you say yogurt, i say yog-hurt

The other day, a girl I met (who was born in the former Soviet Union, had spent from the age of ten in the Netherlands and was now studying at Cambridge) asked me (quite seriously) how I was finding the process of assimilating into this new English culture. I replied that as far as culture change goes we’d selected an easy option – to the extent that I wondered if it really counted as experiencing a different culture at all. But we’ve been here a year and maybe things that once seemed strange now seem normal. As John Travolta says in Pulp Fiction, it’s the little differences, so here’s a list of them before I forget.


Language
When something is bad (as in rubbish) its ‘pants’. Underpants are also pants (while our pants are known as trousers). Someone who is really into a hobby (like train spotting) or knows a lot about something is an ‘anorak’. Calling someone a Muppet doesn’t mean they are cute (and possibly furry) – it’s an insult meaning they’re thick.

The word ‘bespoke’ (made to your specifications) is used a lot and is also really popular as a concept. The word ‘do’ is inserted into sentences that would make perfect sense without it.

Example:
If you are interested in our bespoke trousers please do get in touch. Our passion for tailoring is quite unsurpassed and we are proud to admit we are all anoraks in this regard. Frankly our competitors are pants and anyone who tells you otherwise is a complete muppet.

‘Hiya!’ is a standard greeting. ‘Bless’ is used (often by secretaries) as a response to someone (usually a man or a child) doing something sweet or admirable (example: ‘My husband always makes me a cup of tea in the evening’ – ‘Oooh, bless’. Variation: ‘Oh, bless ‘im’).

Unfortunately no one ever says 'righty-o old chap’ and the police are rarely heard to exclaim ‘allo, allo, what’s goin’ on ‘ere then?’ – which is a shame really.


Food
The most readily available snacks are sandwiches (‘sarnies’), which are pre-packaged and sold everywhere (supermarkets, chemists, coffee shops). There are hundreds of varieties, but the prawn fillings scare me the most.

Fruit and vegetables at the supermarket are often individually wrapped in plastic – two zucchini on a tray all wrapped in plastic is common.

Coffee chains (Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero, Eat, Pret, Benjis, etc.) are everywhere, as are chain restaurants (Giraffe, Nando’s, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, Carluccio’s, Pizza Express, etc). Pizza Hut restaurants still exist.

Regular people (not just old men hanging around Spencer Street Station types) go to ‘cafs’ or ‘greasy spoons’ that look unchanged since 1954 and serve cooked English breakfasts that look the same.

There’s a wide selection of supermarkets to suit every social demographic. From the upmarket Waitrose, to the middle of the road Sainsburys (promoted by Jamie Oliver) to the downmarket Iceland (one of my favourite tv commercials sees C-list celebrity mum [the former girl group member who is the ex-wife of the guy who went out with Delta Goodrum if you must know) flick through a recipe book exasperated at the idea of cooking a roast – who’s got the time for this she thinks when Iceland sells a roast you can put in the oven straight from frozen – and for only £7!)


Society at large
At work you can’t just make yourself a cup of tea… you firstly have to check if your fellow team members would also like a cup of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, soup or cold beverage. This is something I discovered after being ‘the PA who never once offered her boss a drink’ (not that he ever mentioned it – which I put down to British reserve).

Long queues are common. English people love to stand in orderly queues, but what they love even more is when someone tries to push in so that they can tell them off and explain the queue to them and indignantly let them know that they were there first.

It seems that England is more liberal than Australia, yet also more politically correct. Politically correct in that it’s the country that labelled Enid Blyton racist and sexist, proposed banning the nursery rhyme ‘baa baa black sheep’, and suspended the London mayor for a month for comments comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard (which is definitely not a good thing to say but seems an over reaction). On the other hand same-sex marriage is allowed, there’s way more swearing and nudity in the media (page 3 girl, anyone?), more leniency towards crime and you don’t have to wear a bike helmet or vote. But then again you can be stopped by police on the street for wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so it’s hard to generalise in this regard.

switzerland

When I was a kid my dad went on a business trip to Switzerland and brought back an amazing block of chocolate. It was displayed like a storybook – you would open the top flap of the box, which was around A4-size, and reveal a milk chocolate hazelnut scene of the Swiss Alps. Evidently this chocolate was too good for children and so was hidden in my mum’s bedside drawer (ingenious!). It was the most delicious chocolate I had ever tasted. I could not stop myself eating it. I would sneak in for a small piece (maybe a bit of the mountain tops) and then ten minutes later another piece… then another… and another, until after a few days all that was left was perhaps a lone goat grazing in the corner meadow (my logic: I haven’t eaten the whole thing so maybe they won’t notice). I’m pleased to report that our recent Swiss experience was just as delectable (without the guilt and slightly queasy aftermath).

We spent 5 days travelling across Switzerland by train and were amazed by the natural beauty of the country: a diverse mix of snow-covered mountains, lakes, rivers, steep cliffs, waterfalls, meadows and pastures, farmland, rugged landscapes and palm-tree lined shores. The cows really do wear big bells around their necks, the air is fresh and you can understand how Heidi was restored to full health through nature’s curative properties.

Day 1: Golden Pass train around Lake Geneva to Montreux to Lauterbrunnen (just outside Interlaken). This is known as Bernese Oberland country and is the setting for many Bollywood films – the spectacular landscapes are seen as an appropriate backdrop for the dramatic, highly romantic themes in the films. As such, the area is a large Indian tourist market (the first we’ve noticed in Europe so far). Our hotel room had waterfall views.

Day 2: up Jungfraujoch (the highest station in Europe and guaranteed snow year round) then Golden Express train from Interlaken to Luzern. Luzern is also situated on a lake and is home to Europe’s oldest wooden bridge and a lovely historic town centre.

Day 3: Luzern to Chur to catch the Glacier Express train to St Moritz. This journey takes you across bridges, through tunnels blasted out of the mountains, along cliffs and through stark landscapes. St Moritz is huge during the ski season and in summer, but at this time of year it’s a ghost town (we didn’t mind). We saw a deer while walking in the woods (I originally thought it was a large hare – who knew deer had fluffy cotton tails?)

Day 4: Bernina Express from St Moritz across the Bernina Pass, into Italy at Tirano, bus around Lake Como, back into Switzerland at Lugano. Again, amazing views and between St Moritz and Tirano you descend some 7,000 feet around like a corkscrew. A flash rainstorm meant that we couldn’t really see Como, but enough to remember how much we loved Italy and to appreciate the more laidback sites (as the guidebook says, ‘While the Swiss love meticulously manicured gardens and painstakingly renovated houses, the Italians take things a bit easier’).

Day 5: Lugano and home from Milan Malpensa airport. Lugano is a great summer, sunshine holiday town with Italian-speaking, very well dressed people, and a great place to just relax (in that strange last day of the holiday, can feel the hours ticking down to when you have to get to the airport, please let me stay… just a bit longer, I’m not ready to go back yet, please, PLEASE!!! relaxed kind of way).