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The Art of Sipping
TUESDAY: Lunch is a sandwich with Edam and Olive Tapenade -- and I'm referring to the ingredients, not the next-door neighbours. My stomach has been burning for the past week so I'm taking it easy today and saving a much richer Camembert sandwich for tomorrow. My fruit includes fresh nectarine, raspberries, and a new fruit to me, sharon fruit, which is a type of persimmon. My local greengrocer described it as tasting like a cross between a grape and a pear. It's very orange, sweet, and juicy, even suggesting papaya, and it looks really nice with the nectarine orange and the raspberry red.
I've just read another complaint about extended licensing hours, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to talk about this for some time. The erroneous assumption on the part of the British establishment is that longer opening hours for pubs, which has gradually come into effect over the years, is responsible for increasing the binge drinking problems in this country. Like toasted crumpets without Marmite that is so illogical, and I've just got to explain why.
When I grew up in California, no bar or shop could sell alcohol between the hours of 2:00am and 6:00am. What this meant was that between the hours of 6:00am and 2:00am one could find some sort of bar somewhere where one could buy a drink. A hardcore alcoholic could head off to the pub at 6 in the morning and stay there all day into the wee hours of the morning drinking themselves into oblivion. But how many drinkers are that extreme? The average person would simply know that they were free to meet friends for a champagne brunch, or for a sandwich and beer at lunch, or perhaps for a mid-afternoon drink, or they could stop after work for a cocktail, or stop for a glass of wine before or after an evening event, or they could even stop off for a beer after working a graveyard shift. There was no urgent rush to get down t'pub by noon or by 7:00pm, because the pub was nearly always open.
The same basic opening hours apply in Seattle and Washington State as well as many other states. In New York and Illinois bars don't have to close until 4:00am, and in the city of New Orleans and the state of Nevada bars can stay open all the time if they like. But in America does one see more stumbling drunks with black eyes puking on the pavement with their knickers around their ankles than they do in Britain? The simple answer is no.
So why is this? Well, I've got my own theory.
When I first moved to the UK I brought with me the habit of sipping my pints leisurely while my British mates would throw theirs down their necks as if there was a monetary prize for the fastest drinker. Wanting to fit into the culture I gradually learned to up my speed, especially when having a session in a pub that closed in the afternoon. Whereas it was natural for me to fit in no more than 2 pints between the 12:00 opening and the 2:30-3:00 closing, I often felt pressured to hurry up in order to keep level with my companions. And during the evening, when pubs stopped serving at 11:00 but allowed another half hour to drink up, I was forever amazed to see the instant queue of customers at the bar the moment time was called, and quite a number of them would order more than one drink for themselves with the intention of guzzling it all in a record time of 30 minutes.
By 2005, when the latest extended licensing hours came into effect, many more pubs were already open all afternoon. Currently, if their applications are successful, pubs can open at noon and stay open until midnight or 1:00am or even later. But the fact that one's local is now open for 12 continuous hours every day hasn't really changed the habit of getting as many down as you can while you can. It's like a dog wolfing its food even though it knows it's the only pet in the household and it has the entire day to dine.
So this is what causes the binge-drinking culture. It has nothing to do with how long a pub can be open -- it's young people who've learned the art of wolfing their beer, often from their own parents. There's already the Slow Food movement, so I think it's about time Britain started a Slow Pint movement. So how about it, CAMRA?
Dairy Heaven and Haiches
TUESDAY: Lunch is edam and olive tapenade on a very seedy and very flat Sainsbury's breadcake. I like the flatness combined with the abundance of crunchy seeds. It's aesthetically pleasing, somehow. It's Art in my mouth.
Since my mind is a bit flat and seedy this week and full of spatial problems, Marmite, and Dewey decimal numbers, I think I'll go back to my Life in the UK Pros & Cons list. I'll start with a Pro, which may sound more like a paid advertisement but I can assure you it's not. It's just that quality induces praise, and I am definitely not getting one penny for the following spiel.
This week's Pro is simply 2 words: Longley Farm. This West Yorkshire dairy, located just up the road in Holmfirth, produces the best yogurt and cottage cheese I've ever tasted. It's difficult to explain to Americans just how absolutely gorgeous these two dairy products are. (By the way, if you're one of those people who hates cottage cheese and/or yogurt you can skip the next 2 paragraphs.)
