The State We're In

It was interesting to read the car number plates as we travelled. Like in the US they are registered by state and add a little line underneath which someone feels sums up the joys of living there.

Victoria is “The Place to Be”. This replaced “On the Move” which perhaps was seen as encouraging emigration so they now suggest there is no where better. It does offer an update to this of “Stay Alert, Stay Live” but no one seeks to want to take that up, perhaps its too morbid to read every day.

As long as you stay alert

New South Wales was “The First State” but now doesn’t seem to want to be anything, perhaps a sort of superiority in itself, as in ‘we know who we are and don’t need to say it’.

Confidence of the understatement

We didn’t see many from Western Australia for geographic reasons but apparently there was an optional choice of “State of Excitement”. It seems to have been dropped quite quickly and many now stay quiet.

ACT (Canberra) at one time had “Heart of the Nation” which was quite sweet but in 2013 they moved on to celebrate 100 years of Federation. Since then they have kept fairly quiet.

So what to conclude from all this? Well for that I turn to Queensland which used be “The Sunshine State” but now it is diversifying. They claim it is “The Smart State”.  I am not sure what this means but if true probably negates itself just by being stated. That said, I kind of like it. It has a Texas ring to it, as in “Don’t Mess with…”. The same sort of top-dog mentality, which everyone else just notes and then gets on with life.

Though I am not sure about its green credentials

In England, Yorkshire had it but seems to have gone quiet over the years, perhaps due to the London/South East “Load of money” mentality. If so then that’s England’s loss for we need to have regional differences along with some bravado. It adds to the vitality of the country as a whole.

So I’ve decided that that will be my next project. To learn more about England – it’s history, regional differences and where it’s heart lies. The country is undergoing an identity crisis, partly due to the Scottish Referendum challenging our notion of Britishness, and partly because the South East is so politically dominant.

Yes, I want to rediscover what it means to be English and I will start by reading a big book - 'The English and their History' - and then maybe undertake a long bike ride or two. To learn more about the state I'm in.