The dangers of postcard porn

I was originally planning to write a post today about St George's Day -- or maybe referring back to the post I wrote about my associations with being English. But -- I'm not any more.

A "postcard porn for my wanderlust" post is overdue, since I have been sending and receiving cards through postcrossing and have a couple I want to upload and write about. This is now being given a new edge, however. When I get new postcards and I scan them in to post here and write about, I also post the images along with my brief comments to the appropriate Facebook group. I've never given it too much thought.

Once, someone commented that they thought it was rude of me to say that I thought a postcard I'd got was a bit disappointing. The disapproval is always for the sake of the potential sender seeing it and being upset, though, and I think the odds are stacked against this ever happening -- people often like to be offended on behalf of others. I accepted at the time that not knowing me or what I'm like would make the comment seem a lot worse than it was, and so deleted anything that would cause offence. And I thought no more about it.

I recently made friends with a Norwegian girl on Facebook, after she commented on a postcard I'd received from Finland. We should all know what I'm like about Norwegian girls, although if she had green eyes or not I never got around to asking. I didn't think too much of it, except we shared common interests -- like photography, and postcards, and she was an Aquarius.

Today, another random user commented on a German card I had posted, explaining to me what it said. I replied, thanking them for their help. Then, the Norwegian girl joined in the conversation. She felt it necessary to wade in with the comment that although she didn't want to have a go at me (or words to that effect, I've deleted the offending remark now so I can't check it) she thought that my comments on the cards I receive were often rude, and it would be unkind to the senders of these cards. She also told me that people don't know what to write on postcards and so it was that commenting about the weather wasn't just a British thing. She ended saying it was postcrossing and not penpals.

Well excuse me all to hell.

It was an honest question the times I have remarked on senders talking about the weather -- I haven't travelled a great deal and can't speak any foreign languages fluently (or much at all beyond "two beers, please") so I was unclear whether it was generally accepted that if you have to make small talk with an Englishman you should mention the weather, or if it was instead a universally-accepted subject. Perhaps some of my remarks may have seemed sarcastic -- like in this post where I remark that the Japanese sender tells me it is Autumn in Japan, which funnily enough it is in England, also.

I do say nice things about imagining this life in Japan so different from my own, but perhaps spoil it by saying I expect the sender is wearing one of those weird facemasks they're fond of in Japan when they have colds.

On browsing through the cards, in just this batch alone it doesn't end there. Here I make a risque reference to "the famous German sense of humour" and go on to mention that the people in the picture look like freaks.

There is also this card, where perhaps it's bad form to say that someone's self-described beautiful city doesn't look all that, or to say the postcard's caption gives me more detail about the city than the sender does.

I can see now how where such remarks should perhaps be confined to my blog, where the senders will never see them. They were intended to be humorous -- though I guess nobody but me ever saw them that way, even here. Although nobody else found them funny, what does that matter? I can say whatever the hell I like! If ever a sender did see one and took offence, I would apologise and explain what I meant. But I don't agree with being offended on behalf of someone else.

I hope that at least my handful of readers here know that if I sound mean or unkind you shouldn't take me seriously -- I love getting these cards in the post (otherwise I wouldn't do it), and I don't think I have ever said anything really offensive. If I say "I'm disappointed by this", then what is that other than my own feelings? Who knew there was so much politics involved. In future, all cards received will be posted here with full and unrestrained comments. But in every other public forum, there will be no comment that is anything more than factual.

And certainly no attempts at humour.

Letter boxes

In some kind of attempt to tidy my room today, I sat on my bedroom floor with a shoebox filled with old letters. The box has become over-full and wasn't really doing a very good job of containing these various missives. Since I've recently bought some new shoes, I decided that all my postcards will get a box of their own and I would have a quick sift through the letters I have -- just to see if there are any that don't need to be kept.

It's a very strange feeling revisiting the past by way of old letters. It's like a form of archaeology, digging through the layers and discovering details about how a life was lead.

There were all the letters I received from Kath over the years -- from the very first pages she wrote to me when I advertised for a penpal, letters written on coloured paper and in colourful envelopes. Song lyrics written on the back of envelopes or heading the tops of pages. I didn't read the letters again, although sometimes I would have to unfold pages to see who the letter was from. There was pictures from festivals, pictures of nights in pubs. I found a small pack of black and white photographs, dating back to the time I stayed with her for a weekend when I was 17. Old pictures of Manchester, pictures of people sat on the grass in the sun. I've considered throwing away all of these letters from Kath before -- we've previously fallen out and even though our differences were resolved we've grown apart. I could find her online on things like Facebook and MySpace, but we aren't friends. Just the same, I keep the letters. I found a small piece of paper, folded like a card. What year it was I don't know, but it was a makeshift valentie's card from Kath "just in case" I didn't get one.

