know for all my life I knew my, now deceased, grandmother had relatives over here, that I have blood relatives over here, but I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d ever meet them so I never thought of it that much. Never knew what to think. But because of the tales my grandmother use to tell me and the stories in recent years my grandfather has told I’ve always wanted to come to London and meet the family and experience this unknown part of my past.
Today, this day… I got that chance. At 6 o’clock I took the tube from Earl’s Court to Vicoria and then bought a train ticket to meet them. After forty minutes on the train I got off and kept an eye out for them. I knew it would be my Dad’s cousin Shelia, her daughter (who is all grown up) Sharon and Sharon’s kids and that we would be meeting Shelia’s other son Steve and his family[editors note I believe it was Steve I’m bad with names it could have been Kevin, once I find out for sure I’ll edit it to the correct name… Shhh don’t tell him!).
Anyhow, so I get into the train station and take a look around and before I make the mobile call to Sharon I point out who I think they are… I watch as they try to pick me out, having only seen black and white photos of Shelia when she was a baby and only had 3 or so phone conversations it turns out I picked them out right. Shelia has blonde hair and glasses, Sharon looks sort of like Shelia… I guess I’m not good at the descriptors… And there are two kids of about 13 and 10, one red haired boy and one a girl… So anyhow, I make the call and sure enough I’m right. I meet them, talk a little bit and follow them to a car outside. And we proceed to drive to Steve’s (Who looks a lot like my Dad) house where I meet him, his wife and two kids both about the same age as Shelia’s.
So we go to an Italian Restaurant and I meet them all and we have some great conversation. Its strange because even though I’ve been 3,000 miles apart from them my entire life I felt like I’ve known them all my life. We order some nice food and I give them some gifts I brought from my grandfather… They read a love letter he wrote to my grandmother in World War II and some pictures dating back to when Shelia was an infant. On top of that I gave them a terrible towel.
We talked about everything from general United States to sports. Steve knows someone who has season tickets to one of the major “football” teams.
We talked some politics and I mentioned the new EU constitution and they were up in arms about how the politicians originally told them that the EU was about trade and economic growth and now they are going to lose their British identity to “One Europe” and the politicians write it off as “some cleanup work” when it substantially changes their political lives. They talked about World War II and how the sacrifices all sides did to prevent this to have it be written off without even asking the voters. Steve put it in a shocking way “We’d rather be a star on your flag than be a part of this[The new EU Constitution].”
It was amazing meeting these people. We just meshed. It was honestly one of the greatest dinners I have ever been to. The conversation was great. I just enjoyed meeting these long lost relatives. This was also the first time I felt homesick because I just wished my brother and father and grandfather were here with me at the dinner table because I wish they could have just experienced this.
Any how with me being here for so long I am going to have plenty of chances to meet them. Shelia payed the tab for everyone this time but I said my father would kick my ass if I didn’t pay for her so she said I could pay next time her and I do something and we are planning on going to a musical when she comes in to see me.
I can’t explain how great this was. This was one of those “oh yea’ moments and honestly one of the greatest moments of my life. Meeting up with these people who existed all this team and had this connection to you like this and I just am in a loss for words. I just hope Freddy and my Dad get to meet them… They are great people and they, as my uncle Frank told me before I left, really are family. Its hard to comphrend the chemistry but I felt like I was at a family reunion and knew them for years. It was great… Awesome… Amazing…
One funny thing… I told them American’s judge the English off of stereotypes from Austin Powers and they replied “It’s okay because we judge you off of Homer Simpson!” On behalf of all Americans: I’m flattered.
Anyhow, Wednesday I woke up and went to work and was shown how to do some more stuff in my internship in terms of putting members into the computer, this time people who paid by credit card, had to make a few phone calls and did basic party functions. Wednesday night was just a dinner in, and me working on this blog and doing some reading. I started buying the Daily Sun for the tube rides and they did an assault on the new EU Constitution, and its pretty convincing. The newspaper is planning protests and everything. Though they are def. a biased, conservative paper I haven’t found many British that are for the EU constitution, the really conservative and really liberal are against the new EU Constitution. The middle call it a “treaty” which in all likelihood it is. But its interesting that the French are the ones I thought would be against something like this, a loss of identity, but there is a national call for a referendum to allow the voters to decide if they should expand the EU’s power over Westminster(Parliament) or not and I plan on going to the protests and checking it out sometime next week.
Anyhow, work is exciting because Gordon Brown the Labour Prime Minster may be calling an election. You see unlike in America they don’t have regularly scheduled elections for Parliament, but they are required to have them at least every five years. So the PM requests the Queen to dissolve the Parliament in which point there are elections.
Because the ruling party Labour is so many points ahead of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats theirs a chance of the Labour PM to ask for a snap election to take advantage of gaining a larger majority and getting a guarantee of being in power for five more years. Its exciting for the Green Party because they have no elected MPs and there is a good chance they can win in one of the districts and they will help them break the “wasted” vote idea and be a boon for the party. It will also make my internship more stressful but very interesting.
So the political scheme of things is very interesting (and I know everyone is snoring right now). I really enjoy work though. And the hour commute each way isn’t getting to me yet, as long as I have a newspaper to read on the way home.
Wednesday Night I didn’t do much, stayed in again… Attempting to save money for my trip to Spain. No drinking… I think I um… It was like yesterday and I can’t recall… Oh yea, that’s right. So firstly I talked to Caitlin Coast about going on a tour of Scotland with her (and spoiler because I don’t feel like writing forever tonight) I talked to my Dad today and he said its cool if I go money wise so I’m going to Scotland next week to tour it with Caitlin Coast whose studying their… Awesome.
Anyhow, Jon Adams talked to me about a week ago and I joined a fantasy hockey league and the live draft was this day. So I get home from my internship and want to do research and of course my internet doesn’t work. Can’t get on, get stressed… Use Jason’s computer…
I look at who to draft, make up a prelist and then talk to Candice who gives me some clutch advice… So during the live draft I basically have Jon Adams, Mark Hammond and Joe Alioto make fun of me during the entire thing, I felt just like I was in Pittsburgh!!!
Anyhow here’s how my draft picks went:
LONDON WANKERS (A Wanker is someone who masturbates in Queens English, I just love to word, its so fun to call someone a bloody wanker lol)
1.
(1)
Sidney Crosby
C
2.
(20)
Jason Spezza
C
3.
(21)
Scott Niedermayer
D
4.
(40)
Marc-Andre Fleury
G
5.
(41)
Jason Blake
LW
6.
(60)
Dion Phaneuf
D
7.
(61)
Milan Michalek
RW
8.
(80)
Ray Whitney
LW
9.
(81)
Brian Campbell
D
10.
(100)
Martin Havlat
RW
11.
(101)
Ed Jovanovski
D
12.
(120)
Paul Mara
D
13.
(121)
Martin Biron
G
14.
(140)
Jamie Langenbrunner
RW
15.
(141)
Jonathan Toews
C
16.
(160)
Sean Avery
LW
Anyhow with Crosby everyone in the chatroom told me he was out for the season because of an injury (that actually exists and isn’t bad) to mess with me, which wasn’t a bad idea. Than someone was like “Hartman, Whitney is dead” making fun of me and my draft picks more… Both false… However someone noticed my third draft pick was Scott Niedermayer which was clutch, a great defender and… HE RETIRED… Or is considering it and not playing the first part of the season if he does come back… So I really screwed up big time… However, with me getting first pick and getting Sidney Crosby and having Jason Spezza to boot, I’m looking good… But, I could have used my pick of Scott Niedermayer on Brodur or Malkin or another good player earlier on. Oh well.
But between the internet issues (that I’m still having on and off today) and researching the draft and doing the actual draft and working on my blog that night was shot… So another cheap night in… Sorry I know this week has not been the most exciting but after the wine night I’m not in the biggest mood to drink and meeting my family can’t be described how great it was in this blog form.
Anyhow so that leaves today. I go to work and do what is a run of the mill day. I get a little stressed about the Lacrosse club because someone sends me information about how the President, Duffy, cannot be president anymore and I thought for about an hour period that it was going down hill… And that all my hard work last semester would be for not… However I soon find out that that is not the case as Brian Bradford is the President and they are on top of everything. It is a great relief.
After work I pick up another Daily Sun and read more about the EU, the possibility of an election and Madeline the abducted girl that Europeans are fascinated with, its sad. As well as what is going on with the Monks… so sad.
Anyhow, I talk to Caitlin Coast more about me coming to Scotland, talk to my Dad and get the okay, as mentioned earlier and then I book the trip for next week. A 12 hour bus ride their and a 12 hour bus ride back… With the ability to cancel the bus ride before 72 hours before the trip so I can change it for a plane ride on Monday should I choose to do so with no cancellation charge(since I am leaving tomorrow for a three day weekend in Spain).
Anyhow I have spent most of tonight fighting with our uncooperative internet, booking my trip to Scotland(I’m only arriving 1 ½ hours before the tour starts so I may rebook it with a flight their bus back but for now I’m good enough until Monday when I can better examine things with no early cancellation charge on my bus ticket), and writing for this blog. Its 11:53pm, I’ve had one glass of Soko and have sat here working on this blog all night. I have been working on it for hours so I can be updated before I leave and I know likely no one will read this but I want to be able to look back ten years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now and remember every moment. So this is turning into a novel of sorts. But oh well…
I’ll leave you with this, right now my flatmates are sitting around tossing a rugby ball around, playing uker and singing and its about damn time I join in… And oh yea, this weekend I’ll be on Spain on the beach so… be jealous! I’ll update Monday or Tuesday. Adios!
Anyhow before I start on about Friday morning let me go into a little detail about the October trip my flatmates and I will be going on. We have been talking about going to Italy for our week break and over all of this time we have been procrastinating on actually booking our flight and doing everything necessary for the trip.
So anyhow Thursday everyone decided that Friday morning we’d go and book our flight and then I’d go into my internship a bit late, so I called on Thursday night and it was all cool or whatever…
Anyhow reading yesterdays blog entry you know we went to the Verve or whatever, and I mean… Let’s face it… I got kicked out. We drank a lot…
No one got up in the morning but me. So I went into work hung over and had an okay time. This time though, I was doing more of the same, working with the database and whatever.
So anyhow, as I should have mentioned in the last post everyone from work was going out to eat because someone was leaving so we got let out at 4:30 instead of 5. We all then proceeded to walk to an Italian restaurant about a mile away from the Green Party HQ and about 10 of us went to dinner.
This place was amazing. Its name started with a Z, I think Zizzi or something and it had really authentic Italian food to the point where the menu was in Italian, though descriptions were in English as well. So I ordered something I couldn’t describe, it had like ham wrapped around something else and had peas on the side. I don’t know what the fuck it was and it was alright. My meal was about £10 (£ = pound) or so. Anyhow, things got interesting before I even ate my meal as they ordered wine for the table…
I was never one to like wine and this is the start of a real love-hate relationship as I have drank wine (forcing it down) at weddings and even at dinner here, but never drank more than a glass or two. In fact at dinner earlier in the week we had red wine and I didn’t finish my glass handing it off to someone else… I never liked wine…
Until now… So I downed a glass of wine, and another, and another… It was free so I intended to get drunk before I go out with my friends wherever they are… Anyhow after a couple glasses of wine I found that everyone was going to a local pub so I went their with my Green Party peeps.
This place was like a 200 year old building and felt like the bat cave inside, at some points you had to duck to walk through to different areas where you could drink. It was quite an interesting place and had prob. 100 people outside at tables drinking.
We soon found our place outside at a table and the 10 or so Green Party peeps sat around and I got a few drinks bought for me by people who were trying to convince me that tradional English Ale and Larger is better than American beer. I drank a few of those and then bought myself a Stella.
So anyhow myself, Adam and this one older guy who escapes me now were talking about some of the differences between England and America, particularly how professional sports teams can actually up and move city in America but in England it is very rare. We also talked about football(Soccer) as my school gave me tickets to the QPR v. Watford match up and all week they were explaining it to me and whatnot, but I’ll go over that more on the post about Saturday. And also how cities like Pittsburgh help finance the stadiums, a very foreign idea in European leagues apparently. Also we talked about general “green” politics, as I am working for the Green Party…
Strangely enough while I was talking strictly about European and Green politics an older gentlemen, likely sixty who had a big beer gut and pissed(drunk) out of his mind stumbled over and pointed at me and said “We don’t like your kind around here boy!”
To which some of the gents around me all just looked around as if to say “What” but than the man continued and told me his story about how he’s from Canada and how he understands but he has lived in the UK for ten years and has duel citizenship. He said that Americans are hated by the English because of what our government has done and that if I don’t be careful at a pub like the one I may get beat up.
Now, you wouldn’t believe this if I told you but my voice really carries so I guess he heard me talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins or something. But anyhow so he told me stories about him going around the States, how he’s been to Pittsburgh and New Orleans and then when he got to New Orleans he was like “We don’t like that… What you did” accusing me personally of flooding New Orleans and not doing anything about it I guess to which I replied “Well, the state should have done a better job evacuating the people” and then watched the smiles of everyone around me as I stood up for myself with this drunken bum. He told me to be careful and went on his way.
So me and my Green Party peeps laughed at how drunk he was and they told me not to worry about it that I’m not going to be beaten up for being American and that the guy was just drunk. So I drank more and we talked about religion and politics and general party functions. Turns out my own manager Adam is a Mormon which was interesting because he wasn’t actually drinking. We talked about Mitt Romney and some of the stuff Mormons have gone through in American and world history and even talked about Catholism and things but not in a pushing way (as a lot of Greens are Atheists).
I passed around a copy of my speech how to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party so Sian Berry could read about how I called her Hillary as she was in the press room while the speech was made and as I started to get a bit drunk I’m pretty sure that I started to hit on some of the girls I work with, but oh well.. So anyhow, all was going well enough when my favorite person in the world the drunken Canadian came over again. He might have been as interesting as that blue haired guy…
So he tells me to be careful and I thank him. And then he sits down and starts talking again… He starts talking about his friends in New Orleans and how they know the blues and how they taught him the blues and how he has dedicated his life to playing the blues…
He goes “Can you play the blues?” to which I reply “no” to which he goes “I can!” and takes out a harmonica and starts playing the blues a little bit. Not great, but not bad.
He tosses the harmonica at me and says “Play” to which I decline and then he insists and insists so I toot the harmonica real quick and to no ones surprise I don’t play a fucking note right.
So he then tells me “You are an American… Play the blues”
When I try again and cant he starts yelling at me that all Americans can play the blues. Talk about stereotypes.
So anyhow his lady comes over and says their going, what a relief. He tells her to start the car and keeps talking to us. The Brits around me are upset he’s in their “personal” space (I will talk about the British Reserve one of these days). He talks about how he has a wife in Noreighway and this is his neighbor and that it doesn’t matter because his wife doesn’t know. Needless to say this guy is fucked up.
So he leaves and I sit and talk with my Green Party Peeps for some more. So its about 11pm and the pub closes and this girl Kayte and I hit on her (I was a champion this night, though this was one of my more sober nights.)
So her and I walk and talk about politics… And I place myself as a moderate and she warns me about becoming too conservative because people become more conservative with age and I warn her about being too liberal and tell her she should use her best judgment in each individual situation and choose her particular political belief on the issue and not on some arch, out of wack ideology made up by some politician looking to gain points at the polling places. OWNED.
Anyhow the conservation was good and what not but when I get to the tube station its closed, and I’m an hour tube ride from home… With night buses that is at least two hours, give me a break… I’m fucked…
So Kayde directs me to the right Bus and I meet a group of five girls heading somewhat in the right direction (they were looking for Piccadilly Circus which I could get home from) so I followed them bus to bus and made small conversation and then the 6 of us got a taxi which eliminated a lot of the fair, but they had decided not to go to Piccadilly so I got off at a stop close by but had no idea of where to go.
Luckily outside of a KFC (I didn’t have anything) I found a bus stop with some people heading to Earls court. The one dude was Scottish and the girl Australian and they were a couple. The Scottish guy was piss drunk but I followed them and made small talk.
We got to a close stop and split a cab, where this Scottish dude was swearing and mother f-ing the cab driver because he didn’t take credit(I had no cash on me at this point)… The cab driver almost kicked us out because of the irate Scottish dude but luckily he was nice enough to stop by an ATM and allow me to get out money. Once we were out of the cab I split ways with them glad never to see that Scottish dude again because he was just a plain dick, I honestly felt bad for the cab driver who was by far the best and nicest cab driver I’ve had here, period.
So anyhow I finally get home and go to bed…
I wake up on Saturday after sleeping in, top up my cell phone and then try calling my Aunt Shelia who at this point I have yet to meet about meeting her tonight… No answer. Anyhow, so I find out that the guys from Flat 2 are going to the Queen Park Ranger(QPR from this point on) versus Watford Soccer(Football from this point on) game and decide to go with them.
Anyhow, my roommates spring on me the fact that they never booked the Italy trip but they decided we are going to Spain next weekend so I need to hurry up and book my ticket and hostel before I go to the game. I barely did it in time due to a blooper in pricing and having to talk to customer service to get money back on my debit card, they informed me that it would appear on my card in 3-7 days but sometimes it may take 3 weeks… I was pissed but no time to be concerned had to go to the QPR game.
Anyone who has ever said Soccer is for pussies has never seen English football. This was their ‘B’ league and QPR is the worst team in the league and this was unlike anything I have seen before. From the crazy fans to the crazyiness of the game it was amazing.
Let me set the stage… The people from my work informed me that QPR is a ‘recovering’ team for all intents and purposes, having a bad year. They are like 0-6. Watford hasn’t really lost any games this season and just fell down from the premier league… So it should be a blowout!
Anyhow, so we get off the tube and me and the guys from Flat 2 are running behind… You can hear the stadium singing… SINGING… Think of Irish drinking songs and then their you go. The stadium, which felt like a cross between a high school football stadium and Europe… It only held 14,000 ¾ of which were QPR fans and one ¼ of the stadium was reserved for traveling Watford fans.
The fans sang against each other… No chanting… Singing… And everyone knew the words except me… It was insane… So many drunk people… When Watford scored the QPR fans were giving them the double finger (as opposed to the middle finger).
