Cocktails and Records

When I was a child, I used to love the Last Night of the Proms. I found the combination of music, cheery flag waving, dinner suits and silly hats, all in the beautiful surrounds of the Royal Albert Hall, a heady combination. To my young eyes, it was like watching a surreal ‘foreign’ world full of happy people singing (the sort of people who had probably grown up in thatched roof cottages and had regularly enjoyed boarding school midnight feasts). It had a magical allure and I was glued to the TV every time it was on.

A few years ago I actually managed to get tickets for the same event through a friend. The first half was ace. For one, you’re in the Royal Albert Hall which is always a delight and the performances that night were fabulous – Andreas Scholl singing Handel and Purcell and John Williams playing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez.

But then came the second half. Although I knew to expect all the usual patriotic tunes, I didn’t quite anticipate the impact of them. At first I soaked up the emotion of the atmosphere with contented amusement. However, as the evening wore on and everyone else was carried away on a tide of patriotic fervour, bemusement turned to bewilderment. What looked like harmless fun on TV, felt creepy and curiously un-British in real life.

I found myself quite frankly unnerved by the serious faces of my fellow prommers as they gustily sung along to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance i.e. Land of Hope and Glory and positively squeamed my way through Rule Britannia. By the time we got to the national anthem all my love for this country (and my own parentage) had evaporated and been replaced by a strange overwhelming desire to wave an Australian flag around, one with the Union Jack ripped out, and shout republican slogans. Patriotism is a funny thing.

I didn’t watch it this year.

Last night I started my new Tai Chi class – new form, new night, new people.

I got there a bit early and was lingering in the corridor chatting to the other people in the class; they all knew each other but were friendly and welcoming towards the newbie. Throughout the chatter about tai chi, a guy in the corner is eyeing me off. Finally he edges his way over.

‘Good party on New Year’s Eve then?’ he says.
I am a bit taken back. I have never seen this man before in my life and this is not your usual conversation opener from a stranger.

‘I had a good New Year thanks, but sadly, I didn’t go to any parties’ I reply smiling.
‘Yes, you did.’ he says confidently ‘You were at a New Year’s Eve party in Cambridge’.
‘Er, no I wasn’t. You must have met my doppelganger that night!’

He is completely unconvinced and insists ‘No, you were back in Cambridge.’
‘No.’ I say firmly ‘I was definitely home in London. I haven’t been to Cambridge for a long time.’
‘Are you sure?’ he challenges.
‘Yes!’

He changes tact. ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘Yes…’ I reply, wondering where this is going.
‘I know!’ he says triumphantly ‘He’s from Cambridge!’
Again, I have to let him down. ‘Well, actually he’s from Aberdeen – unless he’s been performing an elaborate ruse for the past seven years’.
 
He is undeterred. ‘But you’re from Cambridge aren’t you? When did you last go back home?’
I wonder if my Australian accent has suddenly disappeared for the evening. ‘I’m not from Cambridge’ I say, completely bemused by now.

‘But I know you’. He is absolutely perplexed.

To put him out of his misery, we eventually decide that we may have met on a tai chi course several years ago, and we head into the evening’s class.

Throughout the session though, out the corner of my eye, I keep seeing him glance at me. He looks suspicious, as though I am purposely misleading him about not being from Cambridge.