From my experience, the English have a poor idea of what constitutes ‘extreme weather’. When it’s 23˚C out, the BBC warns of heatstroke, and when it’s snowing, everyone just gives up. No! That’s not what you do! When it snows, you move the snow away. Ice is neither radioactive nor dark magic, so attack it with steel brushes and grow a pair. If you can invent a jumbo jet, you should be able to clear some ground from which it can take off! I read an article on Helsinki airport the other day, and it received 188cm of snowfall during the past winter alone but last closed in 2003 for THIRTY MINUTES. Britain used to be a glorious world empire, so much so that loads of people kept our colonialist sports, tea, and religion (shhh…they don’t like to think about that last one). How far we have fallen. It is time for us to step up, meet Finland’s majestic, golden standard, and not do this:
The good news is that during my two extra days, British Airways put me in a very nice hotel, where I had my first full English breakfast, ever. That might seem odd, given I lived in Cambridge all year round for twelve years, but my parents are both vegetarian and not British, so bacon wasn’t a big part of my childhood. For those of you who don’t know, a full British fry-up is baked beans, fried mushrooms and tomatoes, sausages, hash browns, bacon, scrambled eggs, and then maybe some toast and black pudding. The British Empire wasn’t fueled on Weetabix with skimmed milk you know.
Good news is, I finally discovered the point of the fried tomatoes! For years I’d heard about them, but I was always baffled. They always seemed like the worst way in the world to cook tomatoes (and they are), but I then realized that they serve two vital purpose in the heavy, grease laden mosaic that is a British fryup. First, they provide moisture, and second, they provide sweetness. Because everything else on that plate is unnecessarily dry and salty. In the sarcasm world, I’m British. In the culinary world, I’m not; the second day, I had some delicious croissants and guavas.
I did eventually catch my flight, but not before I conquered the mammoth line at the BA counter, which had three days of passengers in it. Thankfully, I managed to move forward about 500 places in 3 hours…or was it 3 places in 500 hours? Tough to tell sometimes. But now I’m back here, and I'm delighted. I’ve also realised that the best thing about England is its names. Our towns sound ridiculous; it's almost as if Britain exists to make maps funny. All of these places are within driving distance of my house: The Gog Magog, Orton Brimbles, Six Mile Bottom, and Nedging-with-Naughton. The last one could be a whole upper-class sentence on its own.
“What are you doing dearest?”
“Nothing, I’m just nedging with Naughton!”
“Oh splendid!”
Naming your places like that is one thing, but naming your people like that is another. A few days ago, my sister, Sinead, met a family with the surname “Snodgrass”. How fantastic is that?
In the end, this holiday was all about Christmas, which was wonderful. We celebrated with a traditional Christmas dinner of Chinese noodles, a hard boiled egg/carrot/mushroom dish, tofu, and apple pie. In my family, the Asians do the main course, and the Americans do the dessert. For any of you who have ever tried to eat a Taiwanese cake, you will understand why it is that way round.
Service will resume as normal on this recently neglected blog, but in the meantime:
2010 was awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment