Puppets, Starbucks and French Fries:

Bob’s Trip to England

 

By Bob “Liquid” Fawcett

 

 

Nearly a week has elapsed since my visit to England.  Surprisingly, it took me that long to recover my bearings, both temporally and culturally.  It wasn't so much the jet lag (although waking up involuntarily at 3:00 a.m. was getting frustrating before my sleeping patterns finally adjusted).  I think it was the extreme culture shock. 

 

This is not to suggest that I am provincial.  I did some time in the U.S. Navy and saw the world, as the ads promised (of course, the ads neglect to tell you that "seeing the world" under the yoke of indentured servitude sort of detracts a bit from actually enjoying what you're seeing.  But this isn't about my bitter resentment over seemingly interminable reveilles and endless general quarters drills).   

 

During my Navy time I set foot on every continent on the planet, except Antarctica (and I tried to get there, too), and saw and experienced many wondrous things a simple boy from South Texas isn't normally opportuned to see.  I visited most of the countries that, over the span of millennia, had been carved out in blood and ink on the continent of Europe.  Each one was unique and added something of value to my cultural sensibilities.  One, then, can easily imagine how eager I was when the recent opportunity arose to visit England, a country noticeably missed on my military travels.

 

I had always wanted to pay homage to Mother England.  It's not because of my racial heritage; I am by a large percentage of Irish pedigree.  But only a cultural idiot would deny that America's social and moral roots stem from 18th Century English society.  She is in this respect, our mother, regardless of our genetic predispositions.

 

So, I was on a travel adventure to a country to whom I owe the heart of my ethos . . . such as it is. 

 

Then, I landed in London.  One thing struck me about the city immediately:  barely half its observable population seemed to even be English.  I heard a cacophony of languages in hundreds of jumbled conversations crammed into dozens of busy city streets.  Almost none of them were English.  Or worse, they were AMERICAN English.  Maybe this is because the natives don't talk much in public; I guess if I lived in a town perennially haunted by uncountable tourists, I'd try to keep my mouth shut, too, for fear of being incessantly dogged for directions, explanations for crazy colors on phone booths, and for the last bleedin' time, it's the TOWER Bridge, not the LONDON Bridge. 

 

The next thing that I noticed with dawning horror in this most English of cities, was the ubiquity of Americana.  There was a McDonald's, KFC, or Burger King on nearly every block.  And one couldn't take two steps without stumbling over the green monstrosities populating the world like a pandemic; Starbucks.  Good thing I like their coffee.  What amazed me even more was that these establishments were not patronized by home-sick Americans longing for a tasteless, greasy memento of home, but rather, they were packed with what must have been the entire English population of London.  (And no, I didn't contribute my hard-earned English pounds for a Big Mac;    I save my hard-earned DOLLARS for that).  To my astonishment, these people were happily wolfing down McJunkfood like, well, like Americans!  Starbucks, too, betrayed my image of tea-sipping Englishmen.  I envisioned all of London shutting down at 4:00 p.m. for high tea.  Instead, they would pile up in "queue" (I learned quickly that's British English for "line") for a steaming mocha.  "Tea" as I understood it to be in the British precept wasn't really even on the menu.  To my frustration, I found it easier to get a Big Mac than it was to get fish & chips.  I was beginning to think that the French are right to deride us.

 

And, on the subject of traditional English food (when I could find it), I'd like to address its detractors:  it ain't THAT bad, so lay off.  No, it's not as exciting as French, or as zesty as Italian, but it hits the spot quite well, thank you, and without ulcer-inducing spices and various other caustic substances generally found among the culinary "elite."  I tried blood pudding.  Tastes like dried blood.  How do I know what dried blood tastes like?  I play rugby; you figure it out.  Ploughman's lunches were my favorite.  My only complaint was that there seemed to be a lack of low-fat, low-cal dietary options that you'd readily find in the States.  This puzzled me since, as fatty as their diets ostensibly appeared, England, and London in particular, seemed to be nearly totally devoid of fat people.  Perhaps the dietary effect is more telling in another seemingly unrelated observation - London seemed a bit short on old people as well.  Who knows - I'm not a sociologist, or a dietician, for that matter.  Maybe the English elderly and obese hang out with the other half of the English population that seemed to be missing from London. 

 

A word or two about the English media.  I didn't come to England to watch TV or read the newspapers.  But, as it is my habit to do these things at home before my day begins, I likewise attempted to honor this practice in London as a means to kill time before the museums opened.  I remember someone warning me that in England, there were essentially two types of newspapers.  I don't recall the terminologies (one was called "broadsheets," I believe), but the categories translate into what Americans refer to as "real news" and "tabloids."  The hotel I stayed in on my first night provided both types the next morning.  I couldn't distinguish between them.  The periodicals similarly seemed obsessed with who some pop star named "Kylie" was dating, and what Posh Spice and her footballer husband did over the weekend.  Crammed into the quarter-page areas of the sixth-page beyond of the "news" sections were comparatively insignificant tidbits like Mideast Violence, the War in Afghanistan, the Impending Apocalypse of a Collision-Course Asteroid.  I did, however appreciate the in-depth rugby coverage in the "real news" and the female frontal nudity in the "tabloids." 

