I have seen things in the last five days in Real Life that hitherto only existed in the Films and in free aeroplane magazines written by Austrians.
Policemen with Pointy Hats On
What is this? Policemen wear flat caps or body armour, not pointy hats! But we have seen three policemen wearing Ye Olde England Pointy Hats in the last week. (One of them I think was twirling a truncheon, but I cannot be sure.)The Queen
I only think of the Queen in the context of the phrase beginning "come the revolution". However, this week she has been on the television and radio almost non-stop, as well as being on all the newspapers endlessly and without cease. (She has also been on our currency, but that was to be expected.) I am frankly surprised we didn't bump into her over the weekend.
Jam
I have six jars of jam. Two of them are marmalade; one of them is French; the other three are Tiptree. This is not normal.
Tea
"It's complete nonsense, this thing about the English and tea", I say, looking in my kitchen cupboard. "It's a myth, this apparent obsession of ours." Before me I see:
PG Tips
Twinings English Breakfast
Twinings Lapsang Suchong
Sainsburys Decaf Earl Grey
Twinings Organic Peppermint
Sainsburys Jasmine Green Tea
Birt&Tang Ginger Tea.
No, we never drink tea. Ever.
A Wedding
Despite the wedding of my best friend being in Shoreditch and quite 'fashionable', my Colonial friend was able to enjoy:
- the best man making jokes about the groom being gay
- poo jokes
- sausage and mash in a box
- fish and chips in a box
- ladies in hats and Other Headware (e.g., feathers)
- drunkenness
- dancing to E.L.O.
- reference to what the groom did in the dormitory at school.
CAMRA Pamphlet
Much as I admire the work of CAMRA in keeping facial hair and Hush Puppies at the heart of British culture, it is not normal to go into a pub and find a CAMRA leaflet on the table. It is also not normal to open the leaflet at the following paragraph:
"I met Caroline and Alan at Cheltenham Royal Well bus station and caught the 10.30 Castleways 606 service to Winchcombe. The bus stops conveniently right outside the Corner Cupboard Inn. The first pint of the day was one of my favourites, Stanney Bitter. On leaving we walked down Harveys Lane to the footpath leading to Langley Hill, stopping at the top to take in the splendid views on this warm sunny late summer day ... After we finished our drinks... it was another pleasant work to Beckford Church to rendezvous with the 15.19 Midland Red service to Tewkesbury."
Country Folk
Obviously every time you drive along a lane in the English countryside you see a man wearing breeches, leaning on a shooting stick and wearing a tweed cap and waistcoat. Of course you do. Every time.
A hunt
In much the same way, every time you drive along a road in the English countryside you are nearly mown down by a woman in a top hat, a man wearing a pink coat and a child in a hacking jacket, astride enormous horses (and a pony). Then you look to the left and see many horses and riders dotted about the place, suggesting that a fox has been Found in a Copse. Then some people gallop off, and some muddy Range Rovers follow them.
A Cottage
I had chosen a Tiny Cottage in the Cotwolds for New Year claiming, as I did, that the Cotswolds would be good "because they are what foreigners think England is like". Little did I know that it would be extravagantly and cinematically English! Freezing floors, no hot water, not enough logs and ducks in a pond at the end of a garden. And an extremely comfortable bed, which is apparently a Feature of English Beds, but not one that I was aware of!
Tea at 4
One of my oldest friends happens to live in an eighteenth century converted stable across the courtyard from a sixteenth century manor house. He also happened to have, when we arrived, teacakes and scones. Which we ate for tea. With a cup of tea. Which of course the English never drink. And nor is tea a "meal" we ever have.
A black cab
We take a cab. The driver is friendly and Chatty! He chirrups in a friendly manner at the delicious Pathologist in a cock-er-nee stylee. The Pathologist understands not one word, apart from (perhaps) "guv".
A curry
It is in Tooting and Fucking Brilliant. In this, it is unlike most other curries in the England.
A Pub Lunch
On the menu are fish and chips and steak and kidney pie.
Natural History Museum(s)
The Natural History Museums of both Oxford and London contained exhibits that were older than Canada itself, including a squirrel that died 219 years ago and a stuffed badger. In the Natural History Museum in London they had cream tea. We sat underneath William Morris tiles and I tried to explain where Cornwall and Devon were, how they argue about who invented scones with cream and jam on, and how one county says you put the jam on first and the other says you put the cream on first. Then we saw a wooden tiger attacking a man, and some lights that went up and down and made noises in a Victorian courtyard.
Now the Pathologist is gone, and England has lost its lustre. As an inevitable consequence, I am wearing my brushed cotton pyjamas, drinking dry sherry and thinking of going to bed with C S Lewis and a cup of warm milk. But first I must watch EastEnders, put my milk bottles out on the doorstep and turn off Radio 4.
