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Overview
What is it really like to be an American living in England? In his collection of witty observations about the differences between England and America and their inhabitants, an American professor exiled to the mysterious North of England reveals the quirky characteristics and wonderful customs that define the English and their beloved country.
Robert Slavin goes below the polite Victorian façade as he explores the seamy underside of English culture that includes dancing sheep, pantos, road systems built by hard-drinking Vikings, and the power of ancient, foolish traditions. Slavin centers most of his observations in York-shire as he explores the very best things about England, questions why there are not many English children, and contemplates the positives of dreary weather, the Sunday carvery at local pubs, and why it is okay for a milkman to be knighted by the queen.
Damp Yankees shares an informative and provocative insider’s glimpse into the heart of England, allowing for a fresh perspective for Americans who want a better understanding of the lovely island of Britain and its people, exotic customs, and ancient traditions.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781462040865 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 09/09/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 68 |
| File size: | 547 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Damp Yankees
(Another American Gobsmacked by England)By Robert E. Slavin
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Robert E. SlavinAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-4085-8
Chapter One
Damp Yankees
The most important thing to say about the English and the Americans is that they are crazy about one another. Americans think of English people as slightly smarter Americans. The English think of Americans as slightly sexier English people. Hearing an English accent, Americans break into smiles. Millions of Americans got up at four in the morning to watch the royal wedding. I think Jamaicans and Trinidadians are especially popular in the United States because of their English accents. On a car trip from San Francisco to Oregon, I once picked up a hitchhiker who turned out to be English. He complained bitterly that wherever he went Americans loved him, fed him, put him up overnight. He wanted to sleep rough out on the frontier, but Americans were just too friendly. We approached my house in Portland at night, and I sheepishly offered him a bed and some food. He thanked me, but asked me to drop him in a city park to sleep outside.
I was surprised and delighted to find that especially outside of London, English people are equally enchanted by an American accent. I think we have much the same exotic-but-safe allure that the English have for us. In the abstract, we all have our national prejudices, and every once in a while, like when BP pollutes the entire Gulf of Mexico, the press plays up US/UK animosities. But up close and personal, people in our two nations like one another a lot more than we seem to like our own compatriots.
Americans who visit England invariably love absolutely everything about it, except the food, the warm beer, the cold rain, the swarms of American tourists, and the shocking prices. English people who visit the United States invariably love absolutely everything about it except the large portions served in American restaurants. What's odd about this is that while the things Americans complain about in England are exactly what the English themselves dislike about England. I've never heard an American complain about large portions. Here's a conversation you'll never hear: "I'm not going to that restaurant again. The food was wonderful, but the portions? Much too large. And the prices were low, too."
Geologists have found that rock formations in the eastern part of the United States are physically and chemically identical to those in Britain. So it is with our peoples. Americans (including me) may have no family connection whatsoever with Britain, but they still feel a strong tie to the place. When Americans read about the Spanish Armada, they root for the English. We fought the bloody redcoats in the American Revolution and the War of 1812, but we still root for the English at Waterloo, and if the United States can't win the World Cup, we root for England. Be they Eastern European, African American, Mediterranean, or Asian in origin, Americans think of English literary, cultural, and scientific accomplishments as their own. We think Shakespeare and Dickens and Gilbert and Sullivan and Conan Doyle and Darwin and Newton were really proto-Americans, and do not see them as foreign. Irish Americans try to resist the Anglophilia that comes with their US passport, but it's hard even for them.
The Very Best Thing about England
To me, the very best thing about England is the love the English have for their land and its history. Outside of the London area and Stratford, the vast majority of visitors to any historical site in England are English, and every ruined castle or abbey, ancient garden, church, or museum, is kept in pristine condition and visited enthusiastically. I once visited the Holy Island of Lindisfarne on a cold, windswept day. Stinging pellets of rain were battering everything in sight. The island is linked by a low causeway to the mainland that is flooded at high tide. Driven by the wind, water was lapping inches away from the causeway. Who, I wondered, could possibly be visiting this desolate place on such a day?
When we got to the island, however, there were more than one hundred cars in a parking lot. A bus appeared, and people emerged from their cars. Cheerful, curious, eager English people wearing sensible clothing. The bus dropped us at Lindisfarne Castle, where a rain-delayed wedding caused the castle to close for a half hour. The visitors huddled for warmth in Quonset huts near the entrance, waited patiently, and finally went into the castle after the sodden (but happy) wedding party left. Throughout the day, swarms of tourists waded through anklehigh water to visit the wonderful exhibits and ruins of ancient religious communities.