It was insane and now onto the actual game…
It was suspenseful… The saves were amazing and the speed of the game was amazing. You have not seen football until you’ve seen it live… Its phenomenal. Its amazing. The head butts, the slide dives, the over all strategic play of the game. That mixed with six head butts in a row and the crowd breaking out in song was an experience that I’ll never forget…
I’d dare say the adreline level is as much and I hate to admit if not more than a Steelers Regular Season game though the level of drunkenness is about 10x more at the Steelers games I have been at(side note, I still prefer Steelers and Penguins games over this but God Damn this is the ‘B’ league wait til I get to a Manchester United or Chelsa game).
The only bad part about this entire game was I forgot my camera and didn’t get to take any memorable picks…
Speaking or memorable, Saturday Night was memorable as it was the first time I got real drunk off of wine.
Take into calculation everything that I have done so far… And consider than anytime I go out that a beer is more expensive (except when Tex is working) than in America, the Metro Newspaper recently wrote an article about how London is now the most expensive city in the world to eat out in, and the dollar is worth ½ what a pound is, the American economy is the weakest its been in 30 years and the United Kingdom economy is the strongest its ever been… I’ve gone to the bank and more… I’m financially spent… And its been like 2 weeks or so!!! (By this point I also booked a trip to Spain and am in the process of finding booking to Italy which ended up being a flight for 79penece(35 cents) + 25 pounds (50 dollars) tax… That’s right, my one way trip from UK to Italy was only 79 pence before tax, God I love Ryan Air… Like I said transportation is cheaper here, and water!)
So Saturday, considering finances and we need to chill down on spending myself and the flatmates decide we need to stay in and not spend a lot of money so they talk about getting wine and ask me what kind of beer I want (knowing I don’t like wine) so I pitch in and tell them to get me a bottle of white wine…
So the 6 of us drink and two girls come down for a little bit. Some uker is played, a card game that I don’t understand and we just drink and converse and everyone starts to get a little drunk. My debit card is over its limit for ATM withdrawls for the day due to my plane ticket, so even though I have 300 USD in it I don’t have the allowance to pay for my wine until tomorrow so George spotted me.
Me, Mark, George, Brandon, Marshall and Jason all drank a lot, a real lot… Each killed our bottle and I walked to Sainsbury’s to get a second bottle… My card wasn’t declined (I think I was 20 pounds away from my limit, so it was cool)… I came back, buzzed, maybe even drunk from the first bottle…
I drink the bottle and am obnoxious about it… I was dared not to drink for 20 seconds and did… I was really wasted and then walked to Sainsbury’s again for a third bottle of wine… Sainsbury’s is closed… I walk to the big Sainsbury’s… It is closed (they close at midnight on Saturdays) so I walk even further to another supermarket and get a third bottle of wine…
BLACK OUT.
The last thing I remember is apologizing and being told to go to bed…
The next morning I wake up earlier than everyone else and try to figure out what happened… I find some videos on my camera once I put the memory card in the computer and theirs a video of me trying to get Brandon to tell me that I’m fucked up and when he will not I call him names for about five minutes and then try to get him to cook me a delicious breakfast if I drink the rest of my wine…
Now I’m not one who blacks out to this point very often. Freshman year, yea it happened… Sophomore year their were those occasional times when I don’t recall exactly the order things happened or black out a little bit but not the entire night… Even here, in this blog if I used the term black out it was the kind of black out where someone goes “Oh remember when you did this?” and then you go “Oh yea! I did do that.”
So I thought really hard… Nothing.
Could not come up with anything, all I remember is being put to bed and apologizing, cannot recall anything before that. Well sure enough I found out what happened, and father don’t get too mad as this was the most drunk I have been since the night I accused you of being a Power Ranger off of the vodaka (and it was the cheapest drunk of the entire trip) I just didn’t realize that wine was that powerful because 14% doesn’t seem like its bad…
Well so I killed my third bottle and I passed out on the couch… One of my roomies, Mark woke me up and said “John how was the burger?” referring to a hamburger I made earlier to which I just got up and then leaned forward and threw up everywhere all over HIS shoes… That’s why I was sent to bed.
Apparently Jason went “I hate seeing people throw up” when they were deciding how to clean the massive amount of throw up to which Mark went “I hate seeing people throw up on my SHOES”
No one was too mad, as “We’ve all been their” but that was the first time in recent memory I was that bad… (Save for my 21st birthday)… I had the worst hangover but I felt bad so I went to Sainsbury’s and bought a mop and floor cleaner which I had a hell of a time finding because I kept asking for Pine sol and no one knew what it was. But I got some floor cleaner and mopped up real good and everything was okay.
Sunday after cleaning and a shower I rocked out the white t and jeans which was a change from dressing nicer and I actually was really impressed with how well I pulled it off. I looked good. Anyhow I went to High Street Kensington and went shopping, bought some headphones for my mp3 player and some shades. I also looked around at some clothes shops and “scouted” some long sleeve shirts and a possible winter coat should it get colder. Damn are prices expensive, but High Street Kensington is a shoppers wet dream. It is just an experience and I cannot wait to do some shopping their at some point.
Anyhow so I wondered into a park and kind of had this revelation that London is sweet and how happy I am. That I can walk around and just find a park this nice and that life is so unstressful that I do not have a worry in the world. As some of you know I had a breakdown from stress first semester last year from getting my 3.9 and working and than almost had another one being president of the lacrosse club, quartermaster of Acacia, on the student senate, fighting the new alcohol parties and getting a 3.925(yes it went up!).
Anyhow so I walk around this park watch the kids play football(soccer) and what not and look at all the people taking picnics and whatnot. So I walk into to this entrance for Kensington Gardens right outside of Kensington palace the home of the late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales(as in the place not the animal).
The gardens and statues were amazing. I snapped some photos. The palace outside was okay, it just looked like a large old building not like some of the castles I’ve seen already and that I am sure to see in Scotland when I go or when I go tour more of London.
So I continue to rock out the shades, white t-shirt and blue jeans… Go on the tube and go back to my flat, grab my terrible towel and head down to the Sports Café. Before I go I talk to the flatmates and all but George (Whose at the Globe Theator, I need to get their and see some authentic Shakespeare) are going to meet me down their (I didn’t want to miss kickoff, though I did).
Anyhow, the terrible towel hanging off my belt buckle, white t-shirt and shades at six pm… I was rocking it out!!! Anyhow when I get to Picadelly Circus I see this dude with a “7” jersey and run up to him figuring with him rocking out the Pittsburgh jersey he’s from the ‘burgh” or at least the states…
”Hey buddy”-me”How are you there ‘ol chap” in an extremely English accent
This guy followed the Steelers since he was young and is from London. He is currently dating a girl from Pittsburgh and in Nov. they are going to Pittsburgh to see the Steelers. How bad ass is that?
His girlfriend and I talked in Pittsburghese and lost everyone of their friends, classic. Though neither of us did good Pittsburghese. So I watched the first quarter of the Steelers game and then all the flatmates came and we got a booth and ordered food.
I keep saying I’m going to hold off on talking about English culture and its differences but the one thing I need to say here is that the English are bad on customer service. They got the entire money thing but the wait for drinks, food, paycheck and then for them to process it was so long that if I was in an American resturante in Pittsburgh I would have walked out. I have never had such bad service as when we ordered food at the Sports Café, ontop of that it didn’t taste good and was overly expensive.
Anyhow, we all sat their and thanks to 20 tvs around us we were all able to watch the game we were interested in. I only had one beer while their… and dinner… Anyhow after the Steelers beat the 49ers everyone was getting ready to leave but I said I was going to stay back, I had some unfinished business.
I still have not received an e-mail back from that bartender who I drunk e-mailed and she was working. So I go to the loo (English for restroom) and go to the bar she was working at, shes gone… Great…
So I grab a beer, talk to some chicks from South America about their developing countries citing what I remember about the culture of Columbia from various classes, mostly Dr. H’s Comparative Developing Systems.
So I find the bartender, talk to her… Get the number after a bit of flirting, got invited to her bday party again (though I’ll be in Spain) so I smoothed everything over, I think. (Though a sidenote its been 4 or 5 days and I haven’t talked to her, sent one text… Don’t want to be too pushy… I’m going to wait until I’m back from Spain).
So anyhow, I go home and then write in my blog a bit and then goto bed…
Monday I wake up and have my first politics class. The professor gives everyone who missed the notes and was really really good. He reminded me of a mix between Dr. Wrabley and Dr. Heinisch in teaching styles. I’d say he’s in their league, he knows what he’s talking about and knows how to convey it to the students. For me to put him in the league with professors I respect that much, it’s a real complement to him and his teaching style. For the class Western European Politics, it’s a case study of several different countries and then a look at how they work together. We did the United Kingdom on this class and I honestly think it stuck so well I could explain how the United Kingdom government works as good as the United States government after one class… Well not really, but it was one of the most informative three hour classes I have ever had, ever… Save for some of Dr. H’s in National Policy Making… I think I enjoyed it so much because it was challenging and something I had little to no background in.
Monday after class I went to my internship and stuffed envelopes to make up for me missing Friday for a few hours and then Monday night I more or less stayed in and worked on this blog. I think I explored a little bit… And we went shopping… I know I stayed up late working on this blog and almost slept in on my Tuesday morning class of History.
History was the same old, still interesting but didn’t seem as much so after the poly sci class yesterday. Tuesday after class at 1230 I went to the tube station and found a scale and found I weigh a little less than 17 stone (translation I’m 235lbs) that’s 3lbs more than when I came here, even though I have been getting complements that it looks like I lost weight… My legs are sore everyday from the amount of walking and I no longer get winded when going up a bunch of flights of steps and have been eating healthier, way too much beer I guess. Eitherway I feel healthier.
Anyhow Tuesday was by far the specialist day of the entire trip. It’s the day that I came to do what I was destined to do when I came to London, meet my family from over here. You see my Grandmother is from the United Kingdom and met my Grandfather, an American Solider, in World War II in one of those love stories meant for Hollywood and fairytales that never happen in real life… But luckily for me it did.
You know for all my life I knew my, now deceased, grandmother had relatives over here, that I have blood relatives over here, but I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d ever meet them so I never thought of it that much. Never knew what to think. But because of the tales my grandmother use to tell me and the stories in recent years my grandfather has told I’ve always wanted to come to London and meet the family and experience this unknown part of my past.
Today, this day… I got that chance. At 6 o’clock I took the tube from Earl’s Court to Vicoria and then bought a train ticket to meet them. After forty minutes on the train I got off and kept an eye out for them. I knew it would be my Dad’s cousin Shelia, her daughter (who is all grown up) Sharon and Sharon’s kids and that we would be meeting Shelia’s other son Steve and his family[editors note I believe it was Steve I’m bad with names it could have been Kevin, once I find out for sure I’ll edit it to the correct name… Shhh don’t tell him!).
Anyhow, so I get into the train station and take a look around and before I make the mobile call to Sharon I point out who I think they are… I watch as they try to pick me out, having only seen black and white photos of Shelia when she was a baby and only had 3 or so phone conversations it turns out I picked them out right. Shelia has blonde hair and glasses, Sharon looks sort of like Shelia… I guess I’m not good at the descriptors… And there are two kids of about 13 and 10, one red haired boy and one a girl… So anyhow, I make the call and sure enough I’m right. I meet them, talk a little bit and follow them to a car outside. And we proceed to drive to Steve’s (Who looks a lot like my Dad) house where I meet him, his wife and two kids both about the same age as Shelia’s.
So we go to an Italian Restaurant and I meet them all and we have some great conversation. Its strange because even though I’ve been 3,000 miles apart from them my entire life I felt like I’ve known them all my life. We order some nice food and I give them some gifts I brought from my grandfather… They read a love letter he wrote to my grandmother in World War II and some pictures dating back to when Shelia was an infant. On top of that I gave them a terrible towel.
We talked about everything from general United States to sports. Steve knows someone who has season tickets to one of the major “football” teams.
We talked some politics and I mentioned the new EU constitution and they were up in arms about how the politicians originally told them that the EU was about trade and economic growth and now they are going to lose their British identity to “One Europe” and the politicians write it off as “some cleanup work” when it substantially changes their political lives. They talked about World War II and how the sacrifices all sides did to prevent this to have it be written off without even asking the voters. Steve put it in a shocking way “We’d rather be a star on your flag than be a part of this[The new EU Constitution].”
It was amazing meeting these people. We just meshed. It was honestly one of the greatest dinners I have ever been to. The conversation was great. I just enjoyed meeting these long lost relatives. This was also the first time I felt homesick because I just wished my brother and father and grandfather were here with me at the dinner table because I wish they could have just experienced this.
Any how with me being here for so long I am going to have plenty of chances to meet them. Shelia payed the tab for everyone this time but I said my father would kick my ass if I didn’t pay for her so she said I could pay next time her and I do something and we are planning on going to a musical when she comes in to see me.
I can’t explain how great this was. This was one of those “oh yea’ moments and honestly one of the greatest moments of my life. Meeting up with these people who existed all this team and had this connection to you like this and I just am in a loss for words. I just hope Freddy and my Dad get to meet them… They are great people and they, as my uncle Frank told me before I left, really are family. Its hard to comphrend the chemistry but I felt like I was at a family reunion and knew them for years. It was great… Awesome… Amazing…
One funny thing… I told them American’s judge the English off of stereotypes from Austin Powers and they replied “It’s okay because we judge you off of Homer Simpson!” On behalf of all Americans: I’m flattered.
Anyhow, Wednesday I woke up and went to work and was shown how to do some more stuff in my internship in terms of putting members into the computer, this time people who paid by credit card, had to make a few phone calls and did basic party functions. Wednesday night was just a dinner in, and me working on this blog and doing some reading. I started buying the Daily Sun for the tube rides and they did an assault on the new EU Constitution, and its pretty convincing. The newspaper is planning protests and everything. Though they are def. a biased, conservative paper I haven’t found many British that are for the EU constitution, the really conservative and really liberal are against the new EU Constitution. The middle call it a “treaty” which in all likelihood it is. But its interesting that the French are the ones I thought would be against something like this, a loss of identity, but there is a national call for a referendum to allow the voters to decide if they should expand the EU’s power over Westminster(Parliament) or not and I plan on going to the protests and checking it out sometime next week.
Anyhow, work is exciting because Gordon Brown the Labour Prime Minster may be calling an election. You see unlike in America they don’t have regularly scheduled elections for Parliament, but they are required to have them at least every five years. So the PM requests the Queen to dissolve the Parliament in which point there are elections.
Because the ruling party Labour is so many points ahead of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats theirs a chance of the Labour PM to ask for a snap election to take advantage of gaining a larger majority and getting a guarantee of being in power for five more years. Its exciting for the Green Party because they have no elected MPs and there is a good chance they can win in one of the districts and they will help them break the “wasted” vote idea and be a boon for the party. It will also make my internship more stressful but very interesting.
So the political scheme of things is very interesting (and I know everyone is snoring right now). I really enjoy work though. And the hour commute each way isn’t getting to me yet, as long as I have a newspaper to read on the way home.
Wednesday Night I didn’t do much, stayed in again… Attempting to save money for my trip to Spain. No drinking… I think I um… It was like yesterday and I can’t recall… Oh yea, that’s right. So firstly I talked to Caitlin Coast about going on a tour of Scotland with her (and spoiler because I don’t feel like writing forever tonight) I talked to my Dad today and he said its cool if I go money wise so I’m going to Scotland next week to tour it with Caitlin Coast whose studying their… Awesome.
Anyhow, Jon Adams talked to me about a week ago and I joined a fantasy hockey league and the live draft was this day. So I get home from my internship and want to do research and of course my internet doesn’t work. Can’t get on, get stressed… Use Jason’s computer…
I look at who to draft, make up a prelist and then talk to Candice who gives me some clutch advice… So during the live draft I basically have Jon Adams, Mark Hammond and Joe Alioto make fun of me during the entire thing, I felt just like I was in Pittsburgh!!!
Anyhow here’s how my draft picks went:
LONDON WANKERS (A Wanker is someone who masturbates in Queens English, I just love to word, its so fun to call someone a bloody wanker lol)
1.
(1)
Sidney Crosby
C
2.
(20)
Jason Spezza
C
3.
(21)
Scott Niedermayer
D
4.
(40)
Marc-Andre Fleury
G
5.
(41)
Jason Blake
LW
6.
(60)
Dion Phaneuf
D
7.
(61)
Milan Michalek
RW
8.
(80)
Ray Whitney
LW
9.
(81)
Brian Campbell
D
10.
(100)
Martin Havlat
RW
11.
(101)
Ed Jovanovski
D
12.
(120)
Paul Mara
D
13.
(121)
Martin Biron
G
14.
(140)
Jamie Langenbrunner
RW
15.
(141)
Jonathan Toews
C
16.
(160)
Sean Avery
LW
Anyhow with Crosby everyone in the chatroom told me he was out for the season because of an injury (that actually exists and isn’t bad) to mess with me, which wasn’t a bad idea. Than someone was like “Hartman, Whitney is dead” making fun of me and my draft picks more… Both false… However someone noticed my third draft pick was Scott Niedermayer which was clutch, a great defender and… HE RETIRED… Or is considering it and not playing the first part of the season if he does come back… So I really screwed up big time… However, with me getting first pick and getting Sidney Crosby and having Jason Spezza to boot, I’m looking good… But, I could have used my pick of Scott Niedermayer on Brodur or Malkin or another good player earlier on. Oh well.
But between the internet issues (that I’m still having on and off today) and researching the draft and doing the actual draft and working on my blog that night was shot… So another cheap night in… Sorry I know this week has not been the most exciting but after the wine night I’m not in the biggest mood to drink and meeting my family can’t be described how great it was in this blog form.
Anyhow so that leaves today. I go to work and do what is a run of the mill day. I get a little stressed about the Lacrosse club because someone sends me information about how the President, Duffy, cannot be president anymore and I thought for about an hour period that it was going down hill… And that all my hard work last semester would be for not… However I soon find out that that is not the case as Brian Bradford is the President and they are on top of everything. It is a great relief.