I found a couple of cards from a girl named Jo I knew at school when I was 18. There was a card she gave me when I left for uni, and I could remember feeling sad reading it at the time -- that she was clearly sad I was going away and she would miss me, and for a second no time had passed and I was still there. I found another card and a short letter she had sent me at university. I guess we eventually dropped out of contact, I've no idea where she is any more.

Going up through the layers to the years I was at university there were various letters from Fi, filled with romantic sentiments and longing. I was struck now by how young she was then. I was young myself, only 18 and in my first year at university -- envelopes addressed to my rooms in halls in Derby. There's been times since when I've been in Derby and I have stood in the street outside my old halls of residence and looked up at what had been my bedroom. I can only spot my room from the first year, but if I stood in the street at the back of the building I could also see the kitchen we shared. I could remember how together we covered almost an entire wall of the kitchen with postcards, the same walls now blank. I had letters from Fi talking about plans for New Year's Eve in 1999, and postcards sent when she was on holiday in France. Even later, there were letters sent to me in Utah. Much fewer letters than the early ones.
I know in the end I broke her heart, but at least we're still friends.

I found a single page of a letter from my Mum when I was in Utah. I couldn't find any more than the end of the letter, where she was asking me what I did with my time in the evenings and at weekends and if I saw any of the boys I had travelled out with.

It's a very strange feeling to find old birthday cards or cards of congratulations on passing my exams and going to university from now-deceased relatives or family friends. Even this year I got a birthday card that my aunt had apparently bought for me before she died, she knew she wouldn't still be here but she had selected cards to be sent just the same.

Here and there were scruffy letters from Jon sent to me at university, just short notes in his illegible writing that he'd include with compilation tapes he sent me.

After the letters in Utah there comes new contacts. Smart envelopes containing cards and written in San's neat script, correspondence between us at our universities and our homes. The smell of the paper reminding me of the musty passageway at my house in Derby, between the front door of the house and a door to the street. The way the door clattered when you slammed it shut, the smell of Rie's cigarettes.

There was a card I didn't recognise, sent to a university halls address. I had to look at the return address on the envelope to see it was from a girl named Amelia that Rie was friends with in Utah, we'd met twice or something and Rie had told her I had a crush on her. We had a very brief correspondence for a short while when I'd come back, but as these things went the gaps got longer and longer until one of us didn't reply. But this card was sent later. This was from the summer of my final year, after all of Matt and Rie's fighting and I'd had a bit of a breakdown and stayed in Derby for the summer to write my dissertation. We'd all moved out of the house, and I'd taken a room in halls for the summer. This card I don't remember ever seeing before was from Amelia, telling me to hang in there, not to give up on myself. I was touched by the sentiment, that although we barely knew each other she was clearly a little worried about me. If it wasn't for the fact the envelope was open, I'd wonder if I had ever read the card before.

Later there was a postcard from Rie of a Van Gogh print -- commenting on the back that it was a safer card this time -- since she once sent to my home a postcard of a half-naked fireman, and pretended it was from a gay lover. My parents had freaked, and I still don't think they really believe me that there really wasn't any gay lover.

That still takes us back almost 5 years now. More recently there are packages sent from Australia, large padded envelopes and neatly written letters tucked inside, sent from cities and streets I've never known. There's Christmas cards and birthday cards, postcards from all over the world -- the postcards now living in a narrow converse shoebox, cards sent by San when she was studying in the USA, Postcrossing missives from around the world, cards sent by various friends who know how I love the pictures and the dreams they offer.

Only a very small pile of letters and cards didn't make the grade. Almost everything went back into the box, still pushing at the lid. All the letters and memories to be kept for other days, and joined by more.

More postcard porn for my wanderlust (updated)

I can't believe it's been two months since I last blogged about any postcrossing cards I'd received. Now I have a bunch to all put up at once, though -- so I think I can be forgiven.

