"Where are we?" "We're still on the island." "But where are we IN TIME?!"

Coming to England is a lot like time travel: you get into a rickety metal canister, get a bit drowsy and shaken up, and when you emerge, you're in A FAR AND DISTANT LAND... and, probably, THE PAST.

I don't mean that it just seems like the past because people still think the word "tart" is offensive and to open a bank account you have to send three different letters to the Isle of Wight and people still sometimes conduct their business via fax and Hyde Park has special paths for horse-riding and the other day someone near me referred to a young boy as 'Master Stephens', but rather because Hollywood has taught me that a British accent of some kind is film-speak for "this happened a long time ago." 'Where' seems to not be a big factor- the English accent was the accepted language of all people prior to this moment in history, guys. Accept it. Get on board or sod off, right?

It's actually a bit of a cause for concern. Maybe I am displaced in time! For all I know I could be living in 1940s Russia: 

That makes sense. Just a bunch of famous English people using their regular British accents to play Russian soldiers during WWII. The Germans have German accents, duh, because we all know German is one of the most evil accents ever.

It is also possible I have ended up in Ancient Greece:

Damn you, Air Canada. Maybe I've been kidnapped and brought here as the wife to a weenie in a dress when my REAL HUSBAND, an older, fatter weenie in a dress, is desperately searching for me and is SUPER MAD. I think this means my new flat is going to get burned down and one of my flatmates is going to have to have a sword fight in my honour? RIP Adam of the past/future/dress.

Or magical, 2,000 BC Persia:

... Not sure what's going on here. I'd rather not involve myself with this ridiculousness and its sands-of-time/leather skirts/CGI antics. Get some new accents, videogame Persia of the olden days! Stop dating Taylor Swift, shirtless Jake Gylenhaal!

I could also be in my favourite option, 1930s prewar Austria:

 

If Fraulein Maria wants to make a fun mnemonic device for important names/dates in British history, that is okay with me. ("Anne, a queen who lost her head, Faust, a play by a dead guuuuuuuuy?" ... Yikes. Apologies to fans of The Sound of Music, British history, and intelligence.)

The point is, I guess I'm living in the days of yore and am a Carmen Sandiego-like globetrotting, time-traveling woman of mystery. (Just kidding, I'm in my pyjamas drinking a sleepy-time tea and watching a Danish avant-garde production of King Lear.)