 

The TV news was worse.  I swear I'll never scoff at "Good Morning America" again.  I flipped through the morning news shows (there were several), looking for a spiffy BBC-produced news program with proper-looking ladies or gentlemen reading the daily events in sophisticated British accents.  Instead, a garishly-colored puppet was discussing, in braying cartoon talk, some football team's performance with a dressed-down "anchor" person.  I stared with traffic-accident fascination.  This was the news?  A child's program, perhaps?  I would have bought that until they switched to weather (cloudy, with spells of sunshine, yuk yuk).  I checked the channel guide next to the bed.  ITV, it told me.  Clicking back to the ones marked "BBC," it dawned on me that they were ALL nearly as frivolous.  No puppets, perhaps, but they seemed like half-assed "Good Morning America" knock-offs (one of the was actually entitled perhaps mockingly "Good Morning").  I decided then that I needed to start sleeping in later. 

 

Okay, so maybe contemporary British culture had been choked by relentless coils of flatulent Americana (except the puppet thing.  I don't think I'll ever recover from that).  But there was always the English stuff BEFORE we ever got rich enough to export the absolute WORST of American culture. 

 

I wasn't disappointed.  The British Museum was filled with so many mind-boggling antiquities that it made the Smithsonian look like a cheap Civil War souvenir shop in Manassas (not to worry, my fellow Yanks - the Smithsonian Natural History Museum makes their British counterpart look like a sixth-grader's rock collection).  I also thoroughly enjoyed the Globe, the Tower of London, and virtually every other historic site of interest in the town (there are many).  These were the things that were unquestionably British.  These were the things that defined a culture that at one time never had the sun set upon it.  These were the things that helped create a social foundation for a people that would later come back and shove Big Macs and Starbucks Lattes down their throats.  My faith in Mother England returned. 

 

I got out of the city one day.  I went to Salisbury to see Stonehenge and visit the Salisbury Cathedral.  Stonehenge was truly interesting, as its construction is as baffling to me as it is to the trained archaeologists and engineers still scratching their heads over it.  I was taken somewhat aback, however, by the "Druids Only" camp ground staked off nearby.  I sighed.  I suppose if one absolutely HAD to proffer some self-serving, crass expression of primitive tribalism, I guess its better here than, say, a nuclear power plant.  I didn't see any druids, of course.  I was told they only come out in the Summer.  But I'm not afraid to admit that I'd have paid good money to see a bunch of loopy new-agers chant nonsense while worshipping a rock.  Salisbury was refreshingly devoid of anything American.  Not a Starbucks in sight.  The cathedral was, in my opinion, more interesting than St. Paul's. 

 

Finally, let me talk about the people.  My only frequent exposure to English subjects is the interaction I have with the few that are on my American-based rugby team.  Needless to say, our conversations rarely go beyond, "Switch! Switch!," or "With you!" or "Stop dropping the ball, ya bleedin' yank!"  In London, it was tough initiating a conversation that was any more substantive.  It's not that they're rude.  In fact, Londoners are remarkably polite.  Having been raised in the South, were "ma'am" and "sir" and "thank you" are required vernacular, this discovery came as almost comforting.  But "polite" does not necessarily correspond to "warm."  I attribute this to the consequences of close-living in a large city as well as Londoner's understandable tentativeness around the constantly-flowing wave of tourists.  I don't believe a Londoner will be truly "friendly" unless they know that you are truly a "friend."  This differs from the American convention of boisterously assuming that EVERYONE is your friend, so, an American is friendly with anyone.  I wonder, though, if part of this perceived lack of warmth stems from a disdain of Americans in general.  I know if I were English (or French, Russian, insert your non-American ethnicity here), I'd feel pretty resentful of a Starbucks, McDonalds or Burger King on every block of MY street.  Hell, pretty soon, even I'D want my news read to me by a puppet!  Also, I think some Brits consider Americans as juvenile, crude, overly-talkative and self-absorbed.  I got the impression in Salisbury that that is exactly what the residents of Salisbury felt about Londoners.  Except the overly-talkative part.  I think that's an American invention. 

 

Not much to say about the elocution differences.  I pretty much understood everything that was said to me, and quickly picked up on a couple of phrases that were critical to my survival.  "For here or takeaway," means "for here or to go," and as mentioned earlier, if you want service you must stand in "queue," what we Americans refer to as "a line."  I was disappointed by some of the unexpected similarities, however.  For instance, they referred to "french fries" alternatively as "french fries" as well as "chips."   And there I was, trying to play the boorish American stumping the unwitting Brit with my colorful, if technically inaccurate, vernacular.  I also found out that "excuse me" and "pardon me" have two distinct meanings.  In America, they are more or less interchangeable.  In London, "pardon me," means "pardon me."  "Excuse me," on the other hand, means "get the hell out of my way."  I learned this on the "Tube," what we refer to as a "Metro" over here.  And I learned it quickly.  The English . . . always so polite.

 

In the end, my visit turned out to be more gratifying than it was disillusioning.  It was a pleasure paying homage to my cultural heritage.  I plan on going back, assuming a British subject never reads this composition.  What I learned is that England may not be everything I thought it was.  In fact, it turned out to be more than I ever imagined - both good and bad.  But, that's with everything in the real world.  I tried, really tried to criticize what I beheld there; these days, one just doesn't have credibility waxing rhapsodic about the flawless grace of, well, pretty much anything.  We live in an acknowledged imperfect world.  But, I will say that of all the places I've ever visited or lived, Mother England was, by far, the toughest old bird I ever had to smack.  Americans owe her a lot.  I also found that the British owe Americans a lot, albeit for slightly different reasons.  And for that, I extend my apologies, and an offer:  I'll figure out how to recede crass American commercialism, if you'll 86 the news-puppets.  All in the interest of cultural tolerance and world peace, of course.

 

Deal?