The name's Regina, Elizabeth Regina
A visit to England of more than two weeks—such was my
thinking as I sat down to write this morning—surely ought to provide the material
for a fairly ambitious essay on “The Mood of Britain Today” or some other
grand, comprehensive design. After
all, each day over my morning coffee I read such preposterous titles atop op-ed
pieces no more solidly researched.
My first thought was to report on the American election as seen through
English eyes. A moment’s
reflection made me realize that in addition to its narcissism, the topic
brought with it the risk of acute embarrassment. There are quite a few things about American political life
that are difficult to explain intelligently to oneself, let alone to foreigners.
I
can, however, offer a brief summary.
The British press, which is actually worse than the American press,
though usually more literate, agrees in a quasi-Hobbesean assessment of the
American presidential campaign, to wit, that it is nasty, brutish, and
mind-numbingly long. It regards
Barack Obama’s re-election as a foregone conclusion. As this would appear to differ from the American
journalistic consensus only in the foregone
part, it doesn’t really seem like much news. The American press appears to believe that the presidency
was Mr. Romney’s to lose, and that he has lost it. Like Mr. Romney himself, most American journalists appear to
be committed to the theory of individual responsibility.
So
it’s back to “The Mood of Britain Today”.
I find that the mood of Britain today is excellent. In contrast, the mood of America is
lousy. America’s lousy mood has to
do with its politics. No matter
what happens in November about half the nation will declare disaster barely
averted, and the other half lament disaster fully achieved. That is not a situation very promising
in terms of our shared national need to face up to working together
to address some very real problems, many of which neither Mr. Obama nor Mr.
Romney has the political courage to lay out for us honestly.
Britain’s
politics are not all that much better than ours, certainly not good enough to
account for the optimism, the good feeling, and the sense of accomplishment
that I encountered everywhere in my travels. No. The source
of the quite remarkable sense of well-being in Britain at the moment is the
national panache with which the Olympic Games were planned and carried
out. This was a gigantic
undertaking for London and indeed the whole nation. In the run-up to the games doubters were prone to be dubious
and cynics ready to be cynical.
But the way the Games played out—from the brilliant and slightly goofy
opening spectacle to the extraordinary contributions of literally thousands of intergenerational,
interracial, multicultural volunteer helpers, guides, and marshals—seems to
have left the country with a licit and infectious feeling of rare, communal
achievement.
Olympic volunteers
Since
we arrived in London only as the Games ended, it took me a while to grasp all
this. My understanding began with
a train ride. After an overnight
with my delightful stepmother-in-law in St. John’s Wood, we set off the next
morning to suburban Kent and the house of my eminent brother-in-law, John
Newman in Sevenoaks. There is a
considerable commuter traffic between London and Sevenoaks, but in the morning
it is mainly headed in one direction—toward the city. There are several trains an hour, but even so the inbound
trains often fill to capacity.
Outbound from London in those morning hours, on the other hand, the coaches
are mainly empty. I noted with
surprise—but without actually thinking about it—that our outbound car was
practically full. It was also
quite animated. Several groups of youngish people
speaking various languages, none of them English, kept up a lively buzz. I thought vaguely that the train must
be going on to Dover, and that these were middle-Europeans on their way home. But to my surprise they all got off
when we did, at Sevenoaks station.
It
took me a minute or two to figure out what was happening. On the platform were several uniformed volunteers, who directed the travelers up a stairway, down a long
corridor, and out onto the street where several specially designated Olympic
buses were waiting. Sevenoaks is
not far from Brands Hatch, site of one of the well known motor raceways in
Britain. It had been commandeered
on this occasion as the venue for the Paralympic bicycle races. That was where all the surprising
people on the commuter train were headed.
It is typical of the British that the general enthusiasm for the
Paralympics was not less fervent than that for the “regular” Games.
Alex Zanardi (Italy) at Brands Hatch