After work I pick up another Daily Sun and read more about the EU, the possibility of an election and Madeline the abducted girl that Europeans are fascinated with, its sad. As well as what is going on with the Monks… so sad.
Anyhow, I talk to Caitlin Coast more about me coming to Scotland, talk to my Dad and get the okay, as mentioned earlier and then I book the trip for next week. A 12 hour bus ride their and a 12 hour bus ride back… With the ability to cancel the bus ride before 72 hours before the trip so I can change it for a plane ride on Monday should I choose to do so with no cancellation charge(since I am leaving tomorrow for a three day weekend in Spain).
Anyhow I have spent most of tonight fighting with our uncooperative internet, booking my trip to Scotland(I’m only arriving 1 ½ hours before the tour starts so I may rebook it with a flight their bus back but for now I’m good enough until Monday when I can better examine things with no early cancellation charge on my bus ticket), and writing for this blog. Its 11:53pm, I’ve had one glass of Soko and have sat here working on this blog all night. I have been working on it for hours so I can be updated before I leave and I know likely no one will read this but I want to be able to look back ten years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now and remember every moment. So this is turning into a novel of sorts. But oh well…
I’ll leave you with this, right now my flatmates are sitting around tossing a rugby ball around, playing uker and singing and its about damn time I join in… And oh yea, this weekend I’ll be on Spain on the beach so… be jealous! I’ll update Monday or Tuesday. Adios!
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Drunken E-mails and Coked Up Blue Haired Weirdos
[I'm now less than a week from being updated to the current date!!!! YAY]
So anyhow, Sunday night when I got home I ate my KFC Zinger and it would be the last time I eat out at a genuine restaurant until Friday… If you can consider KFC a genuine restaurant without the famous bowl that is.
Anyhow, apparently my flat mates had a good time when I was out. They apparently hung out with the bartender Tex, the Irish dude that I accidentally called Scottish and Italian. And now we get free drinks at Sports Café when he’s working and on top of that he’s going to go to Ireland with us and show us how to party like the Irish do, so bad ass. I actually feel disappointed I did not get to party with them when they were partying with Tex because I’m sure it was a great time. Also their were 5 Heineken Keg cases sitting atop the fridge, I apparently missed keg night which was a giant black out, but thus is life… I’m glad they had a good time while I was gone…
Monday I slept in, class was canceled for my politics class because the professor is in North Carolina this week. So basically I slept to like noon, drained from the conference and its non-stop intellectualness. I got woken up by one of the flatmates and the cleaning lady… Hopped off the top bunk and in true Hartman-style (as Bortz, Malloy and Jared will tell you) walked around in my, gasp, Family Guy Boxers… lol… Or actually whatever boxers I was wearing that day but there is a chance they were the family guy ones (This has been a running inside joke).
Anyhow, all the roomies went to class and the cleaning lady, a 26 year old Hungarian woman def. hit on me… A LOT… So anyhow I wise nice and made conversation with her or whatever and then when she was about to leave she asked if she could eat here before her other job so while she ate her sandwich I sat on the opposing couch and talked to her… One of my flatmates came home (its hard to recall who this far removed from that day) and saw me sitting at the opposing couch and it became a running inside joke that I was having “lunch” with the cleaning lady and that I’m going to date her… Not going to lie, if I get the chance with her I’d take it… lol
Anyhow, so Monday night I had my PELA class, a 2 hour class about internships with George and Brandon. The professor is from England but taught in the states for years. He seems to be okay, but the class about maximizing your internship and British culture seemed very dry… Oh well thus is life.
Monday everyone went shopping before class as well and we got some nice stuff using ½ of our stipend each, so we each threw in 20 pounds and were able to get everything from potatoes, fish, chicken, ground meat, cearl, bread and the essentials to make okay meals. As well as some Heinz canned soups and what not. Nothing too glamours, but nothing too bad. Plus all my flat mates are decent cooks so we make due pretty well.
Tuesday morning I have my second history class with the flat mates from New York. The professor remains interesting. I can’t recall quite exactly what we went over this time except that it dealt with the Parliament Act when the House of Lords lost their veto power and women’s rights and British history leading into World War I. I find British government pretty interesting and have been itching to find out more about it…
So after class on Tuesday I talk to Mish from the UK Lacrosse team and ride out on the tube and meet up with him. We go to a field and throw some Lacrosse. He’s decent at his Lacrosse or so I thought. We exchanged some stories and got along pretty well. He told me a lot about the team and apparently there are like four goalies in total, but he said he thinks Andy, the captain exaggerated that and told me that I’m like 75% likely to start against Oxford and Cambridge, even though he hasn’t seen me in net, only seen me throw. I don’t count on me being better than anyone they have but for some reason I was throwing really well, even though it was an unfamiliar stick that he claimed wasn’t strung very well. He let me borrow my stick and after throwing for about two hours I was on my way... He’s only about a twenty minute tube ride away!
Anyhow Tuesday night might be one of the more interesting ones… Sports Café has pound pints and on top of that we don’t really need to pay for them because Tex is working… So we go to the Sports Café and we drink a lot. Its me and the flatmates as well as some of the girls from the flates upstairs. I get wasted…
Anyhow, not sure if I mentioned this before but my first night we went to Sports Café and I kept buying this bartender shots and was flirting with her. Anyhow I got her e-mail because she wouldn’t give me her number, go figure… Anyhow I gave her an e-mail while sober and she actually replied and we had a little bit of correspondence and all seemed well except she went away for a few days and then I went to Liverpool for awhile so we hadn’t really had a chance to talk and we decided that we’d hang out some time.
So anyhow, while in the Sports Café that night I had a few too many beers and some shots and some cider and some whatever I could get my hands on, all was good. To make matters better I was flirting with the bartender, Kristi, a little bit more and I got her number written on a slip of paper.
GREAT SUCCESS… Or so I thought.
Anyhow I was pretty wasted, and that night me and my roommates were going home screaming “ZINGER!” as I looked for a KFC while drunk (they were all closed) and I ended up going home, eating pizza that was cooked and apparently I lost her number and e-mailed her, not once… but TWICE!!!
The e-mails were a bunch of none-sense, but blantly put straight on the table I’m interested in her without using the best words for it…
So I wake up early in the AM to get ready for my first official day of work at the Green Party and can’t remember if I had e-mailed her or not and check my outbox and surely enough my worst dreams came true I did e-mail her and they were bad… So I send an apology e-mail… and get nothing back in return L! Bummer…
So anyhow, I go to my internship and Adam trains me on how to enter new members into the computer and run the transaction through. Its tedious but work is awesome. Everyone is really nice and it honestly stops every 30 minutes as people make tea and chit-chat about sport, weather and politics. My first day on the job I was being asked questions about of all places Nebraska because it has a Unicameral legislature and they were curious how it works…
I also learned something that blew my mind: The House of Lords, their equal to our Senate, the upper chamber of Parliament still isn’t democratically elected which blew my mind. The United Kingdom is one of two countries in the world to still have an appointed legislature, very undemocratic. Also I learned that it is possible for the PM to ask to Queen to call for elections, so the elections are guaranteed once every five years however the ruling party basically gets to decide if there are any interim elections and can do a “pop” election to surprise the other parties and it could be any moment before Gordon Brown (Labour PM) calls an election which could change the work that I’ll being doing during my internship as it’ll be in election mode… God I hope he calls an election.
So after work on Wednesday its an easy day. I think I may have worked on the blog a little bit, didn’t drink… Really took it easy. I think I may have explored the area a little bit, we had a dinner in and a glass of wine… Yuck, I hate wine (or so I thought until later this week).
So Thursday I wake up and get to work, I finish putting the people into the computer that I was given and am given more people to put into the computer. This is no easy task as the Green Party is an undermanned and under funded party and the database they use called MYOB, “Mind Your Own Business” is a database for small businesses. So its not meant for a political entity, not meant for as many members as the GP has and runs very slow and inefficiently. On top of putting the members in, you need to print out a welcome letter, find their current parliamentary constituency and send the local party/ward an e-mail with their information. So to do this you need to have excel, Microsoft office, e-mail and the internet opened as well as the slow MYOB database and pull information off of printed sheets onto the computer… It’s a very unnecessarily difficult process as a proper database meant for the parties functions could streamline everything into one program and make the process a fourth as time consuming. I also found out this day that my work gives me a four pound lunch stipend a day which is great because this petty cash allows me to get a bottled water, some of the freshest fruit ever and a can of soup or so for a healthy, affordable lunch daily because everything is cheaper out by my work. I was also informed that everyone is going out to dinner tomorrow(Friday) and that the party is paying for it, this is due to the paid staffer in charge of the Young Greens getting a new job. So I’m def. up for that.
Anyhow so on the way home from work they ask me to drop a package off at the post office, give me the package and 20 pounds… I need to get some supplies, mail the package and get a receipt and change… So I head to “Royal Mail” and yes that is the name of their mail company that is no longer state run. Its quite funny they try and sell you everything from car insurance to school supplies, its different than the USPS but still basically the same thing. They weighed the package and shipped it over night first class no issue…
I took the hour tube ride home and then I planned on staying the night in but instead we went out drinking to a place called the Verve. It was a good time, but I was tired and not wanting to really be out all that much so by the end of the night and after heavy drinking I actually dozed off at the bar, at which point I was kicked out… So while all my friends were inside I was outside for an hour or so and walked about to different bars and whatnot, kinda bar hopped and then we went home. It was a good night, but nothing too too memorable.
Now at some point during this week or last week I had an interesting run in with a blue fellowed lad at Sainsbury’s the local grocery store. [I may have mentioned this run in in and earlier post, I honestly cannot place when it happened but whatever] Anyhow, this guy was more creepy than anyone I have ever seen. He looked like he’s a 50 year old man with blue hair whose homeless and coked up… For Jared and Niklas, think of the dude we saw at KFC the first weekend of Sophemore year only more creepy.
Anyhow this dude walks up to me and tells me “I know who killed Lennon!” and then I go “who?” to which he replies “I was talking to that black fella over their,” I look back to see a black guy stocking products, “and he told me that their out of eggs and then it hit me…” he then said a name that meant nothing to me, an everyday name “so-and-so shot Lennon!”
I was sort of creeped out and stepped backwards and was kinda like “alright” to which he then said “You aren’t going to shoot me are you?” to which I said “No” and then he went “I don’t believe in violence man but if you shoot me I’ll have to protect myself and I’ll shoot you.”
I was like “Okay, I’m not going to shoot you” to which he replied “Good, because I would protect myself with your bullets and then shoot you”
I was finally called out of queue and then went and paid for my h2o or whatever and quickly left the store so I could get away from the creepest guy ever.
Anyhow, so we are coming to the weekend, which I can honestly tell you was an interesting one… I got wined… But I need to save that for another post as I need to work on my fantasy hockey team and figure out why in the hell my internet isn’t working… And btw, this time I still haven’t heard back from the lady bartender who I drunk dialed… L Cheers [PS-I’m less than a week away from the current date which means that shortly I will be doing segments specifically on British Culture!]
So anyhow, Sunday night when I got home I ate my KFC Zinger and it would be the last time I eat out at a genuine restaurant until Friday… If you can consider KFC a genuine restaurant without the famous bowl that is.
Anyhow, apparently my flat mates had a good time when I was out. They apparently hung out with the bartender Tex, the Irish dude that I accidentally called Scottish and Italian. And now we get free drinks at Sports Café when he’s working and on top of that he’s going to go to Ireland with us and show us how to party like the Irish do, so bad ass. I actually feel disappointed I did not get to party with them when they were partying with Tex because I’m sure it was a great time. Also their were 5 Heineken Keg cases sitting atop the fridge, I apparently missed keg night which was a giant black out, but thus is life… I’m glad they had a good time while I was gone…
Monday I slept in, class was canceled for my politics class because the professor is in North Carolina this week. So basically I slept to like noon, drained from the conference and its non-stop intellectualness. I got woken up by one of the flatmates and the cleaning lady… Hopped off the top bunk and in true Hartman-style (as Bortz, Malloy and Jared will tell you) walked around in my, gasp, Family Guy Boxers… lol… Or actually whatever boxers I was wearing that day but there is a chance they were the family guy ones (This has been a running inside joke).
Anyhow, all the roomies went to class and the cleaning lady, a 26 year old Hungarian woman def. hit on me… A LOT… So anyhow I wise nice and made conversation with her or whatever and then when she was about to leave she asked if she could eat here before her other job so while she ate her sandwich I sat on the opposing couch and talked to her… One of my flatmates came home (its hard to recall who this far removed from that day) and saw me sitting at the opposing couch and it became a running inside joke that I was having “lunch” with the cleaning lady and that I’m going to date her… Not going to lie, if I get the chance with her I’d take it… lol
Anyhow, so Monday night I had my PELA class, a 2 hour class about internships with George and Brandon. The professor is from England but taught in the states for years. He seems to be okay, but the class about maximizing your internship and British culture seemed very dry… Oh well thus is life.
Monday everyone went shopping before class as well and we got some nice stuff using ½ of our stipend each, so we each threw in 20 pounds and were able to get everything from potatoes, fish, chicken, ground meat, cearl, bread and the essentials to make okay meals. As well as some Heinz canned soups and what not. Nothing too glamours, but nothing too bad. Plus all my flat mates are decent cooks so we make due pretty well.
Tuesday morning I have my second history class with the flat mates from New York. The professor remains interesting. I can’t recall quite exactly what we went over this time except that it dealt with the Parliament Act when the House of Lords lost their veto power and women’s rights and British history leading into World War I. I find British government pretty interesting and have been itching to find out more about it…
So after class on Tuesday I talk to Mish from the UK Lacrosse team and ride out on the tube and meet up with him. We go to a field and throw some Lacrosse. He’s decent at his Lacrosse or so I thought. We exchanged some stories and got along pretty well. He told me a lot about the team and apparently there are like four goalies in total, but he said he thinks Andy, the captain exaggerated that and told me that I’m like 75% likely to start against Oxford and Cambridge, even though he hasn’t seen me in net, only seen me throw. I don’t count on me being better than anyone they have but for some reason I was throwing really well, even though it was an unfamiliar stick that he claimed wasn’t strung very well. He let me borrow my stick and after throwing for about two hours I was on my way... He’s only about a twenty minute tube ride away!
Anyhow Tuesday night might be one of the more interesting ones… Sports Café has pound pints and on top of that we don’t really need to pay for them because Tex is working… So we go to the Sports Café and we drink a lot. Its me and the flatmates as well as some of the girls from the flates upstairs. I get wasted…
Anyhow, not sure if I mentioned this before but my first night we went to Sports Café and I kept buying this bartender shots and was flirting with her. Anyhow I got her e-mail because she wouldn’t give me her number, go figure… Anyhow I gave her an e-mail while sober and she actually replied and we had a little bit of correspondence and all seemed well except she went away for a few days and then I went to Liverpool for awhile so we hadn’t really had a chance to talk and we decided that we’d hang out some time.
So anyhow, while in the Sports Café that night I had a few too many beers and some shots and some cider and some whatever I could get my hands on, all was good. To make matters better I was flirting with the bartender, Kristi, a little bit more and I got her number written on a slip of paper.
GREAT SUCCESS… Or so I thought.
Anyhow I was pretty wasted, and that night me and my roommates were going home screaming “ZINGER!” as I looked for a KFC while drunk (they were all closed) and I ended up going home, eating pizza that was cooked and apparently I lost her number and e-mailed her, not once… but TWICE!!!
The e-mails were a bunch of none-sense, but blantly put straight on the table I’m interested in her without using the best words for it…
So I wake up early in the AM to get ready for my first official day of work at the Green Party and can’t remember if I had e-mailed her or not and check my outbox and surely enough my worst dreams came true I did e-mail her and they were bad… So I send an apology e-mail… and get nothing back in return L! Bummer…
So anyhow, I go to my internship and Adam trains me on how to enter new members into the computer and run the transaction through. Its tedious but work is awesome. Everyone is really nice and it honestly stops every 30 minutes as people make tea and chit-chat about sport, weather and politics. My first day on the job I was being asked questions about of all places Nebraska because it has a Unicameral legislature and they were curious how it works…
I also learned something that blew my mind: The House of Lords, their equal to our Senate, the upper chamber of Parliament still isn’t democratically elected which blew my mind. The United Kingdom is one of two countries in the world to still have an appointed legislature, very undemocratic. Also I learned that it is possible for the PM to ask to Queen to call for elections, so the elections are guaranteed once every five years however the ruling party basically gets to decide if there are any interim elections and can do a “pop” election to surprise the other parties and it could be any moment before Gordon Brown (Labour PM) calls an election which could change the work that I’ll being doing during my internship as it’ll be in election mode… God I hope he calls an election.
So after work on Wednesday its an easy day. I think I may have worked on the blog a little bit, didn’t drink… Really took it easy. I think I may have explored the area a little bit, we had a dinner in and a glass of wine… Yuck, I hate wine (or so I thought until later this week).
So Thursday I wake up and get to work, I finish putting the people into the computer that I was given and am given more people to put into the computer. This is no easy task as the Green Party is an undermanned and under funded party and the database they use called MYOB, “Mind Your Own Business” is a database for small businesses. So its not meant for a political entity, not meant for as many members as the GP has and runs very slow and inefficiently. On top of putting the members in, you need to print out a welcome letter, find their current parliamentary constituency and send the local party/ward an e-mail with their information. So to do this you need to have excel, Microsoft office, e-mail and the internet opened as well as the slow MYOB database and pull information off of printed sheets onto the computer… It’s a very unnecessarily difficult process as a proper database meant for the parties functions could streamline everything into one program and make the process a fourth as time consuming. I also found out this day that my work gives me a four pound lunch stipend a day which is great because this petty cash allows me to get a bottled water, some of the freshest fruit ever and a can of soup or so for a healthy, affordable lunch daily because everything is cheaper out by my work. I was also informed that everyone is going out to dinner tomorrow(Friday) and that the party is paying for it, this is due to the paid staffer in charge of the Young Greens getting a new job. So I’m def. up for that.