Because of the enormous interest in every aspect of their history, the smallest and least significant of historical sites are lovingly tended. In East Yorkshire, Wharram Percy is an abandoned medieval village, currently consisting of grass-covered humps. Yet it is carefully kept up by a wonderful organization called English Heritage and frequently visited.
In a country with thousands of standing villages with twelfth century churches, it's not clear why anyone is interested in an abandoned village, but there it is, a well-marked historical sight with a parking lot with a placard showing a picture of the humps and text explaining the (utter lack of) history.
In a land not invaded since 1066, there is an awful lot of history still standing, and keeping it standing requires vast expenditures. If it hadn't been for the English Civil War in the 1600s, England would go bankrupt just keeping up all its castles. If Henry VIII hadn't wrecked hundreds of abbeys in the 1500s, England would be getting bailouts from the Greeks to keep everything in good condition.
The English also show their love of their land by walking all over it. More than five hundred organized rambling clubs have day hikes of ten miles or more and overnight hikes that can go for weeks, not to mention thousands of hikers who go on their own.
In a country that pays little attention to organized religion, Sunday rambles have become a sort of church of nature. Rambling groups have their own clergy, consisting of leaders who are required to hike a given route during the week before the ramble. One leader guides the faithful while another brings up the rear, nipping at the laggards' heels, to ensure that the whole flock is properly accounted for. Because even the smallest English towns are very concentrated, most of densely populated England is open land with great natural beauty.
The English passion for their land means that they tend their entire nation like a giant garden. You never see the trash, billboards, urban sprawl, or commercialization common in America. England has its grim urban neighborhoods and industrial blight, but there is hardly an Englishman outside of London who is not within ten miles of lovely scenery, fascinating history, and pleasures of the soul.
The English Population: Keeping It Up
English children are delightful, and everyone loves them. The problem is that there aren't enough of them. I have a theory about why this is so.
I happen to live near Micklegate, the ancient road leading into the walled city of York. Micklegate is lined with bars and nightclubs. Every weekend night, there are flocks of young women cruising up and down Micklegate wearing matching clothing, and not much of it. They are dressed as cowgirls, bunnies, and hookers; you name it. Most of them are in hen parties or other female-bonding rituals. They come by the busload regardless of the weather; even in the dreadful blizzard of 2009–2010, there were bare-armed, barelegged young women without coats. There are some men in Micklegate, but they are usually paired up with normally dressed girlfriends. The members of the hen parties seem to think they're supposed to be having a lot more fun than they are, but perhaps I'm not seeing them late enough in the evening.
But where are the men? Just before young men get married, their male friends throw them a stag party. This often involves cheap flights to somewhere in Eastern Europe known for cheap beer. The entire purpose, or so I've heard, is to get the groom-to-be completely drunk, get him into some embarrassing situation, and take pictures of him. England's young men start off the serious responsibilities of married life shortly after waking up chained to a railing in Bratislava wearing a pink jock strap and women's underwear on their head, with photos to prove it on Facebook. So here's a biological fact. If you keep your young men in Bratislava and your young women in Micklegate, you're not going to produce many cute English babies. Further, the popularity of marriage itself is plummeting. Perhaps the more sensible young men, the very ones who'd make the best dads, would rather not wake up nearly naked in Bratislava.
My proposed solution to England's baby crisis is to create incentives for young men to have their stag parties in the UK. A steep barf tax on discount airlines to Eastern Europe would do the trick. This would also greatly improve Britain's image in the world and would solve a serious balance-of-payments problem with Slovakia.
Women
If you walk down the high street of any town in England, you'll see lovely, attractively dressed, sweet-tempered women. Goddesses, really. Of course, they're Polish. But English women are very nice too.
Tradition
On a bridge over the upper Thames stands a surly adolescent wearing a Megadeth T-shirt. Ever so slowly, he collects a toll of twenty pence from every car, causing a huge backup every morning and afternoon. The bridge, in a town called Whitchurch, links Oxfordshire and Berkshire, so he is standing in the center of England's Silicon Valley. The people fuming in their expensive cars are England's creative, entrepreneurial elite, the very key to Britain's future, at least according to themselves. Yet every morning, a young twit in slow motion costs them fifteen minutes (and twenty pence) on their way to work.
The reason there is a toll on this particular bridge is that centuries ago, some family was given hereditary rights to charge this toll. I'm assuming that the nearly catatonic teenager is a descendant of this family, just on the basis that if he weren't, he'd have been sacked for his poor taste in music and general worldview.
Every high-tech tycoon waiting to cross this bridge would happily contribute whatever it took to buy out the family's toll rights. Yet the toll and the teenager remain, and will probably always remain, another bit of sand in the gears of progress.
