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It’s interesting reading the foreign media to see what image the rest of the world has of the UK. Doubly so when that image is itself painted by a Briton who clearly didn’t expect it to be read back home. I have seen just one Union Flag, and although The Edge on Soho Square has bunting it looks more like it’s been borrowed from a school fete than put up for the jubilee. Even so, a British correspondent writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, reports:

The flags are flying again in Britain. Barely two months after the Queen Mother’s death, the country is awash with patriotism.

To live here now, especially in the days before the Queen’s jubilee bash this weekend, is to be trapped in a giant royalist theme park. Bunting flies from pubs, cars, trucks and taxis; despite the chilly spring, young men and women walk about in designer “England” T-shirts; and the media is avidly reporting the Queen’s national royal tour as if it were a real news event.

I suspect the ‘designer “England” T-shirts’ have more to do with the World Cup, and what people are really celebrating is the fact we have two days off work next week.

As radio days go, today was a good one, I reckon. The trail this morning went well, in spite of it being a potentially complicated subject, and this evening’s show absolutely flew by. Ursula was in for news again so we had a good gossip before the show and during the travel news, and sorted out a weekend for her to come over for dinner. Lycos had a chat about their viral chart, which tracks the progress of comedy and cult emails as they flow around the web, and Sun came in to talk about the fab Star Office. They left a copy behind so I’ll be installing it as soon as I get to my desk in the morning. The copy of Work I’m currently using is prone to hanging.

Loads of phone calls and emails. I made a concerted effort to explain things nice and slowly as I have a tendency to race through calls and emails and need to make sure I’m understood. It’s a shame we only had time to take fifteen minutes of them, though, as we had to ask loads of people to call back again next week so we can fit them in. I reckon we’re going to have to do a full half hour to accomodate everyone next time around.

Got back to Galleywood to be greeted by a furious Jess, clearly agitated that she’d been left inside on her own all day. She’s not used to that and was probably worried that the other neighbourhood cats are stamping (or spraying) their mark on her territory.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 30th, 2002 at 10:32 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.