Anyhow so on the way home from work they ask me to drop a package off at the post office, give me the package and 20 pounds… I need to get some supplies, mail the package and get a receipt and change… So I head to “Royal Mail” and yes that is the name of their mail company that is no longer state run. Its quite funny they try and sell you everything from car insurance to school supplies, its different than the USPS but still basically the same thing. They weighed the package and shipped it over night first class no issue…
I took the hour tube ride home and then I planned on staying the night in but instead we went out drinking to a place called the Verve. It was a good time, but I was tired and not wanting to really be out all that much so by the end of the night and after heavy drinking I actually dozed off at the bar, at which point I was kicked out… So while all my friends were inside I was outside for an hour or so and walked about to different bars and whatnot, kinda bar hopped and then we went home. It was a good night, but nothing too too memorable.
Now at some point during this week or last week I had an interesting run in with a blue fellowed lad at Sainsbury’s the local grocery store. [I may have mentioned this run in in and earlier post, I honestly cannot place when it happened but whatever] Anyhow, this guy was more creepy than anyone I have ever seen. He looked like he’s a 50 year old man with blue hair whose homeless and coked up… For Jared and Niklas, think of the dude we saw at KFC the first weekend of Sophemore year only more creepy.
Anyhow this dude walks up to me and tells me “I know who killed Lennon!” and then I go “who?” to which he replies “I was talking to that black fella over their,” I look back to see a black guy stocking products, “and he told me that their out of eggs and then it hit me…” he then said a name that meant nothing to me, an everyday name “so-and-so shot Lennon!”
I was sort of creeped out and stepped backwards and was kinda like “alright” to which he then said “You aren’t going to shoot me are you?” to which I said “No” and then he went “I don’t believe in violence man but if you shoot me I’ll have to protect myself and I’ll shoot you.”
I was like “Okay, I’m not going to shoot you” to which he replied “Good, because I would protect myself with your bullets and then shoot you”
I was finally called out of queue and then went and paid for my h2o or whatever and quickly left the store so I could get away from the creepest guy ever.
Anyhow, so we are coming to the weekend, which I can honestly tell you was an interesting one… I got wined… But I need to save that for another post as I need to work on my fantasy hockey team and figure out why in the hell my internet isn’t working… And btw, this time I still haven’t heard back from the lady bartender who I drunk dialed… L Cheers [PS-I’m less than a week away from the current date which means that shortly I will be doing segments specifically on British Culture!]
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
HOW TO AMERICANIZE THE ENGLISH AND WALES GREEN PARTY
So yea… Yesterdays post talked about the last two days of the English and Wales Green Party Autumn Conference and focused mostly on the YES! –v- Green Empowerment debate which I thought was interesting but didn’t really communicate that well… But anyhow I regress… The thing I skipped over was the “REVUE” which was at like 11pm on the Saturday of the conference and was meant to make light of everything after the long stressful day…
Their were a bunch of acts… One guy talked about cycling across the country and that was well… boring. This old guy sang drinking songs but was like 103 and mumbled everything… Some hippies did a funny act about the leadership debate and some dude read a poem that was Bush and Blair bashing that he assured would be funny but it wasn’t… at all…
Their was an act later in the night that made fun of the leadership debate that was hilarious but I couldn’t describe it. I’d say the crowd was most receptive to the last act (the one I couldn’t begin to describe) and mine… I basically pretended like I was the “stereotypical” American and got up in Stephen Colbert fashion and made fun of America by making it seem so great… Anyhow, this speech I gave was all about pathos, timing and crowd interaction so it doesn’t translate as well onto paper(Or computer screen for that matter). And their were parts where I went away from the script, particularly when I made fun of Derek Wall in front of 200 or so people…
Here it is… And as I prefaced it in the conference, I will preface it here… The following is a joke and does not necessarily represent my beliefs and ideological opinions...
=================================================================
HOW TO AMERICANIZE THE ENGLISH AND WALES GREEN PARTY: A speech by John Hartman on Sept. 15th 2007 in Liverpool, England.
As many of you know I am an American.
Now, now don’t growl. There are a lot of stereotypes of us Americans that are just plain wrong and I am here to ask you to give a Yank a chance, because I am here to show all of you the American way, to convert you to American values and to of course Americanize the English and Wales Green Party.
Now since we preach and REALLY REALLY believe in basic democratic values I’d like a quick straw poll to see who would like to see the Green Party Americanized… Now don’t be shy, those who do not want to see the English and Wales Green Party Americanized raise your hand…
(About 2/3 of the people raise their hands saying they DO NOT want to see the English and Wales Green Party Americanized)
Oh dear… Oh dear… I did not expect this… It seems like I have lost the vote… Hmmm… Hmmmm… Now I guess the American thing to do would be regardless of public opinion and se we saw in Bush’s first election let’s ignore the vote and do as I want.
Now don’t be angry with me. Scientists have been wanting to study American leaders like Bush and myself for years and 99% have hypothesized there is no coloration between what George Bush thinks and what George Bush says… (Speech interrupted by cheering) Now I have to say that I agree with the .01 percent of scientists in saying that I support George Bush and his public speaking… Because to have no coolelation between your mouth and your brain, you got to have a brain.
Anyhow, to be an American political party there are a few things that need to be done. Firstly, your keynote lady speaker, the mayoral candidate for London… A woman? I mean lets face it Americans are afraid of women gaining power save for a few from politically strong families… So now to calm this fear of the people Sian Berry will be known simply as Hillary Clinton. Now Derek Wall, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you… In fact, stand up… You, yes you stand up (Derek Wall stands up). You are the kind of man American’s could cling to, but we need to change a few things about you… We need a new name… I know, what’s your last initial? Yea, we will now call you by your last initial… So when you guys see Derek Wall say hello to “dubba” or ‘G’’W’ for short.
Now since this is the Green Party, climate change is a very important issue. But we are going to take an American approach, ignore the scientists and do some real American action immediately. That is why when I get home tonight I am going to edit the wikipedia page on Climate Change and then we can claim… that a reputatiable source, wikipedia, says the English and Wales Green Party has cut Emissions by 90% in a four hour period.
Now my fellow Americans… Is it okay if I call you Americans? A couple things the English and Wales Green Party needs to Americanize besides…
Ignore Scientists
Edit Wikipedia
Call Sian; Hillary and Derek, ‘W’
Ignore the democratic process
Ignore the environment and every major issue of our age
Is of course the key component of American politics today: war monger. That’s why it will now be the official policy of the English and Wales Green Party to do the following:
Invade Canada (Loud laughter from crowd)
Invade France (More laughter from crowd)
And for you Scottish Greens… Invade Scotland (Boos from the Scottish)
It will also be the policy of our party to apply for statehood in the United States. And upon receiving statehood we will abolish this trechous monarchy in favor of the best monarch to ever lawlessly rule ever… King Bush.
Now I know these ‘progressive’ changes are scary. And I know its hard to ignore the environment and science, to ignore the democratic process and to rely on sources such as wikipedia but we will be progressive and Americanize the English culture as well and in doing so these ‘radical’ policies will seem more acceptable… So the following shall occur:
Football (John makes kicking motion) will not have pads and be ‘FOOTBALL’ (John makes throwing motion)
Rugby will now be about throwing a ball through a hoop
And cricket will require running bases and using a bat
You will not drive on the opposite side of the road
Crisps will be called Chips, and Chips called fries
In closing America is an amazing country and to merge its values in the English and Wales Green movement will do good for the cause. The slogan “One World. One Chance” will now be replaced with the slogan “WWGBD”
For those of you who don’t know what that stands for… “What Would George Bush Do”
Thank you. And may God continue to Bless America.
=============================================================
That speech was amazing… Anyhow to close out the conference on Sunday I helped clean up, messed around on wikipedia and Youtube for two hours at Liverpool Hope University and then walked to the Bus station and had my 6 hour trip home. Went to KFC and got a Zinger, went into my flat, said hello to the guys (who I haven’t seen in 5 days) and than ate… Next post should be a lot more interesting starting with Monday the 17th.
Right now I need to get ready, I am going to meet my relatives from here who were born here… My grandmother is from London England so it’ll be nice to meet some of the family. I will let you guys know…
Their were a bunch of acts… One guy talked about cycling across the country and that was well… boring. This old guy sang drinking songs but was like 103 and mumbled everything… Some hippies did a funny act about the leadership debate and some dude read a poem that was Bush and Blair bashing that he assured would be funny but it wasn’t… at all…
Their was an act later in the night that made fun of the leadership debate that was hilarious but I couldn’t describe it. I’d say the crowd was most receptive to the last act (the one I couldn’t begin to describe) and mine… I basically pretended like I was the “stereotypical” American and got up in Stephen Colbert fashion and made fun of America by making it seem so great… Anyhow, this speech I gave was all about pathos, timing and crowd interaction so it doesn’t translate as well onto paper(Or computer screen for that matter). And their were parts where I went away from the script, particularly when I made fun of Derek Wall in front of 200 or so people…
Here it is… And as I prefaced it in the conference, I will preface it here… The following is a joke and does not necessarily represent my beliefs and ideological opinions...
=================================================================
HOW TO AMERICANIZE THE ENGLISH AND WALES GREEN PARTY: A speech by John Hartman on Sept. 15th 2007 in Liverpool, England.
As many of you know I am an American.
Now, now don’t growl. There are a lot of stereotypes of us Americans that are just plain wrong and I am here to ask you to give a Yank a chance, because I am here to show all of you the American way, to convert you to American values and to of course Americanize the English and Wales Green Party.
Now since we preach and REALLY REALLY believe in basic democratic values I’d like a quick straw poll to see who would like to see the Green Party Americanized… Now don’t be shy, those who do not want to see the English and Wales Green Party Americanized raise your hand…
(About 2/3 of the people raise their hands saying they DO NOT want to see the English and Wales Green Party Americanized)
Oh dear… Oh dear… I did not expect this… It seems like I have lost the vote… Hmmm… Hmmmm… Now I guess the American thing to do would be regardless of public opinion and se we saw in Bush’s first election let’s ignore the vote and do as I want.
Now don’t be angry with me. Scientists have been wanting to study American leaders like Bush and myself for years and 99% have hypothesized there is no coloration between what George Bush thinks and what George Bush says… (Speech interrupted by cheering) Now I have to say that I agree with the .01 percent of scientists in saying that I support George Bush and his public speaking… Because to have no coolelation between your mouth and your brain, you got to have a brain.
Anyhow, to be an American political party there are a few things that need to be done. Firstly, your keynote lady speaker, the mayoral candidate for London… A woman? I mean lets face it Americans are afraid of women gaining power save for a few from politically strong families… So now to calm this fear of the people Sian Berry will be known simply as Hillary Clinton. Now Derek Wall, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you… In fact, stand up… You, yes you stand up (Derek Wall stands up). You are the kind of man American’s could cling to, but we need to change a few things about you… We need a new name… I know, what’s your last initial? Yea, we will now call you by your last initial… So when you guys see Derek Wall say hello to “dubba” or ‘G’’W’ for short.
Now since this is the Green Party, climate change is a very important issue. But we are going to take an American approach, ignore the scientists and do some real American action immediately. That is why when I get home tonight I am going to edit the wikipedia page on Climate Change and then we can claim… that a reputatiable source, wikipedia, says the English and Wales Green Party has cut Emissions by 90% in a four hour period.
Now my fellow Americans… Is it okay if I call you Americans? A couple things the English and Wales Green Party needs to Americanize besides…
Ignore Scientists
Edit Wikipedia
Call Sian; Hillary and Derek, ‘W’
Ignore the democratic process
Ignore the environment and every major issue of our age
Is of course the key component of American politics today: war monger. That’s why it will now be the official policy of the English and Wales Green Party to do the following:
Invade Canada (Loud laughter from crowd)
Invade France (More laughter from crowd)
And for you Scottish Greens… Invade Scotland (Boos from the Scottish)
It will also be the policy of our party to apply for statehood in the United States. And upon receiving statehood we will abolish this trechous monarchy in favor of the best monarch to ever lawlessly rule ever… King Bush.
Now I know these ‘progressive’ changes are scary. And I know its hard to ignore the environment and science, to ignore the democratic process and to rely on sources such as wikipedia but we will be progressive and Americanize the English culture as well and in doing so these ‘radical’ policies will seem more acceptable… So the following shall occur:
Football (John makes kicking motion) will not have pads and be ‘FOOTBALL’ (John makes throwing motion)
Rugby will now be about throwing a ball through a hoop
And cricket will require running bases and using a bat
You will not drive on the opposite side of the road
Crisps will be called Chips, and Chips called fries
In closing America is an amazing country and to merge its values in the English and Wales Green movement will do good for the cause. The slogan “One World. One Chance” will now be replaced with the slogan “WWGBD”
For those of you who don’t know what that stands for… “What Would George Bush Do”
Thank you. And may God continue to Bless America.
=============================================================
That speech was amazing… Anyhow to close out the conference on Sunday I helped clean up, messed around on wikipedia and Youtube for two hours at Liverpool Hope University and then walked to the Bus station and had my 6 hour trip home. Went to KFC and got a Zinger, went into my flat, said hello to the guys (who I haven’t seen in 5 days) and than ate… Next post should be a lot more interesting starting with Monday the 17th.
Right now I need to get ready, I am going to meet my relatives from here who were born here… My grandmother is from London England so it’ll be nice to meet some of the family. I will let you guys know…
Monday, 24 September 2007
GREEN EMPOWERMENT -v- YES! to leadership
[Please note the transcript of the speech I gave "How to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party" will be posted tomorrow... lol]
So anyhow… The last two days of the conference I took a little less notes, particularly Saturday in which I felt that some of the workshops were boring and didn’t attend some to actually talk to people about politics and work on the speech I needed to give… And Sunday is pretty short so not much went on… So this blog post will not be as long as yesterdays (Can I hear some cheers).
By the way before I start todays date is Sept. 24 and I was told it looks like I lost weight without instigating or looking for the comment. Go me!
At 1000, Derek Wall gave a speech talking about Ecology and Power. It seemed like a college professors rant instead of a political speech but I found it fascinating. It talked a lot of power, and defined power in different ways than I have heard before which was interesting as you Poly Sci junkies know power is the main term in political scientist.
Here is the speech:
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/speeches/59
Then I attended a workshop on the future of Europe dealing with the new EU Constitution proposed and a general fear that Great Britain would lose its sovereignty and that it would create a “United States of Europe” without a clear, concise and effective constitution that the United States of America has. They admired the US Constitution in this and complained about how there is no voter referendum to let the British people say if they want this new Constitution or not.
Apparently should the treaty be passed EU police have the right to search British peoples homes and arrest them, the United Kingdom would rely on the EU for foreign policy and major issues would be decided on a supranational rather than national and local level which goes against the Greens libertarian viewpoints of the best government is local government.
It was interesting and it was thrown out that the Liberal Democrats, Labour Party and Tories all seem to want a refrurendrum as well… Though the cabinet in the Labour Party and Gordon Brown(the PM) do not want it and seem out of touch with their parties and 80% of the British public that wants a refrurednrum.
In 2004 when the issue of a constitution came up France vetoed it due to things like a European flag and anthem that would erase the French identity. With those things out and France unwilling to veto this time it seems like it will pass and the people of England are extremely worried… The pound could become the euro in due time with the EU controlling the banks… Basically the British parliament gives Brussels the final say in 80 important issues… and they fear a British identity being lost.
A German member of the English and Wales Green Party mentioned that he thought it was unfair of the British to try and hold up a Constitution that the rest of Europe wants, and that one country shouldn’t be able to hold up the inevitable. He was basically booed out of the workshop…
Even the two Green MEPs are opposed to this extended power of the EU.
Anyhow today’s (as in current date, a week or so after the conference) Sun newspaper cut out the porn (yes this newspaper has Porn on page 3 every day) to use it to promote the issue that the English will lose their power and identity and had seven pages of articles why the EU needs to be pushed back not expanded.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004240000-2007440318,00.html
All major newspapers in London are opposed to the expanded EU Constitution and basically it was promised their would be a referendum to let the voters decide if it happens and its in Gordon Brown’s hand to decide if this referendum happens.
I don’t have an opinion per say, but I can tell you that the British are the least responsive to this idea of an expanded EU than the rest of Europe that is overwhelmingly for it. I just don’t know if the Green Party and Sun have over-exaggerated the issues but a European Union Army and unelected courts seem like a bad thing for Great Britain whose law system seems to be at odds with much of the rest of Europe. Its interesting to see how this will play out though.
And yes when I said the daily sun has porn in it, this newspaper actually advertises the fact that page 3 has a fully nude girl everyday and puts ten pents over each breast in the advertisements and says only twenty pents… I think its stupid to have porn in a newspaper but whatever sells it I guess.
So after being in the jam packed workshop on the European Union and hearing people vent about the United Kingdom losing its sovereignty and how on this issue the Greens are even willing to work with other parties (even the fundamentalists) to block this new, what they feel, overbearing and vague constitution.
One of the major issues is that the British gov’t denies that is is a new Constitution but rather a treaty that does not legally bind the British people but the rest of the European leaders openly say it is a Constitution and one even mentioned “even the UK will have to follow it” when asked about the UK and its situation.
This was one of the best workshops but it was def. not an unbiased view. I can say if what they are saying is true I’m against the new EU Constitution because it would give Brussels more power over London than Washington D.C. has over Harrisburg if everything they say is true… I think they may be exaggerating though.
Afterwards the main conference room was packed for more of the same but first their was an address from Represntives from the Kurdish National Congress and talked about issues that Kurdish people are having in Iraq and more so Turkey. I was honestly appalled to hear what these people go through and honestly felt bad… They talked about a lack of rights to embrace their culture, teach their children their language, have good medical care and a right not to be raped and murdered… That Turkey isn’t working towards being a better country but towards a country of intolerance. He said Kurds want to give peace a chance. Here’s a paraphrase:
“Kurds do not think there is a answer to the Kurdish question within existing boarders unless their rights, culture and identity and language must be recognized by the Turkish government. Kurdish students must be allowed to explore their culture.”
“The right to free political activity must be protected for all”
“Kurds deserve a life of no violence… Turks deserve the same.”
“A political solution should be encouraged. Kurdish question cannot be served by military only but by dialogue that represents the concerns of all sides.”
Powerful stuff. You need to feel bad for how Turkey treats the Kurds after hearing this speech.
