1 may 2010, workers of the...

My understanding of today reflects my life progress. At first, through a happy upbringing in manchester, it was meaningless, the first monday in may being an unexceptional, and pragmatic, bank holiday. In oxford, I discovered may morning, when students jump drunk into the river and party towards a champagne breakfast at 6am, when a full-on church choir lets rip at 6am, followed by morris dancing and other such distinctly southern english things I was never exposed to (and never actually saw, as students traditionally go to bed, with each other, at that time). It is a delight of localism, hedonism, crass class and tradition. Venturing abroad, I discovered that 1 may for most is a fiercely socialist (red) day, and one of the few things that unites virtually the gloabe, english exceptionism and its acolytes apart. In hungary, I tagged along on marches and classless celebrations of all sorts. I guess I both like and don't this english non-internationalism, which is born of our weight in the world once. Before constant mass media assault, our culture (a highly successful export) was big enough to sustain itself. Good is the local resilience, colour and tradition, but it now risks falling into disuse, caricature and white aspic; bad is the scared solidarity that spawns a defining of identity through fear of others, both in the warm cuddly sense of the ersatz st george's day, and the more vicious racism and xenophobia, which was always present, but is rapidly becoming vastly more socially acceptable as the media becomes more democratic and representative. For my warmest greeting of the day then, I think I'll plump for taking out the "workers of the" and wish you "world, unite !".