I've discovered that the most mediocre British cottage cheese is superior to the finest American cottage cheese. I can't explain why this is true, but it is. I mean, you'd think the fact that American cottage cheese comes from cow's milk just like British cottage cheese, and also that American cows eat grasses grown in soil just like British cows, would mean that there would not be much difference between fine American and fine British cottage cheese -- or mediocre American and mediocre British cottage cheese, for that matter. But there's a world of difference. For instance, Longley Farm cottage cheese is cream-coloured as opposed to white. And it's delicious spread on crackers. It tastes like a happy cow out frolicking in the pasture was just milked. It tastes real, not plastic. It tastes. And Longley Farm yogurt -- well, I can't do it justice. It's heavenly. I eat the plain yogurt, either full-fat or virtually fat-free. They're both addictive.
ANNOUNCER: Available at finer shops in Western Sheffield. Buy some today! And now back to "Expat In The Land of Marmite" with your host, JC!
My Con this week is related to my ears rather than my taste buds. It has to do with 3 specific things some Brits say. I'm absolutely fascinated by the way some people end a phone conversation by saying "Bye, bye, bye…" often in a vocal decrescendo two octaves above their normal speaking voice. It's as if they're pretending to fade off into the distance, as if they're riding off into the sunset while looking back and waving. I have to admit this habit doesn't bother me too much, but it does make me laugh because it is a bit absurd.
The second thing really bugs me. As most of the older Brits I know don't do this, it may simply be a product of more recent educational practices. But it still makes me cringe whenever I hear someone vocally spell the letter h as "haich". Why not "aich", which is what the letter is called? Sure, I've heard the rationale that it makes it more audible when spelling over a bad phone line. But why have I never heard Americans say "haich"? It just seems like a glottally superfluous load of work, not to mention redundantly obvious. And it's patronising to the listener, if I don't mind saying so. I mean, I know how to pronounce an h -- you don't have to keep telling me. I've got an h in my own name, but I would never dream of spelling it "em-eye-tee-see-haich-ee-ell-ell". My name's Mitchell, not Mitch-hell.
The third thing that irks me may well be universal in the English speaking world, but I thought I'd mention it anyway because it really bugs me. It's when people say "it's about". I'm not referring to the use as in "It's about 10:00 o'clock", "It's about 400 miles", or "It's about a boy who meets a sheep and falls in love." I'm talking about the use of "it's about" as a catch-all explanation or justification for just about anything. The phrase is used in advertising all the time, as in "It's about looks. It's about performance. It's about being totally cool." I can even imagine it appearing on a graduate's CV as a list of bullet points:
· It's about wanting a rewarding job.
· It's about getting recognition and respect.
· It's about gaining experience so I can get a better job.
· It's about making my parents happy.
· It's about paying off my student loan.
In this short-attention-span world where magazines are filled with concise encapsulations and soundbytes instead of real articles, where "business-speak" is an accepted way of running companies, and where many written things, like this very blog, exist not in the writer's possession but on some unknown computer whose actual location is a mystery, we simply don't need more vagueness and ambiguity. Life is blurred and feathered enough. Let's keep the ability to use language.
You know what I'm saying? It's about speaking English.
Mind the Gaping Chasm
MONDAY: Just thought I'd mention my lunch because it's new to me. I've got a granary breadcake fresh from the bakery this morning with cream cheese and green olive-marinated tofu, with the usual veggies. It's very very nice. The only problem with a tofu sandwich is that when it's gone I feel like I could eat another one. And I'm not exactly the gluttonous pig type.
TUESDAY: Today lunch is my basic Wensleydale cheese sandwich, with my fruit container filled with slices of fresh peach, cantaloupe, clementine, strawberries, and raspberries. What a joy to behold: a vibrant orange and red melange. I'm hoping something -- perhaps the raspberries -- will inspire this week's blog. But my mind is still as blank as dry toast without Marmite.
Perhaps it's because my normal summer lunchroom -- the bland slightly stuffy staff room at the university learning centre -- is closed this week for refurbishing, forcing me to spend my 30 minutes of lunch in an adjacent building called the Atrium, where students and staff race up and down an open-plan staircase between 4 levels of cafe spaces. (The spiral-staircase effect is an illusion, or perhaps my own delusion.) I'm sitting in the carpeted section of the "Cutting Edge", under the cloudy sunshine penetrating the glass ceiling, with the roar of a hundred chatting and giggling students swirling around my head like a cyclone. Perhaps this week I'm actually destined to write about eating one's lunch in a university setting. Could it be true?
WEDNESDAY: I have the same sandwich as Monday. The same choice, I mean -- Monday's actual sandwich is long gone. And many more students are buzzing around, including a couple at the table next to me who are having a quiet but intense argument. I'm surprised to see so many students around the university in the summertime. This doesn't stop the university itself from hiring builders to erect new wings and to tear apart walls and flooring and ceiling tiles, leaving precarious piles of building and electrical debris everywhere. And several of the lifts are out of order, including the only one that goes to Level 1 where I'm working today.