Before I went into this I did go to a Palestine table where their was a lot of anti-Israel propaganda calling Israel a terrorist state and a rogue state and this isn’t a Green view but a general view of Europeans it seems. They aren’t anti-Israel but they aren’t pro-Israel like in America. It was interesting to see things from the other side of the debate but I decided not to touch that one as all I want is peace and equality for everyone in that region regardless of religion, race, creed, gender or whatever and didn’t want to defend either side as a peace should have been reached by now… So now both Europeans and Americans can jump on me because I stated the obvious… That both sides fuck up, but oh well (so much for not touching that one, but I didn’t at the conference).
At some point during this day I went to some other workshops on women’s rights, on climate change and other issues but perhaps the most interesting outside of the European Union debate and the YES! debate I talked about yesterday was the opposite side of the YES! debate, the Green Empowerment.
The Green Empowerment movement feels that the Green Party’s strength is that it is different and that there is no need for a leader. It seems the more “socialist” leaning of the party, along with those who want a true utopian society where everyone is equal with little or no structures except for local government are for the Green Empowerment movement as well as the older people of the party.
Green Empowerment isn’t against leadership but against formal leaders. And their was a lot of hate brewing in this room as both the YES! and Green Empowerment are pushing each other to each others limits… The YES! feel the current structures aren’t working and they need internal elected leaders to gain new members while the Green Empowerment feel that focusing on only two leaders shy’s people away from being true leaders in the fashion of MLK Jr. and Gaundi.
I remember asking a question along the lines of what if YES! wins or if Green Empowerment wins, how do you close the rift in the party… And their really wasn’t a clear answer as many of the Green Empowerment people fear a leader so much I feel some would leave the party… The answer given to my question by one of the Green Empowerment people was something along the lines of “The issues we are working towards; climate change, social equality, are too important to let this ruin the party”, but it didn’t close my fears that this rift could get out of control.
You see a voter refruredum of Green Party voters is going to occur in November to decide if their will be official leaders of the party… So both sides attempted to court as many votes as possible with both sides lobbying, handing out leaflets, making websites and politicking and giving well crafted and well scripted political speeches to make both seem like the most practical and most obvious solution.
Their were then GPEX elections… (I know I got this out of order a little bit but whatever) where members of the party attempt to run for the Executive Board (where no one leader exists)… The people running for principal speaker, which could become called leader were scrutinized and questioned by both sides and it became a political show with both sides trying to prove their legitimacy.
At one point, Jean Lambert who was running for Principal Speaker was asked that since she is MEP (Member of European Parliament), running for MP (Memember of British Parliament) and running for Principal Speaker is she trying to be their leader to which she replied that she was not and that that was an ignorant question. Personal attacks to people running for every part of GPEX seemed to exist. But because of the following each side has it seemed like both sides had 1/3rd the room on their side with the last 1/3 undecided… It was truly a debate to be had… And the best part, Sunday’s mainly dedicated to the debate.
Anyhow because my notes aren’t in the best order for Saturday and Sunday let me tell you I attended a good many more workshops though, I really want to focus on this Green Empowerment/YES! to leaders debate that occurred on Sunday…
So anyhow, things were rough on Saturday, people were stressed out as it was the longest day of the conference so their was a “revue” planned where people do comedy sketches… I did a standup act called how to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party… And also had an interesting trip home that night as I was staying in my hotel instead of hostel and it was 10 pounds to get their so after I checked in I stayed in the one night I had planned on doing some crazy drinking and the way back on Sunday I tried to take a Bus, got close to where I needed to be but got off one stop to far and the taxi I grabbed took me to the wrong Liverpool Hope University, apparently their was more than one which I was unaware of but the other 3 cab drivers from the previous days always took me to the right one… Whoo! Anyhow the reason why I skipped the revue is I’m going to do it as a separate post because I think people who will not enjoy my political analysis/rant here would enjoy reading about the revue as my speech just kicked ass. Anyhow because of me being taken to the wrong University and being on a long ass bus ride on the slowest bus ever I missed the first workshop of the morning on Sunday and got their just in time for the leadership debate… And this debate, as I observed, it was the first time I felt like a political scientist.
Let me set the stage… Its in a room with about 300-400 people in it… I’m sitting with the “Young Greens” who mostly are older than me or my age and seem split on the issue themselves… A debate is about to take place with one person from each side getting three minutes to speak and then someone from the other side getting a chance to speak… No one is allowed to speak twice… A straw poll before it was started showed about 1/3 in favor of the Yes! to leadership referendum and about a 1/3rd in favor of Green Empowerment with the remaining third undecided. For the YES! to leaders to pass in November it needs to win by a 2/3rd vote… To show the intensity of the debate I wrote down what every person said (though did not get a chance to record names) but it is paraphrasing and not perfect, but you can see what the Green Party says/thinks… When someone who spoke was on the YES side, it will say YES before the quotations and Green Empowerment before the quotations of someone on the Green Empowerment side and Undecided before the Undecided side… Please note these are paraphrases of the main points of each speaker and not their speeches in their entirety. I could never articulate as well as some of the speakers for both sides… Enjoy
So as best as I can present it in a nutshell, being as tired as I am here is the YES-v-Green Empowerment debate and my analysis of who won the debate… The three of you who will actually read this part enjoy.
YES!-“We have outstanding people in the Green Party… And we should be proud of that. Having the option to call upon these leaders is vital. This motion allows the public to elect two ‘coleaders’ or a leader and coleader of gender balance.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“It is a good thing we are having these debates. I don’t think we need a leader but we need to have the two sides come together and heal the rift. Theirs this idea if you don’t want a leader you don’t want power and that is a myth. What you need is to get media attention to get elected and its not a leader that does that its outstanding policy and being elected that does that.”
YES!-“It gives us a chance every time we are choosing leaders, but not a single leader. I ask you to consider that this is the best way of moving forward for the party.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“This isn’t about a leader its about getting on the tele. One person cannot represent the diversity of our party image.”
YES!-“20 years ago this debate came up and no leader was selected. And with no leader their have been two decades of no progress.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Since when has the Green Party made policy on what the media thinks?”
YES!-“Bottom up democracy means that someone is at the top as well. We have leaders and we are publicly scaried to call them leaders. We need to compromise. More important we need to look at how we come across to the public. Without a leader they think we are a bunch of nutters. It is a shame if we lose votes because we don’t have leaders.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“The Green Party is nothing if not critical. Wearing a suit doesn’t mean your smart underneath. Being elected a leader doesn’t mean you have leadership qualities. We need more leaders not less.”
YES!-“In Scotland they put coleaders to put more accountability to their leadership. Its not going to change things over night but it’s a step in the right direction.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“I’m opposing it based on the philosophy on politics where this party is ideologically. You Cannot impose structural form on a voluntary forum that is this culturally diverse. Our activists are the heart of this party.”
YES!-“I’m a volunteer, I’m a member and I want a leader. Because it is not the empowering party everyone thinks it is. It is disempowering. We are not very good at generating leadership, the truth is our leadership is externally generated because we are not very good at internal leadership. The leadership will grow, create more leadership and we will embrace it.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“We all have to be our own leaders. I don’t like how this debate has gone. It is our strength that we have this diversity and it’s a very refreshing alternative to the status quo. The media molds and changes popular politicians to unpopular ones, why do we want to do that to our leaders?”
YES!-“This Motion is not about changing the amount of power, that doesn’t change. What changes is the word leader, we are using a more accessible word and reinventing it and that takes courage. And we have a gender balance and this measure shows more accountability to our own leaders than ever before. It empowers women and out future leaders.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Our responsibility is to the local level and local councils and our party isn’t their to lead people but to empower people and show leadership to involve people and increase participative government. Theirs a different between a single leader and leadership. We do have a collective leadership called the Executive Board and we should work on making that more effective then getting singular leaders. I don’t see any accountability in this[having leaders] at all.”
YES!-Scottish Green Party has a democracy and accountability. Today what you choose is that you choose your leaders democratically and formally or informally and unaccountably. The best way to make those leadership structures work is to make them open, democratic and accountable. We are challenging the definition of party by calling ourselves a party. You choose party to choose leadership. Leadership being democratically elected is also more accountable than unelected.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Because the leader will only have a 1/12 vote on GPEX it’ll look weak and the media will slam how we have the weakest political leaders.”
YES!-“Our leaders will not have the power to make policy, appoint ministers, ect… In negotiations they will have leverage as a recognizable figure. More media coverage. It’ll help us get the message across.”
UNDECIDED-“Yes or No? People do’t know what to do. What do people do who can’t choose Yes or No?”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“I joined the Green Party because it didn’t have a leader. A national leader is going to dilute attention from national and local parties. The Green Party doesn’t have leadership it has initiative. I wish we would have had this debate before we took it to refrurendum. I hope we keep local, stay local, be local and smush national.”
YES-“We heard power corrupts and we are a political party. My view is that power doesn’t corrupt it is the system that corrupts people; power is neutral. People are disillusioned w/the other parties because they say one thing and do another. The people out there are desperate for a new form of leadership. We may change things when we get their but we got to get their first.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“The proposal before us is not a big change. I’m not bothered by the way things goes but what I’m worried about is when you get elected MPs and they have a large media profile and leadership role how do you keep them accountable. The party should be focused on them and how to keep them accountable.”
YES!/Sian Berry-“The title principal speaker is rubbish. Confusion in the media, and is a waste of time. Takes away from our elected representatives. We are not communicating with the public the way we should. It is about changing a name and giving the speakers a vote-that’s it. People are making it out to be a lot more than it is. If you don’t trust one of our own how can we expect the public too. We need to say ‘We’re really different and we can make a different!’”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Electorate tired. Look at last turnout. We need a new way of doing politics and to do this we need a radical political party. We are a radical political party, our radical party brings radical policy. We do want to push forward, we do need to push forward. To quote Gandi ‘the means is the end in the making’. We are strongly in favor of leaders, we need leaders in every region. We need to empower people, we need many leaders. We need to bring grassroots politics from the ground up.”
OKAY… WOW… That was a long debate (and for all intents and purposes the end of the conference except for some more motions I had to sit through and clean up and other stuff.)
My personal opinion is that the party remains in rift. The Green Empowerment I predicted to lose because of how well the speakers on the YES! side would be because they all have the professional politician aspect to them and are good speakers but Green Empowerment really showed up and brought many valid points and standing ovations.
Both sides really did an equal job in presenting their cases and I feel that Green Empowerment actually did a better job of courting the undecided though they haven’t convinced me. I feel that YES! to leadership is the best direction for the party as the public tends to be out of tune with what the Green Party of England and Wales stands for. I feel that the party is in a bit of trouble either way.
If Green Empowerment wins there is likely to be more acceptance from the YES! people but I feel the party has less chance of moving forward, winning major elections and having healthy growth over the next few years. However should YES! win I feel some of the Green Empowerment people are unlikely to accept it and two scenarios can happen… 1. A huge exdious of the utopian people of the party or 2. A constant recall of leaders to keep them from getting anything done to show that one or two leaders cannot show the entire diversity of the party.
I mean I honestly think the rift can be filled either way but the party is starchy divided and needs to come back together to be successful… My prediction for the Nov. refruredum…
YES! brings in almost 65% of the vote but is unable to get the necessary 66.6% it needs to cause the YES! to leadership into effect. Its hard to predict though because theirs 2 months of campaigning to go and both sides are really dedicated and there is no way to tell how the 95% of the party that wasn’t at the conference feels about it… Could be interesting…
Anyhow, next post I am going to go over the “REVUE” which deals with my speech I gave in Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert style… Check back later tonight or tomorrow for the transcript of the speech…
So anyhow… The last two days of the conference I took a little less notes, particularly Saturday in which I felt that some of the workshops were boring and didn’t attend some to actually talk to people about politics and work on the speech I needed to give… And Sunday is pretty short so not much went on… So this blog post will not be as long as yesterdays (Can I hear some cheers).
By the way before I start todays date is Sept. 24 and I was told it looks like I lost weight without instigating or looking for the comment. Go me!
At 1000, Derek Wall gave a speech talking about Ecology and Power. It seemed like a college professors rant instead of a political speech but I found it fascinating. It talked a lot of power, and defined power in different ways than I have heard before which was interesting as you Poly Sci junkies know power is the main term in political scientist.
Here is the speech:
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/speeches/59
Then I attended a workshop on the future of Europe dealing with the new EU Constitution proposed and a general fear that Great Britain would lose its sovereignty and that it would create a “United States of Europe” without a clear, concise and effective constitution that the United States of America has. They admired the US Constitution in this and complained about how there is no voter referendum to let the British people say if they want this new Constitution or not.
Apparently should the treaty be passed EU police have the right to search British peoples homes and arrest them, the United Kingdom would rely on the EU for foreign policy and major issues would be decided on a supranational rather than national and local level which goes against the Greens libertarian viewpoints of the best government is local government.
It was interesting and it was thrown out that the Liberal Democrats, Labour Party and Tories all seem to want a refrurendrum as well… Though the cabinet in the Labour Party and Gordon Brown(the PM) do not want it and seem out of touch with their parties and 80% of the British public that wants a refrurednrum.
In 2004 when the issue of a constitution came up France vetoed it due to things like a European flag and anthem that would erase the French identity. With those things out and France unwilling to veto this time it seems like it will pass and the people of England are extremely worried… The pound could become the euro in due time with the EU controlling the banks… Basically the British parliament gives Brussels the final say in 80 important issues… and they fear a British identity being lost.
A German member of the English and Wales Green Party mentioned that he thought it was unfair of the British to try and hold up a Constitution that the rest of Europe wants, and that one country shouldn’t be able to hold up the inevitable. He was basically booed out of the workshop…
Even the two Green MEPs are opposed to this extended power of the EU.
Anyhow today’s (as in current date, a week or so after the conference) Sun newspaper cut out the porn (yes this newspaper has Porn on page 3 every day) to use it to promote the issue that the English will lose their power and identity and had seven pages of articles why the EU needs to be pushed back not expanded.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2004240000-2007440318,00.html
All major newspapers in London are opposed to the expanded EU Constitution and basically it was promised their would be a referendum to let the voters decide if it happens and its in Gordon Brown’s hand to decide if this referendum happens.
I don’t have an opinion per say, but I can tell you that the British are the least responsive to this idea of an expanded EU than the rest of Europe that is overwhelmingly for it. I just don’t know if the Green Party and Sun have over-exaggerated the issues but a European Union Army and unelected courts seem like a bad thing for Great Britain whose law system seems to be at odds with much of the rest of Europe. Its interesting to see how this will play out though.
And yes when I said the daily sun has porn in it, this newspaper actually advertises the fact that page 3 has a fully nude girl everyday and puts ten pents over each breast in the advertisements and says only twenty pents… I think its stupid to have porn in a newspaper but whatever sells it I guess.
So after being in the jam packed workshop on the European Union and hearing people vent about the United Kingdom losing its sovereignty and how on this issue the Greens are even willing to work with other parties (even the fundamentalists) to block this new, what they feel, overbearing and vague constitution.
One of the major issues is that the British gov’t denies that is is a new Constitution but rather a treaty that does not legally bind the British people but the rest of the European leaders openly say it is a Constitution and one even mentioned “even the UK will have to follow it” when asked about the UK and its situation.
This was one of the best workshops but it was def. not an unbiased view. I can say if what they are saying is true I’m against the new EU Constitution because it would give Brussels more power over London than Washington D.C. has over Harrisburg if everything they say is true… I think they may be exaggerating though.
Afterwards the main conference room was packed for more of the same but first their was an address from Represntives from the Kurdish National Congress and talked about issues that Kurdish people are having in Iraq and more so Turkey. I was honestly appalled to hear what these people go through and honestly felt bad… They talked about a lack of rights to embrace their culture, teach their children their language, have good medical care and a right not to be raped and murdered… That Turkey isn’t working towards being a better country but towards a country of intolerance. He said Kurds want to give peace a chance. Here’s a paraphrase:
“Kurds do not think there is a answer to the Kurdish question within existing boarders unless their rights, culture and identity and language must be recognized by the Turkish government. Kurdish students must be allowed to explore their culture.”
“The right to free political activity must be protected for all”
“Kurds deserve a life of no violence… Turks deserve the same.”
“A political solution should be encouraged. Kurdish question cannot be served by military only but by dialogue that represents the concerns of all sides.”
Powerful stuff. You need to feel bad for how Turkey treats the Kurds after hearing this speech.
Before I went into this I did go to a Palestine table where their was a lot of anti-Israel propaganda calling Israel a terrorist state and a rogue state and this isn’t a Green view but a general view of Europeans it seems. They aren’t anti-Israel but they aren’t pro-Israel like in America. It was interesting to see things from the other side of the debate but I decided not to touch that one as all I want is peace and equality for everyone in that region regardless of religion, race, creed, gender or whatever and didn’t want to defend either side as a peace should have been reached by now… So now both Europeans and Americans can jump on me because I stated the obvious… That both sides fuck up, but oh well (so much for not touching that one, but I didn’t at the conference).
At some point during this day I went to some other workshops on women’s rights, on climate change and other issues but perhaps the most interesting outside of the European Union debate and the YES! debate I talked about yesterday was the opposite side of the YES! debate, the Green Empowerment.
The Green Empowerment movement feels that the Green Party’s strength is that it is different and that there is no need for a leader. It seems the more “socialist” leaning of the party, along with those who want a true utopian society where everyone is equal with little or no structures except for local government are for the Green Empowerment movement as well as the older people of the party.
Green Empowerment isn’t against leadership but against formal leaders. And their was a lot of hate brewing in this room as both the YES! and Green Empowerment are pushing each other to each others limits… The YES! feel the current structures aren’t working and they need internal elected leaders to gain new members while the Green Empowerment feel that focusing on only two leaders shy’s people away from being true leaders in the fashion of MLK Jr. and Gaundi.
I remember asking a question along the lines of what if YES! wins or if Green Empowerment wins, how do you close the rift in the party… And their really wasn’t a clear answer as many of the Green Empowerment people fear a leader so much I feel some would leave the party… The answer given to my question by one of the Green Empowerment people was something along the lines of “The issues we are working towards; climate change, social equality, are too important to let this ruin the party”, but it didn’t close my fears that this rift could get out of control.