This first card marks the shortest distance travelled for a postcard to me -- having travelled allllllllllll the way from Germany, a hop, skip and a jump of 469 KM from a place called Wuppertal. The sender, Sille, tells me that more than 50 years ago a director of a circus wanted to advertise his circus -- and so he thought he would put a little elephant into the overhead monorail which goes through the city. But oh no! Tuffi the elephant didn't like this -- so she jumped through the door and fell into the river Wupper below. There was a happy ending though, as Tuffi the elephant was miraculously uninjured and is now -- like the monorail -- a symbol of the city of Wuppertal. I have no idea if this story is true, or if it is an example of the famous German sense of humour. Either way, it's an interesting looking card; you can see the elephant falling from the monorail in the main picture, and some slightly freakish people in the bottom-left picture.

The second card has travelled slightly further -- in this case having made the journey from Osaka, Japan. The sender Yukiko is a 23-year-old woman and tells me that "In Japan the intense heat day passed and goes from now in Autumn". In her poetic way, I think what Yukiko is telling me that now summer is passing the days are less hot as they go into Autumn.

I'm not entirely clear what the picture shows -- since the card is captioned only "ATC & WTC, Osaka" so if anybody can shed light on these initials, I'd be interested to hear it. Either way, it's a a stunning picture -- I love the reflections of the lights and the boat in the water. It's scenes like this that make me want to travel -- although it probably doesn't look so different to Portsmouth at night, or London's Docklands.

Hanna from Tampere Suomi marks my fourth postcard from Finland. Hanna informs me that she was shortly to be moving from the beautiful city (which doesn't look all that from the postcard) to South Finland. The caption on the back of the card tells me the city's cathedral was built in 1907, which is more information than Hanna gives me about her city -- but she said she was happy to be moving so maybe she doesn't care.

Contrasting with my barely-travelled postcard from Germany, it's clear this is one of my farthest-travelled, although it still comes second to my card from Dunedin, New Zealand. Of all the cards I have received, I'm sorry to say this is maybe my least favourite to date. The sender Jean (at least from her handwriting I think that's her name), tells me she lives in Central Queensland, about 3 hours from the sea, and breeds beef cattle. She then goes on to tell me that in Australia it is now spring and already warm. I don't mind that the text might not have been the most interesting of all cards -- when you're writing a short card to a complete stranger it can be difficult to think of something to say -- but I'm a little disappointed with the picture. I feel that a country as vast and fascinating as Australia could be better represented than this.

Today I wasn't even expecting a postcard -- according to the postcrossing site, I had sent and received an equal number of cards. Either way, this beautiful piece of art was sent from Miyuki in Japan -- although where in Japan she never mentions. Miyuki tells me she is a Japanese woman who likes handicraft, and chose this card for me because I like art. See? Much better than the last sender who sent me a rubbish picture. Miyuki also tells me it is Autumn in Japan -- which funnily enough it is also in England -- and that she and her daughter both have a cold.

I really like the mental image of the everyday life of this Japanese woman and her daughter, who today (or a week ago when the card was sent) is suffering a little with a cold. I expect they're wearing those freaky-looking facemasks.

It's a week of surprise postcards -- today I received another postcard from Japan. This makes it two postcards from Japan in one week, and three in total. Today's card comes from a young lady named Saori in Kyoto, who tells me it is "cool and comfortable" in Japan and "The leaves are going to change yellow and red". She also has gone to the trouble of sticking tiny red leaves on the reverse of the card. I think the Japanese have to be my favourite postcard writers, for the poetry of their descriptions. It also puts me to shame, not being able to say much more than "Where is the shoe store?" in Spanish and "My grandmother is on fire" in French.



And I know what you're all thinking right now. I can just see now in your eyes, you're all looking at me with that same curious blogger expression, saying:
Jay, what has this done to the graph?

I, on the other hand find myself thinking, what graph? Why would there be a graph? Why would you all get together and expect a stranger on the internet to give you trivial details about his life in graph form? How would that help us understand this any more? That seems a little bit sad. You don't need a graph, it doesn't help us in any way. There is no graph.







No. You need a pie chart for that kind of thing. And here it is:


To date, postcards received by country. Notice the disproportionate number of cards from Finland. According to Postcrossing, there are 32,945 people taking part worldwide -- 19,903 of them hailing from Finland. That means 60% of all users on Postcrossing are from the Republic of Finland, a country of 5.3 million people in Northern Europe. For anyone interested, the next most popular country is Germany with 38% of the users, closely followed by the USA with 33%. I have yet to receive any postcrossing from the USA. The Netherlands creep into the top five at number four, and Japan take fifth place.