One of the most endearing aspects of England is the deep respect for the past, the continuation of traditions just because they are traditions. Usually this love of tradition is charming, leading to all the pomp and fuss around the royals, the parliament, and much more. I once gave a speech at a primary school in Nottingham, after which the school cafeteria served lunch. Standing behind me in the queue was a man in elaborate robes and a gold chain, who turned out to be the actual sheriff of Nottingham. He now serves no particular function, he told me, but isn't that the whole point?
Yet the idea that tradition trumps everything also has maddening costs. Family-owned toll bridges are just the beginning. Next to the University of York is a twenty-five-acre common, called a stray in Yorkshire, on which cows and horses graze. The stray is just outside the walls of the old city, but well within the center of the modern city. It (and many others) exists because, hundreds of years ago, they were set aside to enable local people to graze their stock on land open to all. It's nice to see green space and cows in the middle of York, but this is a shocking use of space. Boston Common and other commons in New England, established for the same reasons, have long since become lovely urban parks. Yet the strays are not parks, and kids don't play in them because of the cows. The only reason for the strays to exist is, of course, is that they always have.
Getting anything done in England, especially with respect to land, is nearly impossible. Historical preservation is a huge issue, because in a nation so rich in history, every square foot of dirt has some history that may be worth preserving. But this is not the main problem. English traditions regarding land ownership are unbelievably arcane and complex.
I have a friend who owns a section of the Dart River in Devon, but he does not own the fishing rights, which are hugely expensive. If he wants to fish, he has to ask permission from the owners of the fishing rights, and if they want to fish, they have to ask him. One person may own even modern apartments but another may own the land. Some land cannot be bought or sold but only leased for ninety-nine years, and the land progressively loses value as the ninety-nine-year date approaches.
Every English person knows that the Whitchurch teenager must go, that the strays should be made into parks, and that land ownership should be made rational. Yet these things will probably never happen. Tradition has its bright trappings, but sometimes it ends up blocking the bridge to the future.
Honours
A colleague of mine was recently knighted. He described to me all the pomp and ceremony involved. A Royal Air Force officer instructed him exactly where he should stand and how close he was allowed to approach the queen (the issues of air and space between queen and knight must explain why the RAF serves this function). All this is exactly what Americans imagine—the English do pomp really well.
However, in the very same ceremony, a milkman from Melton Mowbray was awarded an MBE. The milkman, who had performed valuable services over the years in reporting suspicious activities he saw on his rounds, appeared for his award costumed as a Friesian cow. He'd sewn big white cow-like patches on his black suit. He originally had a tail, he told the press, but his dog tore it off on his way out the door.
The queen, who has seen much worse, chatted amicably with the milkman and carried on with the ceremony. A spokesperson for the queen later suggested, however, that more solemn and appropriate attire might have been in order.
The juxtaposition of my friend knighted with a sword and an RAF escort, and a Leicestershire milkman dressed as a cow to meet the queen, sums up the silly seriousness and the serious silliness of the honours system in the UK. The English are deeply honored by honours, and my ordinarily modest and self-effacing friend will not stop people from calling him Sir John for the rest of his life. He fully appreciates the inherent humor in having a twenty-first-century science educator kneeling to be whacked on the shoulder with a sword. But it is also deeply moving, just because English monarchs have been knighting knights since King Arthur was a pup, and now he's one of them. He doesn't get any castles or serfs, of course, and his kids will have to earn their own knighthoods, but there's something to be said for a system that makes it possible for a humble milkman to earn an MBE by helping out his neighbors, for a distinguished science educator to become a knight, and for both of them to be able to mock the whole system without fear of encountering the sharp end of the queen's sword. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Sports
I was once walking in my neighborhood in Baltimore and came upon a cricket game played with great pleasure and enthusiasm by what appeared to be East Indian college students. There were girls as well as boys playing in ordinary clothing, and no one was keeping score, as far as I could tell.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Damp Yankees by Robert E. Slavin Copyright © 2011 by Robert E. Slavin. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Damp Yankees....................1The Very Best Thing about England....................3
The English Population: Keeping It Up....................5
Women....................7
Tradition....................8
Honours....................10
Sports....................12
Names....................14
London and Non-London....................15
Dam the English....................17
Keep England Green—and Black and Blue....................18
Weather: Rainy, with a Chance of Rain....................19
Food....................21
Money....................23
Banking....................25
Shopping Hours (Closed Encounters)....................27
Driving....................28
The 5:17 to Lilliput....................30
Getting Sorted....................32
Tales of the Crypto-Toffs....................34
Language....................36
Pantos....................39
Dancing Sheep....................40
England and the United Kingdom....................42
Northern Ireland....................43
The Sea....................44
Cultural Imperialism....................46
Canadians in Britain....................48
The European Union?....................51
Government....................54
As the Sun Sets....................57