18 comments:
Sometimes we can only appreciate our true greatness through the eyes of an outsider.
Luckily, I have (if anything) a surfeit of patriotism and and am therefore only rarely obliged to top it up from the well marked 'colonials'
(also acannot for the LIFE of me rememver my blogger p/w!)
Mikey
Ahhhh, so you disappear for days and then you come back with a classic!
I was abotu to say it could be worse - you could be stuck here watching EastEnders with me - & then I got to the end of your post and I can see you are doing EXACTLY the right thing. And when you're done with that you can go make yourself a nice cup of - ermm...
I don't understand. I thought that all those things were terribly English, in the same way fat friendly loud people are intrinsically American.
Obviously, I need to get out more.
Could you remind your readers on your view of gentleman callers? Perchance or maybe forsooth?
You forgot the lovely 1 ply bath tissue of the U.K. I just watched Coronation Street (CBC broadcasts episodes about 8 months after UK broadcast) after not seeing it for four years. Wot? Mike Baldwin died? Who are all of those 20 something punks with bad hair? East Enders requires an American/English/Cockney dictionary so I understand Dr. Pathologist's problems understanding the cabbie. Your holidays sound like a great cultural experience.
D'you know, I think I slightly envy the simple happiness of the guy in the CAMRA pamphlet...
Would you spell out CAMRA for us colonials who haven't lived in or visited the mother country for 15 years?
BTW, no Darjeeling in the cupboard, dear?
Mikey - I think it was more that it was strange that these things should happen when the visitor was here, rather than him observing them, if you see what I mean.
Ms B - can I come round and watch it anyway?
Tlkaply (is that your given name?) - You naughty thing!
Martina - yet again I am AGOG - where were you in the England where you had only 1 ply bathroom tissue, or was it 1902? You are not that old!! They are not punks, they are Northern Youths who (as my colonial friend would observe) have 'uneven hair' (apparently this is how you know a British man). Tired Dad writes about this strange northern hair phenomenon better than I will here.
Mike - I completely envy him. He wrote eight (that's eight) A5 pages of bus times and pints. I was not Sneering, merely observering how very odd it was that this pamphlet should be found in front of a Colonial Visitor.
Camera Obscura - what fun you have ahead of you! CAMRA is the Campaign for Real Ale (http://www.camra.co.uk). They exist to stop the big breweries destroying our local brewers/taking over all the pubs.(Like the homogenisation of the high street, but with beer. That kind of thing.) They are Good People on the whole and have beer festivals at Olympia. If you do not like bitter, you will not like the beer they try and protect.
hhh - re. Gentleman Callers. I have always liked Gentleman Callers, but for various reasons, I thought best to not think about them and do other things instead.
Then - and I may or may not tell this story one day - I came across a Canadian pathologist in Canterbury. The whole thing has been inconvenient to say the least (distance, timing, that sort of thing), but as he is Marvellous and continues to be Marvellous, External Factors (e.g. Montreal and London are not that close; me having sworn off Gentleman Callers) seem vaguely irrelevant (if not mildly inconvenient).
Obviously material for a book:
"The Compleat English Stereotypes"
Happy New Year
> > NWM. Of course I take your point, but it is my contention that these wonders are always around us, but we fail to notice them by dint of their familiarity. A visitor from distant climes reawakens our childlike wonder in our Trumptonesque surroundings once more.
I saw four pointy-hatted policemen in Brixton the other day. I couldn't see any truncheons but I certainly wasn't ruling it out.
Maybe there had been sightings of someone putting milk in Earl Grey.
But what had the man done to provoke the wooden tiger to attack him?
Happy New Year NWM.
You mean he didn't get to see Morris dancers! Well I suppose something has to be kept for the next time.
And you've still Wales, Ireland and Scotland to show him. Mind you a deep fried Mars bar doesn't quite have the same lustre as tea and scones, although I think the scones are probably a Scottish thing, but then we don't do muffins or crumpets.
I enjoyed showing my friend from NY round Edinburgh, but she was most impressed with my husband's golf club, which left me aghast.
I always put cream then jam on one half of the scone and jam then cream on the other half.
I am a Diplomat.
I do not add butter too, for that would be decadent.
In Southwold over the August Bank Holiday (how English is that!?!) I saw a troupe of morris dancers - but they were all women! How disappointing. Lord. (As you can see, I haven't sworn off gentleman callers, rather the other way round. But morris dancers might be a bit extreme, anyway; perhaps JonnyB has a view, being from morrisdancerland.)
Indeed, EastEnders is usually playing somewhere in Baroque Mansions. We're like the Empire in that way. What do you think of that young Stacey, doing a Kat!!
And truncheons, oooh er missus! I think Mikey's right.
so u had fun...
As I understand it, one 'dollops' with the use of a jam spoon.
The jam spoon that of course one always uses when eating jam.
Not a buttery, crumb-y knife.
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