Postcard-porn for wanderlust

On Thursday evening, I walked to the station from where I was working, over near London Bridge. I'd known it was possible and a reasonably straight-forward walk, but hadn't been clear where I needed to go -- so rather than get lost, I'd stuck to taking the tube. It's a shame my work there was only for a few days, as I also worked out where I would need to catch a bus from, should I not want to walk again. Either way, it was a warm and sunny evening, and as I walked across London Bridge I was struck by how much I love the city. Looking out along the Thames, a large battleship (or something that certainly looked like one) had just passed through Tower Bridge, so the bridge was in its iconic "open" position and tourists were taking pictures. Looking in the other direction, I could see the dome of St Paul's Cathedral -- and many more things besides. These picture-postcard sites don't get old for me, like standing in Trafalgar Square and seeing Big Ben between the buildings. And I wonder how I'd feel living in a city somewhere else in the world -- if I'd feel the same way about Toronto or Melbourne or Barcelona or Moscow or... wherever.

Fuelling my speculation and my desire for other countries, is Postcrossing -- or what I'm beginning to consider as a kind of postcard porn for my wanderlust.

This first postcard actually arrived weeks ago, and I've only just got around today to scanning it and uploading it. It seemed like it made more sense to do more than one a time. As you can probably tell, it is my farthest-travelled postcard to date -- having flown all the way from the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. The postcard tells me this city on the edge of the Pacific Ocean was settled by Scottish immigrants in the late 19th century. I'm also reliably informed by the sender Renae that the water in the centre of the picture is Otago Harbour, an old volcanic crater. I look at this, and I look at this place I'm living in, and something certainly seems missing...


Marking my third postcard from Finland, the sender Annina lives in the town of Vantaa, neighbouring Helsinki. Annina tells me about a recent heatwave and thunderstorm, and again I wonder if it's a universal thing to want to talk about the weather or if it's because I'm English? Either way, she tells me she also enjoys photography and took many pictures when she visited Ireland over the summer. When I messaged her to thank her for the card, I asked if there was anywhere I could see these pictures -- but I don't expect a reply.

The picture is entitled "Girl On The Sand", by Helene Schjerfbeck -- the advantage of "art" postcards is naturally it fuels my passion for art and exposes me to new artists I wouldn't necessarily have heard about otherwise. But it doesn't have the same postcard-porn appeal, especially when I haven't heard anything about where she lives -- so I've revised my profile to encourage people to indulge me. And even though I speak only English (and a little bit of French), I've said people can write to me in French, Spanish or Italian as well, since I love the sound of other languages and there's always Babel Fish.

In sending postcards, I have developed a fetish for Paperchase which I already loved for greeting cards, stationery, paper and all things such related -- but now I'm binging on their postcards. The trouble is, I have about five blank postcards ready to go but whenever I get a new person to send them to they always want to see tourist picture-postcards. These are in abundance in London, of course, and I've been finding some really good black and white shots -- but I still keep buying the others.

Am yet to receive a postcard from any wealthy girls living in beautiful, exciting places around the world who want to invite me to stay... No, I don't know what's going on there either -- you'd think it would be common.

Postcrossing extravaganza

Postcrossing has gone crazy this week -- previously I thought I understood that in order to receive a postcard you had to send one, but in one week alone I have received three different postcards without having sent any more. I have one all written and ready to send to Finland (yes, Finland, again) this week -- but have no idea why I have been getting cards without sending any. Not that I'm complaining, I like getting post.
This first card is from Doris in Austria. She lives in the town of Wiener Neustadt, which she tells me is located about 50km south of Vienna. She also tells me that she would rather live in Antwerp, in Belgium. I don't know why, she doesn't elaborate on it...

My second postcard comes from Finland, from the town of Lappeenranta, a city of aprox. 58,000 people close to the Russia border where the sender lives with her boyfriend and their three cats.

The front of the card reads "Everyday 160 million cards are sent. This one is for you!" which I think is a very nice sentiment. I don't know if that figure is worldwide or just for Finland -- it seems that sending postcards is a very popular pasttime for the Finnish.

My third postcard of the week came all the way from Germany. The sender Stefanie doesn't say what town she lives in, and doesn't offer any insights into what is quite an unusual looking card. The picture seems to show a road accident, and I'd like to point out that the writing says "HILF" and not MILF. If any German speakers can offer an explanation as to what this means, and what the cars is saying, I'd be grateful. Maybe it's part of a campaign for road safety? Either, Stefanie is 24 and makes polite conversation about the weather, before mentioning that her baby son learned to walk a few weeks ago and "is now exploring the world". It's quite a random bit of information to drop in, after expressing her hopes that the weather is nice in England.

