Dispatches from the South

Dispatches from the South: Annoying the English Locals

June 24, 2010 By Mike 2 Comments

I understand. You’re an Anglophile, you’ve been dreaming of visiting Britain your whole life, now here you are on your first trip abroad, delighted to be in the company of real, live Brits. So why do they seem annoyed with you? Maybe it was something you said. In order to avoid spending most of your vacation on your own, take note of the following ten tips:

Ten Ways to Piss Off the Brits

1. If you want your first conversation with the locals to be your last, tell them they only won The War because the Americans came and bailed them out. This is, without a doubt, the single best way to piss off a Brit, especially one aged 60 plus. The only good that may come out of this is, if you say it to the proper person, you’ll receive a sterling lecture on European history and you just might learn a thing or two, such as the movie “U-571,” wherein the gallant Americans heroically capture a NAZI Enigma machine to help out the British isn’t exactly based on fact.

2. On a lighter note, say “a LUM eh num.” Really, that’s all you need to do to make them cringe. I recommend this, however, because the entertainment value of listening to Brits tying to pronounce it the way Americans do is almost as great as listening to Americans trying to say, “al you MIN ee um.”

3. I know this one is difficult to avoid because I managed it many times myself. It’s involuntary, but really, when they show you any national landmark—Tower Bridge, Stonehenge, the White Cliffs of Dover—resist the urge to say, “I thought it would be bigger.”

4. The British are thrifty people, but they hate a cheapskate, especially where beer is concerned. If you find yourself out with a group of locals you will notice a complex ritual involving the buying of pints. Don’t try to understand it, just be assured that they all know whose round it is and who hasn’t put his hand in his pocket often enough. To avoid being that person, insist on buying rounds often, even if you are out with your American friends. This will make you very popular.

5. Don’t correct their spelling; they are quite fond of it the way it is.

6. Refrain from reminding them that we beat them in the Revolutionary War. That won’t annoy them so much as bore them. Trust me, they don’t care.

7. Never jump a queue. The British live and die by queuing and you cut into one at your peril.

8. Don’t ask them if they have met the Queen; they haven’t…

9. …or Paul McCartney, or Rod Stewart, or JK Rowling.

10. Don’t finish a list when you promise them you are going to.

Dispatches From the South – Hugh Grant, the Queen and Six Pints of Lager

June 3, 2010 By Mike 1 Comment

My wife and I went to the cinema to see “The Ghost” this week. It was a terrific book, and the movie, while perhaps longer than it should have been, was equally good. I recommend both, though if you are in America, you’ll need to look for “The Ghost Writer” because, for some reason, that is how the title came out in translation.

They do, you know, actually translate British books into American. I found this odd when it was first made known to me, but I can now see why it is necessary. During the movie, for example, when Ian McGregor—while in the US—drives into a ferry terminal, the ticket seller asks, “Single or Return?” This is not something an American would say. In fact, I expect most Americans wouldn’t even know what that meant, and I don’t doubt, in the version of the movie titled “The Ghost Writer,” the question posed to McGregor is, “One way or round Trip?”

Another thing that tickled me about the movie was how these Brits moved around on Martha’s Vineyard and the Massachusetts mainland, encountering a variety of locals and not one of them asked, “Have you met the Queen?” (A bit ironic when you consider that several of these Brits could have answered, “Yes.”)

If accounts of Brits travelling to the States (as well as my own experiences when I visit) are to be believed, your average American still holds as gospel the notion that Britain is populated by fish-and-chip eating, binge-drinking football-hooligans with bad teeth who talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, even when they are chatting up the Queen. And they’re all homosexuals. Except for Hugh Grant, and we’re not really sure about him.

As a correspondent living amongst the locals, I thought it my duty to set the record straight. So I’m happy to report that, after eight years of research, I can dispel all of these most of the some of those myths.

- Bad Teeth: Sorry to let the team down, but Brits, when compared to Americans, are a step or two lower on the dental-health ladder. This, however, is a subjective comparison; not everyone wants a picture-perfect, dazzling white, Tom Cruise smile. Well, not everyone over here, anyway.

- Fish-and-Chip Eaters: This, too, is a sort of true stereotype. Fish and Chips are still wildly popular with certain segments of the population (of which I am an enthusiastic member). However, thanks to globalization, I often see a longer lines coming out of KFC and McDonald’s on Friday night. I don’t mind; it makes it easier for me to get my fish-and-chips (with mushy peas).

- Binge Drinkers: Sad to say, there are some Brits who look upon drinking as a competitive sport, but for the most part they are sane and responsible drinkers. The sane and responsible ones don’t make very good footage on the “Cops With Cameras” programs, however, so we hardly ever see them.

- Football Hooligans: This behavior has been a problem in the past but the football clubs have worked hard to eradicate it. The hooliganism is (mostly) gone now, but the stereotype remains.

- They have all met the Queen and/or Paul McCartney: No, they have not.

- They all talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins: The only Brits I hear talking like that are ones who are imitating Americans trying to talk like Brits.

- They are all Homosexuals: Well, of course they are. Except maybe Hugh Grant

Filed Under: Dispatches from the South Tagged With: hugh grant, Lager

Dispatches From the South – The Election

May 6, 2010 By Mike 2 Comments

Even as you read this I may be exercising my civic duty as a UK citizen by voting in my first General Election. Then again, I may not be; I may have already voted by now, so I’m probably down at the pub discussing the weather or the economy, or, just perhaps, the election.

This is a significant and historic election for the Brits, every bit as historic as the last Presidential race. But we won’t delve into that. Instead, I would like to point out the differences between voting in the UK and the US. First and foremost, I had to work today and I am going to the pub afterward. Now, I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention to what you do on the first Tuesday in November over there, but when I was young, the bars were closed and we got the day off.

I have trouble believing that is still the case.

Other differences include ticking a box with a pencil instead of pulling a level, but that was specific to my locality in America. We had voting machines where I lived; but you may have voted in “Hanging Chad” country.

So that narrows the big differences between a US and UK election down to who you get to vote for and the length of time they get to campaign.

In the US, I was able to cast my vote for the person I wanted to run the country, and a host of others, besides. But here, I don’t get to vote for the President, my State Senator, my local Representative, the county sheriff and the dog-catcher all in one go. What I do get to do is vote for my local MP. Period.

The idea is, with the backing of my vote, my MP will get elected. If enough MPs from their party get elected, then the party’s Head MP gets to run the country, and that would be the person I would naturally have voted for if I did get a say in who I wanted running the country. Perhaps, but not always. And this year, not bloody likely.

On the other hand, I rarely point this out to the locals because they usually counter by asking me to explain the Electoral College.

The best thing about British elections, however, is that they only last a month. This pales in comparison to the year-long media frenzy that is an American election. As an American, I just assumed our way of doing things was The Way It Should Be and never considered an alternative. But having experienced a different reality, I have come to the conclusion that the US method is well and truly bonkers.

Think of the waste, the effort, the drain on our economy and our nerves. The only winners in a US election are the manufacturers of red, white and blue bunting and media underlings with maxed out credit cards who are glad for the overtime. We put the person who would be President though a media gauntlet designed to kill an average person and expect them to come out the other side unscathed. What we are doing is making certain that, once the election is over, our successful candidate is as totally and thoroughly exhausted as we are tired of listening to them. And by the by, who is running the country during this time?

Our method makes it impossible for anyone but the obscenely rich to even attempt running for office. And the constant need for greater and greater amounts of money practically guarantees that our candidates, if they did not go into the election corrupt, will surely come out of it that way.

Now I’m not naïve enough to believe the UK candidates are any less sullied, but at least I don’t have to suffer their attempts to convince me otherwise for eleven additional months. And, seriously, if it takes you a full year to make your mind up concerning who you want to run the country, maybe you should practice making decisions a little more often than once every four years. Or invest in an 8-Ball.

Really, four weeks is plenty long enough for an election campaign. Try it; you’ll wonder how (and why) you put up with protracted electioneering for so long.

And the best part is, enjoying the post-election coverage at the pub.

Filed Under: Dispatches from the South, Politics, Prime Minister Tagged With: elections, pub, voting

Dispatches From the South – Like a Kitchen, Only Smaller

March 25, 2010 By Mike 5 Comments

I’m standing outside my kitchen door trying to imagine American-sized appliances in there. Currently, we have a washer, dryer, refrigerator, freezer and a stove in there. The reason I’m standing out here trying to imagine it is, if they were all American-sized, I can’t imagine being able to fit in there with them. And my kitchen is unusual only in that it is relatively large; when we briefly considered moving, we viewed two-story houses that had less space than our flat, and the kitchens were tiny.

To be fair, I have been in some houses that have kitchens the size of the ones I remember from the US, but they are the exception. The new flats they are chucking up all over the southeast—lovingly referred to as breezeblock barracks—have kitchen half the size of ours.

But for all that, I have few complaints. Despite the fact that all of the appliances measure about 20 inches wide and fit under the kitchen counters, they are plenty big enough. Seriously, American fridges might be big, but they are mostly filled with crap, and you really don’t want to go poking around in the hidden depths for fear of what you might find. And, as a single man in the States, when I kept my fridge clutter-free, it simply looked pathetic holding only a six-pack of Corona, a bottle of milk and some left over pizza.

Our freezer actually holds more than my American freezer did, and the washer and dryer, though they can’t hold nearly as much as an American washer/dryer, are adequate if used intelligently.

But the stove—this malevolent electric monster too small to hold a full-sized turkey and with only two temperature settings (not hot enough, and way too hot)—has been the bane of our existence since moving in. And I doubt it’s suddenly going to get any better. I can see it now, sitting there at the end of the counter, just waiting to inflict more mischief on me. On those few occasions when we do cook a large dinner, things have to be cooked in shifts, so the food is either burned, cold or still on the stove being heated up. We use the microwave a lot.

Fortunately, even imagining it stuffed full of major appliances, I can still reach around the door way and fetch a beer out of the fridge. I think I’ll do that now and continue my ruminations from the safety of the balcony.

Filed Under: Dispatches from the South Tagged With: fridge, kitchen, stove

Dispatches from the South: American Things I Still Can’t Do in Britain

March 18, 2010 By Mike 5 Comments

Photo from Flickr

To continue with my “I’ve been here how long?” theme, this week we’ll take a look at some of the things I would like to adapt to, but just can’t seem to get the hang of.

On the up side, I am pleased to say I can now travel around without getting lost (too often), can complain about the weather with the best of them, and even speak the language like a native. What I still cannot get to grips with however, are British eggs, electricity, aspirin and time.

The electrical sockets here are 220 volt. Yes, even for a night light or a Glade Room Freshener. This makes the Brits very cautious around electricity and practically eliminates amusing anecdotes about the time you convinced your little brother to stick a bobbie pin into an outlet. As a safety precaution, wall plugs have switches on them, so you can turn the power off “at the mains.”

This is all well and good, as long as you remember to turn it on at the mains. I wish I had a 5 pence piece for every time my laptop ran out of power or I turned a light off and on half a dozen times wondering what was wrong with it or I returned to the kitchen after 20 minutes to see why I didn’t smell dinner cooking only to find the stove stone cold and the mains power still switched off.

And time, over here, is military-style, with trains arriving and leaving at such times as 16:34 or 19:04. And for some reason, I just cannot get used to this. The simple formula of subtracting 2 and losing the first digit (turning 18:46 into 16:46 or 6:46, for example) often has me thinking that my 18:47 train is due at 16:47 so that would make it 4:47. Even with a 24-hour watch, I would still have problems adjusting. The whole thing gives me a headache.

Which brings me to aspirin. The abiding belief that topping yourself by eating a handful of aspirin means you cannot buy it by the gross, as in the US. So I am forced to buy it in boxes of 12. And you can only buy one at a time. Consequently, when I get a headache, I have to go buy a box, take two and then put the box somewhere that I will remember it in the future. The medicine cabinet seems like a good place, and I swear that is where I put them, but weeks later, when I have another headache, the box has disappeared. So I have to buy another box.

Somewhere in this flat, there are about 187 12-packs of aspirin with 10 tablets left in them. I expect we’ll find them if we ever move out.

Photo from Flickr

As for eggs, I spent 46 years developing the perfect tapping technique for cracking an American egg and then found out—to my bitter disappointment—that the skill is non-transferable. The problem, in my opinion, is they don’t feed their chickens enough DDT or whatever it is we feed them in the States because the shells here (on their brown, not white, eggs) are hard as walnuts.

Since it is my privilege to make breakfast on weekend mornings, and since my vegetarian wife and I have a limited selection of foods in common, a typical morning meal inevitably includes eggs. A favourite of mine is eggs over easy, and my wife likes fried eggs (they are the same thing, by the way) but the odds of me getting a yolk out of an eggshell in one piece are about the same as the Labour government sweeping to victory at the polls in the next general election.

Now, I know from experience that I have to hit the egg harder than I am used to, so I steel myself and give it a good whack. Generally, the first blow glances off the armour plating leaving hardly a nick. The second blow, delivered with more determination, adds a dent and a few cracks. So the third blow is practically guaranteed to end up with me holding a dripping mass of canary yellow goo, splintered eggshell and a good deal of something that unnervingly resembles snot in my hand.

We eat a lot of scrambled eggs.

But only if I remember to turn the stove on at the mains.

Filed Under: Britishness, Dispatches from the South, Expat Life, Latest, Only in Britain