"Why do you all drink tea?"
and:
"You don't like tea? Then how can you be British?"
and:
"I love Irish accents!" (I'm Scottish)
or:
"Oh you're Canadian! No? Australian? English!"
and even:
"You're from the UK? Do you know [insert random person's name here]?"
Because I know everyone in the United Kingdom folks. Every single person. Even your uncle Albert who likes wearing ladies' corsets and your brother's best friend's dad who's in Strangeways for armed robbery.
And of course once it's been established that I am Scottish:
"Do you eat haggis?" Answer: I would rather eat my own toes. And quit the 'Braveheart' jokes. Or I'll force my sword up your runway.
In my new capacity at work I deal a lot with the UK - London in particular - a town where I spent much of my debauched and misspent (although possibly well spent!) youth, playing with my band, buying cheap garb at the markets and conversing with hobos on Oxford Street (The west end just has a better class of hobo I always find).
I've also spent significant hours of my life I'm never getting back being suitably smashed on pints of Snakebite and riding around the country in the back of a pick-up truck watching indie bands and quaffing cheap liquor (and later vomiting the same cheap liquor all over my lap) all in the name of entertainment. Because it's the British way.
Now, after a few years in the U.S., dealing with the Brits (and by "Brits" I really mean 'English people' as opposed to Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish people) is a strange business. For a start they sound funny. And they have much too strong an attachment to liquor. There's a chain of importance in England that goes:
- Lager (lager's like a soft drink in the UK and if you ask for a shandy (lager mixed with lemonade, i.e. 7UP or Sprite) you must be flamingly, Liberace gay or a child)
- liquor
- Pets
- Family
- Liquor
- Friends
- Liquor
- Nintendo
- Car
- Liquor
- Other
Working with them, on the other hand, has been all good. They're all friendly (probably due to the huge liquor intake), informal, have a sense of humor, are laid back and spell things properly. *In this blog I spell things in the American way because I keep being terrorized by the little red line of death that appears when I use British spellings, also known as "correct spellings".
This is good because in the real world, that is, the world in my head, I hate Brits. I hear them all the time in the street here in New York City and I snarl. Damn tourists, go home. Coming here with your strong pound buying our stuff and talking funny. I hate British accents. They make me cringe. They sound so common. And familiar. Especially since I have one.
I'm a little excited because I'm going to the UK this week for the holidays for the first time in three years and I'll probably just hand the security guys at the airport all my money on arrival to save time, what with the dollar limping painfully and breathing its last and the pound's mighty reign.
Thankfully, when I get there, there will be people to feed me and keep me from dying of hypothermia. You know, if my plane doesn't crash.