International readers -- which is pretty much everyone who comes here: is this a widely-recognised piece of diplomacy? Are you taught that if you have to make polite conversation with an Englishman, you should mention the weather?

Stefanie seems particularly keen for people to visit the website for her son, since she includes a link to it on my postcard and mentions it in her postcrossing profile. However, I'm not sure she would want me linking to it from here.

I might start scanning in the cards I send, too -- I think the general consensus is the more pictures around here, the better.

The great postcard exchange

Postcrossing continues to kick arse, with my second received postcard coming all the way from Moscow, and shows the monument to Peter I. The sender, Eugenia, is a 37-year old assistant manager of a lingerie distributor -- and mistakenly complained I didn't have my real name on Postcrossing. I forgive her though, it's a neat looking postcard -- and the stamps take up most of the space on the reverse of the card! I might have to scan in that side, too, later.

Today's hotly-received postcard is my first (I expect of many) from Finland. Hinuopp comes from a small town called Savonlinna, in the Finnish lake district. I don't really understand what's going on in the picture -- it looks like it might be some kind of snakes and ladders type game perhaps, but "Hinuopp" said she thought it could be just the card for me. It seems she might be a good judge of character :)

'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean

I had started to write a post complaining how Postcrossing were ripping me off (even if it's free) and I hadn't received a single postcard for the two I had already sent. I now take it all back -- I am in possession of a postcard that has travelled all the way from the Netherlands. You could probably hand-deliver it quicker than it takes to post, but either way my first postcard has been received from a 35-year old Dutch lady who is married with two cats.

I sent my third postcard off today to a 16 year old in Finland who particularly requested postcards with images including churches, castles and cities. I found one of Colchester castle, which I believe is one of the oldest surviving castles in Europe and certainly the largest. I filled the postcard with information about this, and how Colchester is the oldest recorded Roman town. Maybe more information than she needed, but hey. I'm tempted to request readers here send me unused postcards from around the world, just to really confuse the recipients...

In other news, after a week off last week I had a new freelance contract on Monday. For one day. I spoke the guy last week, didn't much like his tone of voice/attitude but figured they don't pay me to like them. I could put up with pretty much anything for a day, and we said we would play it by ear for any further work. The agency turned out to consist of only three people, and one of the people I later found out was a temp, and was also just there for the day. The other two employees were the joint-directors, and spent almost the entire day out of the office in meetings.

The work itself was the usual fare, and nothing remarkable -- although when the guy with whom I'd arranged the day's freelance work with arrived back at the office (mainly just to tell us employees we could go once we'd sent him an update on what work we'd done that day), one of the last things he said to us both was he would be in touch. Since he hadn't made any mention of further work, I thought this was strange and instead wondered if rather than freelance work the day had really been a kind of job trial. A strange kind of job trial if you don't hang around to see how someone works, but I have been invited back for another day's work next week -- with the hope he might see something of me this time, and possibly some work next month. If it wasn't for the fact I need the money and need the work, I could take it or leave it -- but isn't that how most people feel about work?

It's just as well then that today I was applying for various jobs in the South of England and found one going in the much-lovelier area of Brighton. I applied, they called me back, and so I'm in the car and driving south for an interview this Friday. I might then decide to stay in Portsmouth for a day or two, since several of my friends are out of town this weekend for a wedding of an old school friend.

And just to make things that little bit more interesting, the illustrious Lyndsay (of Pablo Neruda Sonnet XVI fame and whose beauty I once likened to the sun on the French Alps) has unexpectedly re-emerged. I guess if I'd remembered it was July 4, and she would possibly be visiting relatives, I might have expected her to pop up -- but on both counts, I didn't. The reason why visiting relatives might cause her to make an appearance is she has no internet at home. But after a whirlwind conversation, taking in why I was celebrating Canada Day last week when I'm not Canadian, Napoleonic history and The Count of Monte Cristo, what she's decided she wants to do with her life, and her plans to possibly move and study in England, she's promised to write me a letter to catch up properly.

Finally tonight in other news, I have looked once again at therapy. After consulting my doctor about it several weeks ago, I decided to do it myself with neuro-linguistic programming, but recently have noticed when things don't go my way I could perhaps do with sorting some issues. So I called a therapist, specialising in NLP, and they told me all about it -- before getting to the point: how much it would cost. It's only £295 for a two-hour session, and of course they think I might just need two sessions. So, umm, yeah -- maybe not? I need to call another place, that my doctor recommended specifically, and I've a feeling they might be ten times cheaper -- if I remember correctly. Summer will come again, I can be happy.