Oh poor Arni,

me, a blue-blooded heir without land -my grandpa was a miner who was sent to
Siberia (1st WW) as soon as he came back from the States because they told
him he was a partisan (when he barely knew what to be a partisan meant, he
was human - not a machine for the system), stemming from the Leonardi family
on my mother's side, a growling lion raised on its hinder feet, I had
problems with the said upper classes in Florence, for example. You were
lucky because in your case they talked against Iceland but in my case they
thought I was simply young, and young was stupid to them, which I was not,
thence my blue- turned into bile-. And not only, I would say that the entire
Italian upper-class who declare themselves communist, are very much similar,
be them in Florence or elsewhere. Thus Cheers to the King, to the Queen (if
I was not that anarchic), and away with these merchants who can only count
to a few millions. Besides that, the majority of Italians who were rich
after the 2nd WW were mainly criminals or smugglers who based their fortunes
on the desperation of people, so nothing to boast around so loudly, I would
say.
(Erminia would excommunicate me for such a mail)

I also had pantomimes, though, and biscuits and beautiful lights with snow
at Xmas in New York when I was small. And I will always remember it all.

Cheers, a

From: "Árni Ibsen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>

Martin,

Ah, the class-besotted conservative society! A fathoms deep phenomenon well
worth considering at great length. I find this very interesting. Sorry (if
that's the word in this context). The English are so often on the receiving
end when it comes to joking about conservatism in this world and I both
enjoy that and very much resent it, being a friend of the English, in spite
of everything. The ever-useful Völuspá has the saying "vinur er sá er til
vamms segir", i.e. "a friend is the one who points out fault". There's an
upside and a downside to all that, I think, as with most phenomenons. Not
least if they're national phenomenons.

There, at least, seems to be an inherent, deep-seeded shame of worldly (i.e.
earthy / dirty) 'wealth' within the English society, unless you're either a
blue-blooded conservative or a total bastard sans heart and soul. And the
rigid class-system seems to me to be the general handicap within the English
society. The two (basic) classes are barely on speaking terms, for one
thing. When offspring from the two accidentally interact at such places as
universities, they either discover that 'Them' are much more decent than
they could ever have appreciated, or they have their worst prejudices
strengthened. It had never occurred to them that these were only people,
with all the human blunder that comes along with all that. So, should we
talk about societies here, rather than A society, when considering that
overpopulated island nation with the intriguing and far reaching history?

And such stuff as 'China', albeit most useful on a daily basis, is curiously
associated with the upper classes and the justly fallen Empire, no? I'm sure
the lower classes are using 'china' by now, no?

And in consequence of all this, there is an inherent distrust of all and any
'newfangledness'. Because these're bloody foreign and possibly even
'continental' (god forbid)! Yet, the English, historically, are the greatest
of explorers! They seem to have had an inherent curiosity about other lands,
other nations, other societies, other cultures, and travelled far and wide
in pursuit of the curiosities of the world, while, at the same time,
observing them simply as curiosities that nothing but nothing at all could
or should ever be learned from. Because foreign. Blundering 'British
knowhow' traditionally was the safe, ineffectual bet.

One of the most curious evenings of my entire life happened in England anno
1974 or 75. My wonderful & ever faithful spouse and I had somehow been
(inadvertently) invited to an upper-class dinner party, hosted by the very
much OK owner of the flat we had rented while studying down there. As the
evening wore on (turkey and all) we began feeling like some new and very
strange species of animal, there only to be studied by the inexorable
exploring mind of the naturally curious yet safely aloof English.

We were asked the most inappropriate and curious questions, as if we were
caged carnivorae cleverly captured by the forever fox-hunting English upper
class. What was more peculiar than the questions themselves though, was the
fact that whatever we said was never taken seriously, but simply as
something to be observed as a curiosity happening within the confines of a
veritable gorilla cage. Among the peculiarities the English upper-class
observed that night was the fact that we used eiderdown douves to keep warm
in bed without killing a single bird; the fact that we used central-heating
to keep EVERYONE warm. That we used double and even treble glazing on our
sturdy houses.

It was all very amusing to them, but we could sense well enough that we were
seen as a pitiable species of wayward animals that had no 'cultured' idea of
the luxury we enjoyed using not only eiderdown (very cheap) but central
heating from a surplus of energy subtracted from deep in the ground. The
mere notion of a central heating was despicable to those people, and only
fit for vulgar northern savages. They'd rather stick to their coal-smoke
spilling fireplaces to keep merely their facade warm while their backs were
cold as a lollypop; they seemed content with having to keep a lifetime hanky
stuffed up their sleeve to wipe off their noses because they had a cronic
cold. It was supposed to harden them! Because of the hanky up their sleeve
they were supposedly these hardy soldiers who had managed to maintain a
half-global empire through centuries. It didn't seem to matter that the
empire was crumbling or had already fallen apart.

So much for my monthly diatribe!

Best

Árni


--
Árni Ibsen
Stekkjarkinn 19,
220 Hafnarfjördur,
Iceland

tel.: +354-555-3991
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.centrum.is/~aibsen/