An Englishman Abroad?

The first time was by accident. I was actually flying out to Tallinn, Estonia at the time. Tallinn is another of my boltholes where I can get a good beer, walk up to the Old Town, and inhale the sharp salt air of the Baltic Sea. While I am there I can kneel at the simple black memorial to the victims of the "Estonia" ferry disaster. Amongst those words draped in sadness lies the name of Urmas Alender, who if he had been born in the West would have been one of the biggest rock stars on the music scene. Instead, as a songwriter and lead singer of Estonian band Ruja, he was simply the torch that lit a million dreams. A world where Alender dies and Bryan Adams lives is not a just one.

I was flying out with Czech Airlines and was scheduled to have an eight hour layover in Prague. I was skint, and this was the cheapest option. So by this simple accident of finance I found myself Ruzyne, which although it is not the worst airport in the world (and never will be until Newark sinks into the cesspit that it is built on), is not really an eight hour kind of place. Waving my EU walk-about compatible passport at some cheery chappy with a gun, I waddled off to hunt some lunch.

Questions passed through my mind on the journey, comparing my new experiences to many that I had encountered before. Why did the bus arrive on time? Why did the underground train not smell of wee? Why could I travel from the outskirts of the city to the centre in less time that it takes to hail a cab in New York? The answer to the last one is simple: buses in Prague don't run off the meter in order to charge punters three times the official rate.

As I walked around the cobbled streets, crossed the fabled bridges, swooned over the castle on the hill (where all fairytale castles should be), and of course lunched heavily on the local brews, it was perfect apart from one thing. The English. Thousands of the buggers. Mostly acting like idiots.

What is it that makes the English abroad so odious? Is it just that they're always that odious and they stand out so much in civilisation? Or is it that being away from home impairs the judgement? Maybe it is like gravity, and as you move further away from the source your good taste decreases exponentially? Baseball caps, short shorts on fat legs, and loud English voices barking loud English instructions to diminutive waitresses in order to request soggy English chips. It is at times like that I wish I paid more attention in my German classes so I could pretend to be a Hun. Not like that's much better…

It was then that I saw the t-shirt. It was worn by the fat kid of a fat family. On it was a large stomach-churning Hammer and Sickle and the slogan "The KGB: We're still watching you!" I don't think that I have felt anger like it before, and I know that I have not done since. If I had a gun I would have shot the lot of them. I don't mean that in the comical metaphorical sense, I mean that in the "kneel down and beg for mercy" sense.

How has this happened? If I wore a t-shirt emblazoned with "The SS: We're still killing them Jews", or "Apartheid: Still keeping the blacks in their place", or even "Pol Pot: Party like it's Year Zero" I would be stoned in the street. Or at least drummed out of my local Conservative Club. But this… this aberration… this was okay.

Our cultural awareness of Central and Eastern Europe has been whitewashed. For many years in British schools the only mention than Stalin warranted was as an ally in the War. The Wall didn't matter, because our lot were fine, dandy and coked up in West Berlin. Hell, even arch-scumbag and butthole extraordinaire JFK went there and almost proclaimed that he was a donut. On the other side were funny little people, living funny little lives, driving funny little cars, eating funny dishes with lots of cabbage, and getting their funny little brains blown out by funny little secret policemen. From Yalta onwards we were, on the whole, shameful.

I do not blame the person who was selling those t-shirts. Everybody has a right to earn money from the terminally stupid. I don't even blame the kid that much. He didn't have a clue. But the parents who allowed their offspring to parade around the streets of Prague wearing a joke about one of the darkest hours of the twentieth century… they should not have been allowed to breed.

And so when I walk the streets of Prague I keep my voice down. My Czech is non-existent, but I order my drinks with a look of heartfelt apology. I never rattle on about how cheap it is to me, because it is not to them. And I avoid expat bars like the plague. In NYC I might play the Englishman abroad, because over there it is kinda cutesy and gets you good service from dumb blonde barmaids who reckon you must be Hugh Grant or know the Queen or something. But not in the Czech Republic. There I am simply me.