Personally I find it charming. If this sort of summertime renovation were happening at an American university, the buildings would be closed, off limits to all students and to all but essential members of staff. And if it was absolutely necessary to leave a building open and accessible, there would be so many safety barriers and detours it wouldn't seem worth the effort needed to get to one's destination. That is one thing I find refreshing about the UK: it doesn't try to swaddle its residents in safety padding any time somebody makes a hole in a floor or takes a bit of wiring out of a wall. One could say this is because America is a much more litigious society, but the UK is starting to catch up in that area. I think it's more a matter of respect for the intelligence of the public. Obviously the vast majority of us do not want to fall through a hole in the pavement or experience the wrath of 10,000 volts coursing through our bodies. Those of us who aren't suicidal or severely self-destructive are at least somewhat careful around dangerous situations. If we weren't, there would be none of us left.
So give me your holes, your unguarded piles of lumber, your precarious craneloads overhead, your challenges. When I go back into the learning centre in a moment, I fully expect something else to have been torn up since my departure. On with it! If the stairs are gone and the lifts are all broken, it'll be fun to get out the rope. It'll make me feel like a kid again.
Bank holidays and Puritans
WEDNESDAY: As the staff room is still being redecorated, the walls having just turned a very feminine lilac, I am once again sitting in the Cutting Edge at a table refreshingly close to the espresso machine. (Ahhhh, inhale the aroma deeply, concentrate on that milk-steaming "Whooooossshhhhh!"…your mind is weightless…) Since I took the time yesterday to roast a red pepper I'm looking forward to my Wensleydale and roasted red pepper sandwich on a bakery-fresh granary bap, accompanied by a festival of summer fruits.
It's a short week because of another Bank Holiday weekend, that great British tradition. Bank Holiday weekends, those lovely 3-to-4-day breaks, occur whenever there is a Bank Holiday Monday, of which there are 8 throughout the year in England. On a Bank Holiday Monday not only are banks closed but also Royal Mail, post offices, schools, council offices, and many private sector employers, so most working people are off.
The Bank Holiday weekend that just passed is the last one until Christmas. As I work for a university I was off for 4 days. Unfortunately, as I am not paid for any hours I do not work, this 3-day work week consists of the longest possible days I am legally allowed to work at my crap job just so I don't starve. But don't get me started on that again…
When I was growing up in America both George Washington's birthday (22nd February) and Abe Lincoln's birthday (12th February) were school holidays, which made February a midway-between-Christmas-and-Easter holiday oasis. For some reason the government deleted Abe's birthday and turned George's into Presidents Day which, though it always falls on a Monday creating a long weekend, is still only 1 day instead of 2. Fortunately they finally added Martin Luther King Jr's birthday in January, so we weren't robbed for long.
When I was a little girl going to elementary school I envied my friends who went to Catholic schools. This was not only because their carnivals were much better that those of the nondenominational schools, but also because of all the saints' days they had many more holidays. Sure, they had to wear uniforms and the rest of us didn't; but I thought that was a small price to pay for more days away from school. If my school would have given me so many more days off per year, I would have happily worn a plaid pleated skirt with kneehighs and a beret every day. I mean, ordinary schoolkids wear uniforms in the UK and in a lot of other countries, and they've already started to in many parts of the US. So why not give ordinary schoolkids more holidays? Saints days, feast days, all of the Presidents' birthdays, International Marmite Day, whatever. The more the merrier.
The only advantage school-age and working Americans have over their British counterparts is Thanksgiving, a nice 4-day weekend which conveniently falls a month before Christmas. Poor Brits have to soldier through between Late Summer Holiday (Labour Day in America) and Christmas without a break, which seems a bit cruel.
But the Brits and other Europeans have the upper hand when it comes to annual leave (paid vacation in the US). When I run into a Brit who is dreaming about relocating to America, when I tell them about the annual leave sacrifice they'll have to make if they work there, it usually steers them back to reality like a good slap in the face. Whereas my British friends with fulltime jobs usually have between 4 and 6 weeks of annual leave per year, the average American has only 1 to 2 weeks. When I worked as a programmer for a large corporation, I felt so privileged to have 12 days a year instead of the 10 days most other technological corporations offered. My father ended up with 4 weeks, but that was after years and years of moving up the executive aerospace ladder. In stark contrast, when I got my first job in the UK, a one-year part-time contract, I was amazed to find not only did I have 11.5 days of annual leave but that I could take it right away if I so chose. In America one has to work for a year before they're entitled to use any annual leave. And a full time job is usually defined as 40 hours a week, not 35.
I blame all of this on the Puritans. If they hadn't come up with their Work Ethic, Americans would be reaping the same holiday benefits as their European friends. And everybody would be just that much happier.
