as someone born into a homogeneous society, and living in it for the first 8 years of my life - (coffee? back then, it was taboo for children to drink it... and the first time i drank coffee... was the only time i actually liked it... perhaps because it was taboo... now when i drink it... i'm thinking: ugh... choking... is this brewed soil?) - i "think" i've managed to fit into the English heterogeneous society quiet well... what's Nigel talking about? i've seen instances where migrants from the old Commonwealth do not speak a word of English... grannies from India, who require their grandchildren to accompany them to the doctor and translate, then again... in England... the Indian medical profession mafia is rife... all the dentists are... pretty much Raj... and the general practitioners are pretty much the Raj... then again, coming to England, i was inclined with excesses of curiosity... i remember asking a childhood friend whether or not i could fiddle with his Afro... i did fiddle with the Afro curls on his head... i'm only writing this, because about a week from now, i will be heading back to the east, at first, a return to homogeneity is somehow "refreshing"... then it becomes odd... and then a nausea kicks in... i become existentially "sick" from seeing so many replicas... i miss the Anglo cosmopolitanism in a wild way... if i don't see an Afro-Saxon i'm fiddling with time, trying to constrict space, or whatever method exists to say: this is odd, unusual... i'm not used to it... i guess you could say i'm a bridge between Western heterogeneity and Eastern homogeneity... i can only see in the West, bastion Wales with their proud tradition of continuing to retain linguistic tradition... Scotland could also be a bastion, if they retained their Gaelic... and i have heard Gaelic being spoken... my schoolfriend's mother... Samuel's mother spoke Gaelic... language is like currency... if what happens with the U.K. falls short... why so worried? you still have the £, don't you? why fret? sure... if you were part of €... then you'd have a problem... remember... the Italians gave birth to Machiavelli... they're playing the soppy mandolin for a reason... not once you're in the single currency... language is currency... you speak your own currency: you're de facto sovereign.