You see a voter refruredum of Green Party voters is going to occur in November to decide if their will be official leaders of the party… So both sides attempted to court as many votes as possible with both sides lobbying, handing out leaflets, making websites and politicking and giving well crafted and well scripted political speeches to make both seem like the most practical and most obvious solution.
Their were then GPEX elections… (I know I got this out of order a little bit but whatever) where members of the party attempt to run for the Executive Board (where no one leader exists)… The people running for principal speaker, which could become called leader were scrutinized and questioned by both sides and it became a political show with both sides trying to prove their legitimacy.
At one point, Jean Lambert who was running for Principal Speaker was asked that since she is MEP (Member of European Parliament), running for MP (Memember of British Parliament) and running for Principal Speaker is she trying to be their leader to which she replied that she was not and that that was an ignorant question. Personal attacks to people running for every part of GPEX seemed to exist. But because of the following each side has it seemed like both sides had 1/3rd the room on their side with the last 1/3 undecided… It was truly a debate to be had… And the best part, Sunday’s mainly dedicated to the debate.
Anyhow because my notes aren’t in the best order for Saturday and Sunday let me tell you I attended a good many more workshops though, I really want to focus on this Green Empowerment/YES! to leaders debate that occurred on Sunday…
So anyhow, things were rough on Saturday, people were stressed out as it was the longest day of the conference so their was a “revue” planned where people do comedy sketches… I did a standup act called how to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party… And also had an interesting trip home that night as I was staying in my hotel instead of hostel and it was 10 pounds to get their so after I checked in I stayed in the one night I had planned on doing some crazy drinking and the way back on Sunday I tried to take a Bus, got close to where I needed to be but got off one stop to far and the taxi I grabbed took me to the wrong Liverpool Hope University, apparently their was more than one which I was unaware of but the other 3 cab drivers from the previous days always took me to the right one… Whoo! Anyhow the reason why I skipped the revue is I’m going to do it as a separate post because I think people who will not enjoy my political analysis/rant here would enjoy reading about the revue as my speech just kicked ass. Anyhow because of me being taken to the wrong University and being on a long ass bus ride on the slowest bus ever I missed the first workshop of the morning on Sunday and got their just in time for the leadership debate… And this debate, as I observed, it was the first time I felt like a political scientist.
Let me set the stage… Its in a room with about 300-400 people in it… I’m sitting with the “Young Greens” who mostly are older than me or my age and seem split on the issue themselves… A debate is about to take place with one person from each side getting three minutes to speak and then someone from the other side getting a chance to speak… No one is allowed to speak twice… A straw poll before it was started showed about 1/3 in favor of the Yes! to leadership referendum and about a 1/3rd in favor of Green Empowerment with the remaining third undecided. For the YES! to leaders to pass in November it needs to win by a 2/3rd vote… To show the intensity of the debate I wrote down what every person said (though did not get a chance to record names) but it is paraphrasing and not perfect, but you can see what the Green Party says/thinks… When someone who spoke was on the YES side, it will say YES before the quotations and Green Empowerment before the quotations of someone on the Green Empowerment side and Undecided before the Undecided side… Please note these are paraphrases of the main points of each speaker and not their speeches in their entirety. I could never articulate as well as some of the speakers for both sides… Enjoy
So as best as I can present it in a nutshell, being as tired as I am here is the YES-v-Green Empowerment debate and my analysis of who won the debate… The three of you who will actually read this part enjoy.
YES!-“We have outstanding people in the Green Party… And we should be proud of that. Having the option to call upon these leaders is vital. This motion allows the public to elect two ‘coleaders’ or a leader and coleader of gender balance.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“It is a good thing we are having these debates. I don’t think we need a leader but we need to have the two sides come together and heal the rift. Theirs this idea if you don’t want a leader you don’t want power and that is a myth. What you need is to get media attention to get elected and its not a leader that does that its outstanding policy and being elected that does that.”
YES!-“It gives us a chance every time we are choosing leaders, but not a single leader. I ask you to consider that this is the best way of moving forward for the party.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“This isn’t about a leader its about getting on the tele. One person cannot represent the diversity of our party image.”
YES!-“20 years ago this debate came up and no leader was selected. And with no leader their have been two decades of no progress.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Since when has the Green Party made policy on what the media thinks?”
YES!-“Bottom up democracy means that someone is at the top as well. We have leaders and we are publicly scaried to call them leaders. We need to compromise. More important we need to look at how we come across to the public. Without a leader they think we are a bunch of nutters. It is a shame if we lose votes because we don’t have leaders.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“The Green Party is nothing if not critical. Wearing a suit doesn’t mean your smart underneath. Being elected a leader doesn’t mean you have leadership qualities. We need more leaders not less.”
YES!-“In Scotland they put coleaders to put more accountability to their leadership. Its not going to change things over night but it’s a step in the right direction.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“I’m opposing it based on the philosophy on politics where this party is ideologically. You Cannot impose structural form on a voluntary forum that is this culturally diverse. Our activists are the heart of this party.”
YES!-“I’m a volunteer, I’m a member and I want a leader. Because it is not the empowering party everyone thinks it is. It is disempowering. We are not very good at generating leadership, the truth is our leadership is externally generated because we are not very good at internal leadership. The leadership will grow, create more leadership and we will embrace it.”
GREEN EMPOWERMENT-“We all have to be our own leaders. I don’t like how this debate has gone. It is our strength that we have this diversity and it’s a very refreshing alternative to the status quo. The media molds and changes popular politicians to unpopular ones, why do we want to do that to our leaders?”
YES!-“This Motion is not about changing the amount of power, that doesn’t change. What changes is the word leader, we are using a more accessible word and reinventing it and that takes courage. And we have a gender balance and this measure shows more accountability to our own leaders than ever before. It empowers women and out future leaders.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Our responsibility is to the local level and local councils and our party isn’t their to lead people but to empower people and show leadership to involve people and increase participative government. Theirs a different between a single leader and leadership. We do have a collective leadership called the Executive Board and we should work on making that more effective then getting singular leaders. I don’t see any accountability in this[having leaders] at all.”
YES!-Scottish Green Party has a democracy and accountability. Today what you choose is that you choose your leaders democratically and formally or informally and unaccountably. The best way to make those leadership structures work is to make them open, democratic and accountable. We are challenging the definition of party by calling ourselves a party. You choose party to choose leadership. Leadership being democratically elected is also more accountable than unelected.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Because the leader will only have a 1/12 vote on GPEX it’ll look weak and the media will slam how we have the weakest political leaders.”
YES!-“Our leaders will not have the power to make policy, appoint ministers, ect… In negotiations they will have leverage as a recognizable figure. More media coverage. It’ll help us get the message across.”
UNDECIDED-“Yes or No? People do’t know what to do. What do people do who can’t choose Yes or No?”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“I joined the Green Party because it didn’t have a leader. A national leader is going to dilute attention from national and local parties. The Green Party doesn’t have leadership it has initiative. I wish we would have had this debate before we took it to refrurendum. I hope we keep local, stay local, be local and smush national.”
YES-“We heard power corrupts and we are a political party. My view is that power doesn’t corrupt it is the system that corrupts people; power is neutral. People are disillusioned w/the other parties because they say one thing and do another. The people out there are desperate for a new form of leadership. We may change things when we get their but we got to get their first.”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“The proposal before us is not a big change. I’m not bothered by the way things goes but what I’m worried about is when you get elected MPs and they have a large media profile and leadership role how do you keep them accountable. The party should be focused on them and how to keep them accountable.”
YES!/Sian Berry-“The title principal speaker is rubbish. Confusion in the media, and is a waste of time. Takes away from our elected representatives. We are not communicating with the public the way we should. It is about changing a name and giving the speakers a vote-that’s it. People are making it out to be a lot more than it is. If you don’t trust one of our own how can we expect the public too. We need to say ‘We’re really different and we can make a different!’”
GREEN ENPOWERMENT-“Electorate tired. Look at last turnout. We need a new way of doing politics and to do this we need a radical political party. We are a radical political party, our radical party brings radical policy. We do want to push forward, we do need to push forward. To quote Gandi ‘the means is the end in the making’. We are strongly in favor of leaders, we need leaders in every region. We need to empower people, we need many leaders. We need to bring grassroots politics from the ground up.”
OKAY… WOW… That was a long debate (and for all intents and purposes the end of the conference except for some more motions I had to sit through and clean up and other stuff.)
My personal opinion is that the party remains in rift. The Green Empowerment I predicted to lose because of how well the speakers on the YES! side would be because they all have the professional politician aspect to them and are good speakers but Green Empowerment really showed up and brought many valid points and standing ovations.
Both sides really did an equal job in presenting their cases and I feel that Green Empowerment actually did a better job of courting the undecided though they haven’t convinced me. I feel that YES! to leadership is the best direction for the party as the public tends to be out of tune with what the Green Party of England and Wales stands for. I feel that the party is in a bit of trouble either way.
If Green Empowerment wins there is likely to be more acceptance from the YES! people but I feel the party has less chance of moving forward, winning major elections and having healthy growth over the next few years. However should YES! win I feel some of the Green Empowerment people are unlikely to accept it and two scenarios can happen… 1. A huge exdious of the utopian people of the party or 2. A constant recall of leaders to keep them from getting anything done to show that one or two leaders cannot show the entire diversity of the party.
I mean I honestly think the rift can be filled either way but the party is starchy divided and needs to come back together to be successful… My prediction for the Nov. refruredum…
YES! brings in almost 65% of the vote but is unable to get the necessary 66.6% it needs to cause the YES! to leadership into effect. Its hard to predict though because theirs 2 months of campaigning to go and both sides are really dedicated and there is no way to tell how the 95% of the party that wasn’t at the conference feels about it… Could be interesting…
Anyhow, next post I am going to go over the “REVUE” which deals with my speech I gave in Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert style… Check back later tonight or tomorrow for the transcript of the speech…
Sunday, 23 September 2007
The English and Wales Green Party
[Editors Note: This is bland to the non-political so skip it now unless you have a general interest in politics. This documents workshops I went to and whatnot... Also the next post is going to be more of the same but be more interesting because it will encompass the bit of stand-up comedy I did infront of 200+ people entitled 'How to Americanize the English and Wales Green Party', it 'twas a hoot.]
Today’s September 23rd and I feel like I lost some weight, I’ll find a scale in the next few days. But where was I? Oh yes, Liverpool and the Green Party Autumn Conference at Liverpool Hope University.
Anyhow, so I wake up… Go to have breakfast at the Hostel and its worse and more bland than UPJ Cafeteria food so I eat nothing (I actually spit out the sausage when I tried it, that bad). I dress, get ready, shave and n’at. Than I attempt to walk to the conference. Walk about twenty or so minutes and see I’m going to be late so I get a cab. This would be the daily occurrence, simply because I actually for some reason cannot figure out how to walk their but can find my way home by following signs for the docks. Five pounds later (for a five minute cab ride, talk about a ripoff) I was at the university. But since I only spent five pounds on the cab and not 15 like it would have been if I didn’t walk at all it was bittersweet.
I guess the first thing you need to learn while being in the United Kingdom is not to think of things in terms of dollars as you will not be able to buy anything because its all so damn expensive (except bottled water and transportation).
So anyhow I get to the conference and they want me to pay… Ugh… Luckily I saw Pete who got me in. Basically how the conference works is there are a few classrooms where workshops are held every hour for several hours during the day and then after a few conferences and workshops they all meet in the main room and then when votes on official Green Party of England and Wales comes up they ask for a committee report and suggestion, then debate and then vote. I was a non-voting member, but my moderate American ideologies defientally had an impact as their were various times I got into the discussion during and influenced people, their were even times when I was looked to for advice because of an admiration many people have for the American Constitution, particularly when it came to discussions about the new EU Constitution being thrown around which is popular all over Europe except for the UK apparently.
Anyhow… I have notes and am briefly going to go over all the workshops I went to well at least a few of the more interesting ones. As a role of thumb I tried to go to workshops that dealt more with the mechanical workings of British government, how the party functions and European politics. Though I did go to some more “socialist” workshops and some environmental and some on women’s rights and equality. Overall I think the experience has made me a tit bit more liberal… L
I met a lot of interesting people as well. Particularly of interest was internationally known author Derek Wall who was very very socialist but was very well articulated, very much a poitically astute person. He gave a speech on Ecology and Power, power being a political science term. I also had a good time meeting all of the “Young Greens” who I even went out with a little, though the days were to long to really drink. Sian Berry, the mayoral candidate was also very interesting person as well as just about everyone I met. Because my notes have notes on the conference, workshops and general stuff, I’m going to go by them and may miss a lot of the personal interactions, save for the leadership debate stuff.
Before I do that I do need to give a shout out to this lady Miranda who taught me that I like tea... Infact, I love tea… with a bit of milk.
One more thing about the conference, I had to eat the cafertia food the entire time… Lovely things like cheese and onion sandwiches and other interesting British food. I think in Liverpool is part of the reason why I dropped weight, healthier and disgusting British food and long ass walks to and from the conference. My legs were actually sore by Sunday.
Anyhow, to the notes and to information on the conference. I am going to try and describe a “split” of ideology in the greens that I started to see form in the debates between the socialists and the capitalists and more so between the fundamentalists and the realists of the party. As a political scientist it was quite interesting. Please note I didn’t take notes at every workshop so I might miss some and I’m going to try and be brief.
9/13/07 1200hours
Workshop on Motions D02 and D03.
Motion D03 was about relationships with other parties and political identies in times that their policies are similar to the Green Parties and on how much control the party has over elected members. It suggests that their be a internal study on if the Green Party should work with enemy parties and that their be some kind of mechanism for controlling their elected members and even reprimanding them for acting “ungreen”.
The workshop came to the conclusion the word “enemy” party should be taken away and their was a general concern that this would leave the elected members unable to compromise and work on their feet and that there is the possibility of a time when parties will co-inside with major green issues and that not allowing the parties support to such motions could be detrimental to some causes. Some felt that it was unethical to work with other parties. The motion passed both in the workshop and conference.
But the reason why it passed was simply to allow the debate to start, it is not passing anything into actual action. The question that will really be debated is…
Do Green Party elected officials do as they see fit
Or is it mandated by the party
No one really showed up to talk about D02 so most of the workshop was on D03. D02 was badly worded and didn’t make sense so it failed.
9/13/2007 1300hours
Workshop on Candidate Selection Process
This workshop looked at doing a review on how the Green Party selects candidates on a national, local and European level. Wants to initiate debate and have proposals for procedures for selecting candidates by the spring conference.
A good quote that sums up the workshop is the following… This was the general consensus…
“…trying to have a consensus and put down a ‘general guideline’ for the local parties that is not too overbearing so it doesn’t get turned down. [The Green Party] Should amend the constitution [of the Green Party] to say when the local party is not being run properly it goes by default to the GPRC [Green Party Review Council] guidelines. We need a mechanism/general guideline on how to select and deselect nongreen candidates.”
Basically the point of the motion this workshop wanted to pass was to see if the current regulations on candidate selections are too overbearing or not over bearing enough with the majority thinking something needs to be done. I forget if this one actually passed the general assembly but I think it did.
9/13/2007
Opening Remarks and Press Office, Emergency Motions, Section D votes/Debate, Organization Motions
Basically this was in the main room where the real decisions about the party are decided and it felt much like I’d imagion a political convention in America would happen only a lot smaller. The first day, being a Thursday had a low attendance as well (though the next 3 days were packed.)
I remember being extremely interested in this, though it would have been a bore for most. They basically did votes based off a straw polls (holding up cards) and if it is close they recount and if someone than doesn’t except the recount they do an actual vote with filling out cards.
The beginning of the conference was a hoot. As the SOC, I forget what it stands for, was supposed to list the workshops earlier than it did and didn’t get the information to all the parties so a motion was put forward to have the SOC apologize and it overwhelming passed to the objection of the SOC. So somewhere in the Green Party minutes of this conference it was officially voted on and officially says something along the lines of “The SOC acknowledges that it has not complied with guidelines and has jeopardized the conference”
Their seemed to be a power struggle between the SOC and the rest of the party over how to run the conference and some arguments broke out. The leader of the SOC finally personally apologized and accepted full responsibility to which this hippie lady (yes, like this lady is what Erin Dougherty will be at 60, full blown hippie w/red hair) and asked what it means to accept full responsibility which was a hoot… What does it mean?
Then it went to concerns that the SOC isn’t doing things right. SOC used its power and position to influence votes on what even comes to conference, SOC had the report late(as mentioned) and attempted to change the way procedure works during the conference. People complained more and did motions to restrict SOC and the influence it caused. Hard to explain without being lengthy but they basically got people to withdrawl votes after the fact about what will be talked about at conference which is against the constitution and bylaws of the party, particularly because they are in a position of power so their was a vote to put those motions back on that table since SOC shouldn’t have done that, it overwhelming passes.
Some motions are voted on, most fail. One of contention that I found was interesting was based on if it took two years of being a party member to be on the Green Party Executive Council or one. A young women suggested that it was anti-youth to have it at two years and that it turns the youth who are interested in the party away… Her motion failed in that not having a two year buffer many of the oldheads felt that the party could be infiltrated by outsiders who get to the head of the executive wing of the party.
During this conference I met Derek Wall and bullshitted with him and his wife a little bit. He is the author of many “Green” books the latest Babylon and Beyond: The economics of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist and radical green movement…. Which he tried to sell to me for 12 pounds (24 USD)… some socialist… lol
While at the table with Wall and the others I got a sticker that said “Green Empowerment, Leadership No Thanks” and wore it. I was told about how they don’t have any one leader and how exciting it is for a party not to have a leader and how good it is. I thought the conversation was weird, I had no idea that this would lead into one of the most interesting debates I have ever seen in my life during the Saturday and Sunday days of the conference… The LEADERSHIP DEBATES… But that’ll be saved for later in this post or next post…
Anyhow, so this part of the conference ended and it was back to workshops… I don’t think I’m going to write about all of them…
The next workshop was at 1730hours (they tell time both in 12 base and 24 base… It gets confusing)…
This workshop was on the “General and European Election Strategy”
It was a very interesting workshop and wasn’t about an upcoming policy procedure but was actually about informing people how the party gets its word out, what needs to be done as England’s fourth party and what the future holds.
