Me? Oh just sitting in the kitchen watching the rain fall in the garden. Cup of tea. Warm feeling, twinkly lights, twilight’s falling. Listening to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Op 39.
Pardon? Oh yes. Yes, very much thank you. I am British. Yes indeed.
Earlier today, I changed from shorts into trousers. I don’t know why, but it felt wonderful - as though I was being comforted, and my legs, which had admittedly grown cold, were ensconced in lovely clean and warm material. What a brilliant feeling. To follow it up with Tea-Elgar-Rain-Twilight was brilliant, almost indulgent. I am having a great summer.
Land of Hope and Glory is a good tune isn’t it. How has Elgar managed to capture Victorian optimism and patriotic bluster in that soaring march and melody? The contrast of fanfare that swoops up the scale like a spitfire, or perhaps a Union Flag on the quarterdeck, and then dips over the clouds into the rolling land of hills and sturdy English waves! I mean, I’m not a fool - I know that isn’t exactly today’s Britain, and I am certain you can take jingoism too far of course, but it does carry a sense of national pride in a way that very few tunes seem to.
I sometimes wonder what I would have been like had I moved to another country. Would I have become even more British, would I have pushed the accent towards Jacob Rees Mogg, or would I have done my best to fit in with the locals and slanted my vowels and dropped my consonants? I guess I won’t get to find that out, but it does make me wonder.
I’d have missed this though - these Tea-Elgar-Rain-Twilight nights. And I’m not even sure there would have been moments to change from shorts to trousers on a summer’s day turned chilly.
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