It must be even colder for you ....

.... said my cab driver to me last night on the way home when we were chatting ubiquitously about the weather (i mean really - what else do we do here in england ....)

I wasn't sure what to say in response .... but I decided rather than just laugh politely and take it ... i thought i'd maybe try explaining that brown as i am ... i was actually from here ...

"Well ..." i said brightly .... "I was born and bought up in Birmingham - so I do know cold and misery ...." (trying to keep it non-polemical) ....

"Yeah .... but your blood is still different innit? .... i mean - you can't get away from that love no matter what or where you were born. Its thinner or summink. See - I have a coloured mate ... and he and his misssus have to keep the heating on all the time .... even in the summer .... its your blood darling - its always going to be foreign" ....

I gave up. And talked about wanting to get home to have a nice cup of tea ....

But it reminded me of a line from the sublime classic "How to be an Alien" which someone bought my dad when he first came to this country in 1965 ....

"It is a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become British; he can never become English."