Talked about how many people associate the Green Party with climate change and how to change that image…
They talked about their key issues such as climate change, how they should focus on healthcare and hospital closings due to the centralization of the system under the universal healthcare and how that should be stopped, they need to spread the word of energy efficiency(something people actually care about here, they are in general all together more green), housing affordability, their being against the war in Iraq.
To get these issues out and get candidates elected they focus in “key” districts, 3 key districts (resources are limited). Pointed out that a recent poll showed the majority of the public favored Green Policies over other parties when polled without knowing which party they relate to, talked about empowering people, getting information out by door knocking and facebook and everything possible. Real interesting.
Also, it was suggested to print phamlets in Polish because of all the Polish immigrants who are eligible to vote in European Union elections… Other parties seem to ignore the Poles and it can be a sign of strength some suggest.
Talked about legalizing weed and how recently some studies have suggested that mary-jane has before recently long term effects to which a debate came on how the potential candidates can debate that. It was suggested that “In a regulated market weed would not be allowed to be so concentrated that its dangerous” and statistics were given to back the statement.
Its hard for me to indulge in the actual party building stuff, but needless to say at 7,000 strong, with only 2 MEPS (Member of European Parliament) and no MPs (Member of Parliament) things are tough but the statistics of new strategies they have recently tried in some wards shows that it is possible for them to win no matter how under resourced and this gave the local movers and shakers suggestions for repeating that success.
The next workshop was at 1830 and was on making renewable energy environmentally acceptable and mainly talked about how wind turbines can damage animals habits so the ground under them should be grassed over to make it as eco-safe and least environmentally damaging as possible. Their was more jargon but oh well… I was tired by now for these notes.
At 1930 their was a more formal workshop on the Party’s Election Strategy which was wit a powerpoint presentation and really interesting…
Talked about applying campaigns that have been proving to work, targeting necessary wards with significant green support, must combat “wasted vote” feeling from voters.
Issue the party has is it doesn’t have the resources and information, like current information on where it has the most supporters.
OKAY I AM GOING WAY TO INDEPTH WITH THESE WORKSHOPS. AS I SAID INTERESTING TO ME NOT SO MUCH FOR YOU… So I am going to start typing smaller summaries except for interesting parts.
The next day at 9:00am I went to a workshop called “Green Left-How to Change the World” hosted by Derek Wall. Here is where I noticed the divide in the Greens I talked about, espically because it was talked about. Derek Wall put it good when he said something along the lines of “Current Green Movement is a fight between realists who compromise and fundamentalists who don’t believe in the “power politics” and compromise.”
This workshop talk about how to make the world perfect, how to get emissions down by 90%, how to reach the climate targets by compromise and what not. The interesting thing about this workshop is that I would put Mr. Wall in the fundamentalist side more so than the Realist but he makes points for compromise and traditional politics. He even said “Radical politics[aka chaining yourself to a tree to keep a powerplant from being built] works well only in conjunction with other forms of power” and that it needs to be done on a micro(trade unions, more religious people in the party, more community) and macro level(win elections, make change).
He also warned on the danger with radical politics because people can’t relate to it. Now, the issue with Derek Wall comes in the YES! Refrumendum that I will talk about later because I cannot quite place him as a fundamentalist or realist within the party, he’s to multifaceted… Sorry for all the political science jargon, I’m sure this report is going to seem fascinating to Ian and maybe some of my profs and no one else… But I want to do it somewhat in depth, though its not a report and I am getting tired so I’m going to be briefer lol…
Anyhow at 1000hours I went to see a keynote speech by Sian Berry who is a realist, and the mayoral candidate for London for the Green Party, one of the two Principal Speakers(along with Derek Wall) for the party (The term Principal Speaker will be coming up a lot with the rest of this blog post) and a hottie to boot.
She was a realist as she was contemporary, moderate and a professional politician who believed that the “ends justify the means” for getting green motions passed. She also is one that is not looking for a completely Utopian Society unlike some of the fundamentalists… But this will be gone into later when I talk about the divide I saw (likely in tomorrow’s post because I only think I’m going to finish through 9/14 and then do the last two days of conference the next post)
Sian Berry was an amazing speaker and by amazing I mean she possibly gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard making every current candidate for President seem like a bad speaker save maybe Mitt Romney. She gave a speech and delivered her points, had good pathos and stuff. This is what a leader is… Anyhow here’s some paraphrases from the speech that I found interesting:
“Gordon Brown[English PM] thinks you should solve climate change by changing your light bulbs, we think you should solve climate change by changing your government” BOOYA
Read the speech here: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/speeches/55
After the speech their was more of the voting on motions. The only one of real interesting one was about how open government should be… I rather like the workshops more (until the leadership debate, highlight of my life as a young political scientist.)
At 1320 I went to a workshop on Issues face by women from ethic minority communities.
Talked about asylum seekers and issues they face, issues their children face and possible solutions. For example if a women comes to England with her kids to seek asylum she must declare so before she gets through customs and then she is interviewed and asked questions about if she was raped, about the father, ect… In front of the children that can scare the children, so the women often will lie to the customs agent to protect their children…
Also all the forms are in English… (They are more starch on the do English thing than the United States government is it appears).
Also enthic women who are seeking asylum have less access to education, particularly higher education and little to no access to public funds.
This debate was pretty one sided because two of the women were asylum seekers who were also ethnic so no one could argue another point, though I agreed with a lot they were saying. The other issue talked about at this workshop was arranged marriages and how some people do that and how its sudo-slavery. And that immigrants from countries where women are treated poorly need to be educated on how to not lose their culture but at the same time respect women and their rights.
One ethnic man mentioned that ethnic people are not likely to listen to white people and that it should be done by second generation ethic immigrants who can show how they live and how they still maintain their culture and used his own family as an example.
OKAY THIS PART IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I FOUND IT INTERESTING.
The next workshop I attended was called “Meet the ‘Yes’[proleadership] Campaign.”
There is a divide in the Green Party of England and Wales between those who think the party needs formal leadership to gain more media attention and to attract more members on a national basis. The party currently has two Principal Speakers of opposite gender who serve year terms and they are currently Derek Wall and Sian Berry.
Sian Berry was one of the movers and shakers of this workshop, she mentioned that it is embarrassing to be the Principal Speakers because newspapers spell it wrong, their little and valuable TV airtime is spent with the person asking what her title means and what she does, and that people see the Green Party as a cult when the question “Oh, who is your leader” is asked and people say they don’t have one.
What the Yes! People want to do is make the Principal Speakers elected of opposite gender as a Co-leaders or as Leader and Coleader to simplify it for the press and also give them a vote on the Green Party Executive Council which they currently do not have.
This YES! Idea will not be voted on at conference but will instead be in a November election from all party members and needs 2/3rds of the vote to change the Green Party constitution and bilaws. I couldn’t have told you this by seeing how many people were in favor of this jam-packed room but people are strachly separated in this and it has caused a lot of friction and yelling and almost “fighting” in a party that preaches peace. As an outside observer the leadership issue seemed stupid to me at first as I have also been pro-leadership from my days in the boy scouts to my involvement in clubs to my own political beliefs. But both sides honestly made really good arguments. I helped argue for the Yes! Side at this workshop but afterwards decided to be an outside observer for the most part so I could talk to people in both camps and get the most useful information I can.
The Green Party has a general fear of national leaders because they fear of someone taking over the party or having a “Blare”, a “Bush” or a “Hitler” who runs rampet through the party and ruins its ideological beliefs and values. [I think some in the party would rather have Hitler, lol]. They also are a very grassroot, bottom up organization who clings to the idea that local government is the best government and that having a leader[s] for the national party actually takes away emphasis from the local government… which is a bad thing. These people, the Green Empowerment camp, believe the party has leaders and that they don’t need to be elected that they are natural leaders and that its good to have more leaders not less… And that to be a leader one doesn’t need to be formally called a leader, they cite Martin Luther King Jr. and Gaundi as good examples.
The YES! Argue that it doesn’t change much having a designated leader and that people relate with the idea of a leader and it will make the party better about to compete with other parties and then be able to actually make change. They cite that this argument came up 20 years ago and that the Green Party of England and Wales is in the same place it was 20 years ago and that because of the importance of their message they need a more structured system to gain seats, get MPs and make true change. They cite that the policy only changes the name and gives a vote and has strict recall procedures within the refruredum to make it unlikely for a modern day Hitler to take the Green Party and run with it.
I did add that most Americans would rather vote for someone they can see themselves drinking a beer with than based on policy and that psychologically most people need something tangible to associate ideological beliefs with and with no MPs it is hard to do that a leader may be a good thing. I also cited MLK as a leader to which someone bursted out that he wasn’t elected, to which I wanted to reply that if he was he may have been able to do more… But that leadership, and encouraging leadership is important. IO also pointed out to the lady that interrupted me after the conference that she quoted Gaundi and that he was for political change and supported political familes in India so I spun her example on its head. But then I realized I didn’t want to get too associated with one side or the other so I waned off, except for when I talked to the movers and shakers of the YES! Movement like Sian Berry and when I talked with the Young Greens who actually on Sunday look to me for a neutral analysis for the YES! –v- Green Empowerment debate that occurs on Sunday. It was so great to have 15 people look at me and ask me to decide who won the debate and be genuilly interested in my analysis. Though they all knew I was starchy in favor of YES!
Anyhow after this workshop it was back to the main area for more voting on motions or whatever. They voted on policy issues dealing with minimum wage with many voting against raising the minimum wage because the party is in favor of a “living wage” though they eventually came to the conclusion that a min. wage is okay in the lapse period until they get the living wage. What sucks for them is that not being in power and having no MPs these issues may never get much light unless there is a drastic change in the way people vote in the UK. They also talked about Northern Ireland, Climate Change and meeting the Kyoto protocols and End of Life Care/ Assisted Death.
The first thing that bothered me on a moral level and perhaps the only was the parties support for Assisted Death, a term that made up for Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide. They are overwhelming in favor of it if two doctors approve of it as long as no doctor who has moral objections has to perform it. I couldn’t comphrend how a party against state execution such as the death penalty could be in favor of assisted suicide. I even understand in coma cases, but when someone has cancer or something… that’s rough and all but the cure for polio came out of no where (Well UPMC but whateva)… And what if the cure comes about three days after someone is put down, isn’t that a moral issue? Oh well…
The next workshop was at… um late… haha, my notes don’t say the time for this one… But prob. Like 6ish… It was entitled Safety First! The Campaign to decriminalize sex work. It was interesting and talked about how its stupid that there are studies on why men like sex so much but so few studies on how to help out prostitutes. Literally legalizing it, so was argued, would get the women healthcare and since its their chosen profession it would be okay. The ladies running this conference (whom I actually think were prostitutes) also argued that women involved in prostitution get no protection from violence because to report violence against them criminals themselves, no good benefits of working and are forced to work on the street instead of an establishment. They give stats from European countries with legalized prostitution to secure their case. I didn’t really agree with a lot of what they said but this workshop was more one sided because the two people running it didn’t really take questions. It was interesting but prostitution is, ugh… Like… I find it to be um… I don’t know, I just do not think it should be illegal for STD reasons and what not.
The last workshop of the night was called Meet the MEPs(Member of European Parliament) and was interesting. I will hit on that in a minute… But I forgot to mention the night before I went to a Vegan Resturante after the conference with the young greens and had a glass of wine… YUCK… [Editors Note: I have since found I love wine]. And this night their was an auction and fundraiser and stuff after the last meeting ran by the Young Greens and I won the nicest pen ever that sits in a pedestal and is from the EU… Good shit… But because it’s 2:30 am here and I have a 9am class I need to hurry up and finish this post tonight… lol
Anyhow, the meeting entitled meet your MEPs was one of the greatest of the entire conference for me. The two Green Party MEPs for England are Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucus.
They talked about what they do, what the EU does, about what committees they are on and it was like being in a Dr. Heinisch class all over again. Anyhow what I liked is that the MEPs didn’t dodge questions like other politicians I have met, here is the question I asked Jean Lambert and her response, paraphrased of course…
John Hartman: “How much influence does the European Union have of environmental and social policies and mandates when looking at the sovereignty of the individual nations –vs- the supranational forces at work?”
Jean Lambert-G, MEP: “A lot. May depend a bit if they are law or regulations, but, yes they do have a reach. And remember that every member state has been involved in these-discussions. It is more then influence-it is law. There are the areas, where there are guidelines as opposed to law, where we have an open method of coordination. There is an agreement to what targets should be reached and a vehicle in place to check on it. There is a lot of ‘soft’ policy as well and intergovernmental stuff. So there are different methods that we can use, but there is a lot of reach and a lot of influence.”
A councilor in a local ward also told me that the politicians in his area are working endlessly to get to EU standards for laws that have been passed or their ward can be fined by the EU. So he said it does have reach, he knows first hand.
Anyhow after the conference I talked to Jean Lambert and got her contact information and passed it onto Dr. Heinisch as she said she was interested in working with UPJ to spread information on Green Politics and the European Union to American Students. Possibly having classes email her questions about the EU and being a MEP and getting them answered by an actual MEP… It’s a great opportunity that I hope does not fall through, and was an exciting contact I was able to meet.
Anyhow, off to bed, its 2:46 and I have class at 9am… I also have been at this for quite some time… Glad to say the Steelers won today!!! And what not… I am trying to put this conference in as much depth as I can so when I go back and look at the conference and my time in the UK a year or two from now or ten or twenty I recall all this stuff so I know this post was dry and boring but whatever I tried to make it interesting. This is what I am here for, politics and I figured its important that I show stuff about that… Anyhow next post (hopefully tomorrow) is going to cover the next two days of the conference and will be just as detailed and once I’m off of the conference I should be able to catch up pretty quickly as a normal day does not have as much to talk about…
But tomorrow’s post will be more interesting because it will talk about the leadership debate almost exclusively, Derek Wall’s keynote speech on ecology and power and a bit of Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart inspired standup I did at the conference review Saturday Night which were a bunch of skits to lighten the mood after a 10 hour day of political debate… I rocked and have a copy of my speech I’m going to post… So tomorrow’s post will be better…
Today’s September 23rd and I feel like I lost some weight, I’ll find a scale in the next few days. But where was I? Oh yes, Liverpool and the Green Party Autumn Conference at Liverpool Hope University.
Anyhow, so I wake up… Go to have breakfast at the Hostel and its worse and more bland than UPJ Cafeteria food so I eat nothing (I actually spit out the sausage when I tried it, that bad). I dress, get ready, shave and n’at. Than I attempt to walk to the conference. Walk about twenty or so minutes and see I’m going to be late so I get a cab. This would be the daily occurrence, simply because I actually for some reason cannot figure out how to walk their but can find my way home by following signs for the docks. Five pounds later (for a five minute cab ride, talk about a ripoff) I was at the university. But since I only spent five pounds on the cab and not 15 like it would have been if I didn’t walk at all it was bittersweet.
I guess the first thing you need to learn while being in the United Kingdom is not to think of things in terms of dollars as you will not be able to buy anything because its all so damn expensive (except bottled water and transportation).
So anyhow I get to the conference and they want me to pay… Ugh… Luckily I saw Pete who got me in. Basically how the conference works is there are a few classrooms where workshops are held every hour for several hours during the day and then after a few conferences and workshops they all meet in the main room and then when votes on official Green Party of England and Wales comes up they ask for a committee report and suggestion, then debate and then vote. I was a non-voting member, but my moderate American ideologies defientally had an impact as their were various times I got into the discussion during and influenced people, their were even times when I was looked to for advice because of an admiration many people have for the American Constitution, particularly when it came to discussions about the new EU Constitution being thrown around which is popular all over Europe except for the UK apparently.
Anyhow… I have notes and am briefly going to go over all the workshops I went to well at least a few of the more interesting ones. As a role of thumb I tried to go to workshops that dealt more with the mechanical workings of British government, how the party functions and European politics. Though I did go to some more “socialist” workshops and some environmental and some on women’s rights and equality. Overall I think the experience has made me a tit bit more liberal… L
I met a lot of interesting people as well. Particularly of interest was internationally known author Derek Wall who was very very socialist but was very well articulated, very much a poitically astute person. He gave a speech on Ecology and Power, power being a political science term. I also had a good time meeting all of the “Young Greens” who I even went out with a little, though the days were to long to really drink. Sian Berry, the mayoral candidate was also very interesting person as well as just about everyone I met. Because my notes have notes on the conference, workshops and general stuff, I’m going to go by them and may miss a lot of the personal interactions, save for the leadership debate stuff.
Before I do that I do need to give a shout out to this lady Miranda who taught me that I like tea... Infact, I love tea… with a bit of milk.
One more thing about the conference, I had to eat the cafertia food the entire time… Lovely things like cheese and onion sandwiches and other interesting British food. I think in Liverpool is part of the reason why I dropped weight, healthier and disgusting British food and long ass walks to and from the conference. My legs were actually sore by Sunday.
Anyhow, to the notes and to information on the conference. I am going to try and describe a “split” of ideology in the greens that I started to see form in the debates between the socialists and the capitalists and more so between the fundamentalists and the realists of the party. As a political scientist it was quite interesting. Please note I didn’t take notes at every workshop so I might miss some and I’m going to try and be brief.
9/13/07 1200hours
Workshop on Motions D02 and D03.
Motion D03 was about relationships with other parties and political identies in times that their policies are similar to the Green Parties and on how much control the party has over elected members. It suggests that their be a internal study on if the Green Party should work with enemy parties and that their be some kind of mechanism for controlling their elected members and even reprimanding them for acting “ungreen”.
The workshop came to the conclusion the word “enemy” party should be taken away and their was a general concern that this would leave the elected members unable to compromise and work on their feet and that there is the possibility of a time when parties will co-inside with major green issues and that not allowing the parties support to such motions could be detrimental to some causes. Some felt that it was unethical to work with other parties. The motion passed both in the workshop and conference.
But the reason why it passed was simply to allow the debate to start, it is not passing anything into actual action. The question that will really be debated is…
Do Green Party elected officials do as they see fit
Or is it mandated by the party
No one really showed up to talk about D02 so most of the workshop was on D03. D02 was badly worded and didn’t make sense so it failed.
9/13/2007 1300hours
Workshop on Candidate Selection Process
This workshop looked at doing a review on how the Green Party selects candidates on a national, local and European level. Wants to initiate debate and have proposals for procedures for selecting candidates by the spring conference.
A good quote that sums up the workshop is the following… This was the general consensus…
“…trying to have a consensus and put down a ‘general guideline’ for the local parties that is not too overbearing so it doesn’t get turned down. [The Green Party] Should amend the constitution [of the Green Party] to say when the local party is not being run properly it goes by default to the GPRC [Green Party Review Council] guidelines. We need a mechanism/general guideline on how to select and deselect nongreen candidates.”
Basically the point of the motion this workshop wanted to pass was to see if the current regulations on candidate selections are too overbearing or not over bearing enough with the majority thinking something needs to be done. I forget if this one actually passed the general assembly but I think it did.
9/13/2007
Opening Remarks and Press Office, Emergency Motions, Section D votes/Debate, Organization Motions
Basically this was in the main room where the real decisions about the party are decided and it felt much like I’d imagion a political convention in America would happen only a lot smaller. The first day, being a Thursday had a low attendance as well (though the next 3 days were packed.)
I remember being extremely interested in this, though it would have been a bore for most. They basically did votes based off a straw polls (holding up cards) and if it is close they recount and if someone than doesn’t except the recount they do an actual vote with filling out cards.
The beginning of the conference was a hoot. As the SOC, I forget what it stands for, was supposed to list the workshops earlier than it did and didn’t get the information to all the parties so a motion was put forward to have the SOC apologize and it overwhelming passed to the objection of the SOC. So somewhere in the Green Party minutes of this conference it was officially voted on and officially says something along the lines of “The SOC acknowledges that it has not complied with guidelines and has jeopardized the conference”
Their seemed to be a power struggle between the SOC and the rest of the party over how to run the conference and some arguments broke out. The leader of the SOC finally personally apologized and accepted full responsibility to which this hippie lady (yes, like this lady is what Erin Dougherty will be at 60, full blown hippie w/red hair) and asked what it means to accept full responsibility which was a hoot… What does it mean?
Then it went to concerns that the SOC isn’t doing things right. SOC used its power and position to influence votes on what even comes to conference, SOC had the report late(as mentioned) and attempted to change the way procedure works during the conference. People complained more and did motions to restrict SOC and the influence it caused. Hard to explain without being lengthy but they basically got people to withdrawl votes after the fact about what will be talked about at conference which is against the constitution and bylaws of the party, particularly because they are in a position of power so their was a vote to put those motions back on that table since SOC shouldn’t have done that, it overwhelming passes.
Some motions are voted on, most fail. One of contention that I found was interesting was based on if it took two years of being a party member to be on the Green Party Executive Council or one. A young women suggested that it was anti-youth to have it at two years and that it turns the youth who are interested in the party away… Her motion failed in that not having a two year buffer many of the oldheads felt that the party could be infiltrated by outsiders who get to the head of the executive wing of the party.
During this conference I met Derek Wall and bullshitted with him and his wife a little bit. He is the author of many “Green” books the latest Babylon and Beyond: The economics of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist and radical green movement…. Which he tried to sell to me for 12 pounds (24 USD)… some socialist… lol
While at the table with Wall and the others I got a sticker that said “Green Empowerment, Leadership No Thanks” and wore it. I was told about how they don’t have any one leader and how exciting it is for a party not to have a leader and how good it is. I thought the conversation was weird, I had no idea that this would lead into one of the most interesting debates I have ever seen in my life during the Saturday and Sunday days of the conference… The LEADERSHIP DEBATES… But that’ll be saved for later in this post or next post…
Anyhow, so this part of the conference ended and it was back to workshops… I don’t think I’m going to write about all of them…
The next workshop was at 1730hours (they tell time both in 12 base and 24 base… It gets confusing)…
This workshop was on the “General and European Election Strategy”
It was a very interesting workshop and wasn’t about an upcoming policy procedure but was actually about informing people how the party gets its word out, what needs to be done as England’s fourth party and what the future holds.
Talked about how many people associate the Green Party with climate change and how to change that image…
They talked about their key issues such as climate change, how they should focus on healthcare and hospital closings due to the centralization of the system under the universal healthcare and how that should be stopped, they need to spread the word of energy efficiency(something people actually care about here, they are in general all together more green), housing affordability, their being against the war in Iraq.
To get these issues out and get candidates elected they focus in “key” districts, 3 key districts (resources are limited). Pointed out that a recent poll showed the majority of the public favored Green Policies over other parties when polled without knowing which party they relate to, talked about empowering people, getting information out by door knocking and facebook and everything possible. Real interesting.
Also, it was suggested to print phamlets in Polish because of all the Polish immigrants who are eligible to vote in European Union elections… Other parties seem to ignore the Poles and it can be a sign of strength some suggest.
Talked about legalizing weed and how recently some studies have suggested that mary-jane has before recently long term effects to which a debate came on how the potential candidates can debate that. It was suggested that “In a regulated market weed would not be allowed to be so concentrated that its dangerous” and statistics were given to back the statement.
Its hard for me to indulge in the actual party building stuff, but needless to say at 7,000 strong, with only 2 MEPS (Member of European Parliament) and no MPs (Member of Parliament) things are tough but the statistics of new strategies they have recently tried in some wards shows that it is possible for them to win no matter how under resourced and this gave the local movers and shakers suggestions for repeating that success.
The next workshop was at 1830 and was on making renewable energy environmentally acceptable and mainly talked about how wind turbines can damage animals habits so the ground under them should be grassed over to make it as eco-safe and least environmentally damaging as possible. Their was more jargon but oh well… I was tired by now for these notes.
At 1930 their was a more formal workshop on the Party’s Election Strategy which was wit a powerpoint presentation and really interesting…
Talked about applying campaigns that have been proving to work, targeting necessary wards with significant green support, must combat “wasted vote” feeling from voters.
Issue the party has is it doesn’t have the resources and information, like current information on where it has the most supporters.
OKAY I AM GOING WAY TO INDEPTH WITH THESE WORKSHOPS. AS I SAID INTERESTING TO ME NOT SO MUCH FOR YOU… So I am going to start typing smaller summaries except for interesting parts.
The next day at 9:00am I went to a workshop called “Green Left-How to Change the World” hosted by Derek Wall. Here is where I noticed the divide in the Greens I talked about, espically because it was talked about. Derek Wall put it good when he said something along the lines of “Current Green Movement is a fight between realists who compromise and fundamentalists who don’t believe in the “power politics” and compromise.”
This workshop talk about how to make the world perfect, how to get emissions down by 90%, how to reach the climate targets by compromise and what not. The interesting thing about this workshop is that I would put Mr. Wall in the fundamentalist side more so than the Realist but he makes points for compromise and traditional politics. He even said “Radical politics[aka chaining yourself to a tree to keep a powerplant from being built] works well only in conjunction with other forms of power” and that it needs to be done on a micro(trade unions, more religious people in the party, more community) and macro level(win elections, make change).
He also warned on the danger with radical politics because people can’t relate to it. Now, the issue with Derek Wall comes in the YES! Refrumendum that I will talk about later because I cannot quite place him as a fundamentalist or realist within the party, he’s to multifaceted… Sorry for all the political science jargon, I’m sure this report is going to seem fascinating to Ian and maybe some of my profs and no one else… But I want to do it somewhat in depth, though its not a report and I am getting tired so I’m going to be briefer lol…
Anyhow at 1000hours I went to see a keynote speech by Sian Berry who is a realist, and the mayoral candidate for London for the Green Party, one of the two Principal Speakers(along with Derek Wall) for the party (The term Principal Speaker will be coming up a lot with the rest of this blog post) and a hottie to boot.
She was a realist as she was contemporary, moderate and a professional politician who believed that the “ends justify the means” for getting green motions passed. She also is one that is not looking for a completely Utopian Society unlike some of the fundamentalists… But this will be gone into later when I talk about the divide I saw (likely in tomorrow’s post because I only think I’m going to finish through 9/14 and then do the last two days of conference the next post)
Sian Berry was an amazing speaker and by amazing I mean she possibly gave one of the best speeches I have ever heard making every current candidate for President seem like a bad speaker save maybe Mitt Romney. She gave a speech and delivered her points, had good pathos and stuff. This is what a leader is… Anyhow here’s some paraphrases from the speech that I found interesting:
“Gordon Brown[English PM] thinks you should solve climate change by changing your light bulbs, we think you should solve climate change by changing your government” BOOYA
Read the speech here: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/speeches/55
After the speech their was more of the voting on motions. The only one of real interesting one was about how open government should be… I rather like the workshops more (until the leadership debate, highlight of my life as a young political scientist.)
At 1320 I went to a workshop on Issues face by women from ethic minority communities.
Talked about asylum seekers and issues they face, issues their children face and possible solutions. For example if a women comes to England with her kids to seek asylum she must declare so before she gets through customs and then she is interviewed and asked questions about if she was raped, about the father, ect… In front of the children that can scare the children, so the women often will lie to the customs agent to protect their children…
Also all the forms are in English… (They are more starch on the do English thing than the United States government is it appears).
Also enthic women who are seeking asylum have less access to education, particularly higher education and little to no access to public funds.
This debate was pretty one sided because two of the women were asylum seekers who were also ethnic so no one could argue another point, though I agreed with a lot they were saying. The other issue talked about at this workshop was arranged marriages and how some people do that and how its sudo-slavery. And that immigrants from countries where women are treated poorly need to be educated on how to not lose their culture but at the same time respect women and their rights.
One ethnic man mentioned that ethnic people are not likely to listen to white people and that it should be done by second generation ethic immigrants who can show how they live and how they still maintain their culture and used his own family as an example.
OKAY THIS PART IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I FOUND IT INTERESTING.
The next workshop I attended was called “Meet the ‘Yes’[proleadership] Campaign.”
There is a divide in the Green Party of England and Wales between those who think the party needs formal leadership to gain more media attention and to attract more members on a national basis. The party currently has two Principal Speakers of opposite gender who serve year terms and they are currently Derek Wall and Sian Berry.
Sian Berry was one of the movers and shakers of this workshop, she mentioned that it is embarrassing to be the Principal Speakers because newspapers spell it wrong, their little and valuable TV airtime is spent with the person asking what her title means and what she does, and that people see the Green Party as a cult when the question “Oh, who is your leader” is asked and people say they don’t have one.
What the Yes! People want to do is make the Principal Speakers elected of opposite gender as a Co-leaders or as Leader and Coleader to simplify it for the press and also give them a vote on the Green Party Executive Council which they currently do not have.
This YES! Idea will not be voted on at conference but will instead be in a November election from all party members and needs 2/3rds of the vote to change the Green Party constitution and bilaws. I couldn’t have told you this by seeing how many people were in favor of this jam-packed room but people are strachly separated in this and it has caused a lot of friction and yelling and almost “fighting” in a party that preaches peace. As an outside observer the leadership issue seemed stupid to me at first as I have also been pro-leadership from my days in the boy scouts to my involvement in clubs to my own political beliefs. But both sides honestly made really good arguments. I helped argue for the Yes! Side at this workshop but afterwards decided to be an outside observer for the most part so I could talk to people in both camps and get the most useful information I can.
The Green Party has a general fear of national leaders because they fear of someone taking over the party or having a “Blare”, a “Bush” or a “Hitler” who runs rampet through the party and ruins its ideological beliefs and values. [I think some in the party would rather have Hitler, lol]. They also are a very grassroot, bottom up organization who clings to the idea that local government is the best government and that having a leader[s] for the national party actually takes away emphasis from the local government… which is a bad thing. These people, the Green Empowerment camp, believe the party has leaders and that they don’t need to be elected that they are natural leaders and that its good to have more leaders not less… And that to be a leader one doesn’t need to be formally called a leader, they cite Martin Luther King Jr. and Gaundi as good examples.
The YES! Argue that it doesn’t change much having a designated leader and that people relate with the idea of a leader and it will make the party better about to compete with other parties and then be able to actually make change. They cite that this argument came up 20 years ago and that the Green Party of England and Wales is in the same place it was 20 years ago and that because of the importance of their message they need a more structured system to gain seats, get MPs and make true change. They cite that the policy only changes the name and gives a vote and has strict recall procedures within the refruredum to make it unlikely for a modern day Hitler to take the Green Party and run with it.
I did add that most Americans would rather vote for someone they can see themselves drinking a beer with than based on policy and that psychologically most people need something tangible to associate ideological beliefs with and with no MPs it is hard to do that a leader may be a good thing. I also cited MLK as a leader to which someone bursted out that he wasn’t elected, to which I wanted to reply that if he was he may have been able to do more… But that leadership, and encouraging leadership is important. IO also pointed out to the lady that interrupted me after the conference that she quoted Gaundi and that he was for political change and supported political familes in India so I spun her example on its head. But then I realized I didn’t want to get too associated with one side or the other so I waned off, except for when I talked to the movers and shakers of the YES! Movement like Sian Berry and when I talked with the Young Greens who actually on Sunday look to me for a neutral analysis for the YES! –v- Green Empowerment debate that occurs on Sunday. It was so great to have 15 people look at me and ask me to decide who won the debate and be genuilly interested in my analysis. Though they all knew I was starchy in favor of YES!
Anyhow after this workshop it was back to the main area for more voting on motions or whatever. They voted on policy issues dealing with minimum wage with many voting against raising the minimum wage because the party is in favor of a “living wage” though they eventually came to the conclusion that a min. wage is okay in the lapse period until they get the living wage. What sucks for them is that not being in power and having no MPs these issues may never get much light unless there is a drastic change in the way people vote in the UK. They also talked about Northern Ireland, Climate Change and meeting the Kyoto protocols and End of Life Care/ Assisted Death.
The first thing that bothered me on a moral level and perhaps the only was the parties support for Assisted Death, a term that made up for Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide. They are overwhelming in favor of it if two doctors approve of it as long as no doctor who has moral objections has to perform it. I couldn’t comphrend how a party against state execution such as the death penalty could be in favor of assisted suicide. I even understand in coma cases, but when someone has cancer or something… that’s rough and all but the cure for polio came out of no where (Well UPMC but whateva)… And what if the cure comes about three days after someone is put down, isn’t that a moral issue? Oh well…
The next workshop was at… um late… haha, my notes don’t say the time for this one… But prob. Like 6ish… It was entitled Safety First! The Campaign to decriminalize sex work. It was interesting and talked about how its stupid that there are studies on why men like sex so much but so few studies on how to help out prostitutes. Literally legalizing it, so was argued, would get the women healthcare and since its their chosen profession it would be okay. The ladies running this conference (whom I actually think were prostitutes) also argued that women involved in prostitution get no protection from violence because to report violence against them criminals themselves, no good benefits of working and are forced to work on the street instead of an establishment. They give stats from European countries with legalized prostitution to secure their case. I didn’t really agree with a lot of what they said but this workshop was more one sided because the two people running it didn’t really take questions. It was interesting but prostitution is, ugh… Like… I find it to be um… I don’t know, I just do not think it should be illegal for STD reasons and what not.
The last workshop of the night was called Meet the MEPs(Member of European Parliament) and was interesting. I will hit on that in a minute… But I forgot to mention the night before I went to a Vegan Resturante after the conference with the young greens and had a glass of wine… YUCK… [Editors Note: I have since found I love wine]. And this night their was an auction and fundraiser and stuff after the last meeting ran by the Young Greens and I won the nicest pen ever that sits in a pedestal and is from the EU… Good shit… But because it’s 2:30 am here and I have a 9am class I need to hurry up and finish this post tonight… lol
Anyhow, the meeting entitled meet your MEPs was one of the greatest of the entire conference for me. The two Green Party MEPs for England are Jean Lambert and Caroline Lucus.
They talked about what they do, what the EU does, about what committees they are on and it was like being in a Dr. Heinisch class all over again. Anyhow what I liked is that the MEPs didn’t dodge questions like other politicians I have met, here is the question I asked Jean Lambert and her response, paraphrased of course…
John Hartman: “How much influence does the European Union have of environmental and social policies and mandates when looking at the sovereignty of the individual nations –vs- the supranational forces at work?”
Jean Lambert-G, MEP: “A lot. May depend a bit if they are law or regulations, but, yes they do have a reach. And remember that every member state has been involved in these-discussions. It is more then influence-it is law. There are the areas, where there are guidelines as opposed to law, where we have an open method of coordination. There is an agreement to what targets should be reached and a vehicle in place to check on it. There is a lot of ‘soft’ policy as well and intergovernmental stuff. So there are different methods that we can use, but there is a lot of reach and a lot of influence.”
A councilor in a local ward also told me that the politicians in his area are working endlessly to get to EU standards for laws that have been passed or their ward can be fined by the EU. So he said it does have reach, he knows first hand.
Anyhow after the conference I talked to Jean Lambert and got her contact information and passed it onto Dr. Heinisch as she said she was interested in working with UPJ to spread information on Green Politics and the European Union to American Students. Possibly having classes email her questions about the EU and being a MEP and getting them answered by an actual MEP… It’s a great opportunity that I hope does not fall through, and was an exciting contact I was able to meet.
Anyhow, off to bed, its 2:46 and I have class at 9am… I also have been at this for quite some time… Glad to say the Steelers won today!!! And what not… I am trying to put this conference in as much depth as I can so when I go back and look at the conference and my time in the UK a year or two from now or ten or twenty I recall all this stuff so I know this post was dry and boring but whatever I tried to make it interesting. This is what I am here for, politics and I figured its important that I show stuff about that… Anyhow next post (hopefully tomorrow) is going to cover the next two days of the conference and will be just as detailed and once I’m off of the conference I should be able to catch up pretty quickly as a normal day does not have as much to talk about…
But tomorrow’s post will be more interesting because it will talk about the leadership debate almost exclusively, Derek Wall’s keynote speech on ecology and power and a bit of Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart inspired standup I did at the conference review Saturday Night which were a bunch of skits to lighten the mood after a 10 hour day of political debate… I rocked and have a copy of my speech I’m going to post… So tomorrow’s post will be better…
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