Stuff I Love

As discussed, I am going to use this week to discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of Our Glorious Motherland, as observed in my time here thus far.

Today, it’s all about the stuff I love. Hence the title, as you understand.

Some of these will be insultingly obvious, hopefully others will be less so. I am going to discuss food (specifically, cheese) separately later in the week. Here is my (incomplete, but will do for now) list of Things That Are Good About Living In England:

1. Close proximity to Europe

As discussed previously, this one needs little explanation. Weekends in Valencia, Christmas in Prague, this suits me very well indeed. I have found an excellent website that offers comparative information on insanely cheap airfares, and the continent, she is mine.

2. The Pound

I’m sure I would have a view about England switching to the Euro if I bothered to think about it, but for right now it is utterly delicious to know that I am accumulating a (very) wee pile of the world’s strongest currency. The fact that the wee pile is soon to be swallowed by rent is probably a subject for tomorrow’s entry.

3. Boots

Not the winter footwear (although I love those too), I refer to the greatest chemist the world has ever known. As I’m sure McBec would understand, I didn’t realise how much I had missed Boots until my return to England. Everything I could ever want is right there in the clean fluoro-lit aisles. So much more than merely cough medicines and prescriptions, Boots is the one-stop-shop for any and all products required for one’s toilette, at incredibly reasonable prices. There are Bootses here that are several stories high. It’s remarkable. And they sell sandwiches, and snacks, and fruit, and magazines, and home entertainment systems, and cameras, and phones, and accessories, and you name it, it will be there. I like to go there on my lunch hour and just wander about, soaking up the wonder.

4. Accents

I love that you can drive for half an hour here and people speak a different language.

Something that pleases me about my second stint in England is that I am starting to be able to pick the differences between different regional accents. I’m not terribly good with my North of England yet, having embarrassingly mistaken someone from Middlesbrough for someone from Liverpool the other day, but I can now reliably identify east London, Somerset and (of all places) Birmingham without too much difficulty.

Oh, and this is for Eleri: last time I was here I could not for the life of me hear anything different about a Welsh accent – I honestly thought people were messing with me. However! Thanks to extensive coaching from my new Welsh friend, I can hear it now without a problem. There’s a delightful sing-songy lilt there that I had just assumed was the way my friend’s voice sounded, but is apparently common to all of his countrymen. It was quite a moment the other day when I was speaking to a client in Swansea and had to refrain from informing him that he was Welsh. I assume this would not have been news to him.

5. Most Excellent Pubs

Last but not least, no list of what is great about this country is complete without a mention of its pubs. Sure, they’re not open late enough, and many of them are now owned by giant homogenous chains. But goodness me, the ones that are good are very good indeed.

I get a particular kick out of the history: drinking where Dickens did, hanging out where Sweeney Todd’s barbershop used to be. One of my favourites is on City Road, conveniently located very close to my new flat. We go there many Sunday afternoons for a roast, and have enjoyed many hours drinking excellent German lagers in the spacious beer garden. The pub is called the Eagle, and it is the very pub featured in that classic earworm of a nursery rhyme, Pop Goes the Weasel:

Up and down the City Road,
In and out The Eagle,
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

I think that’s pretty cool.

Something else I love about the pubs here is the value for money. You might pay a few quid for a drink, but it will be worth it. In fact, that reminds me of a conversation I had the other night with a newly arrived Australian in London:

Newly Arrived Australian In London, commenting on the size of the standard drinks here: "How about these pints then? You have a couple and all of a sudden you've had several litres of beer. And the wine! You order a large glass and get half a bottle. I keep reading in the paper how they've got a drinking problem here."

jLo: "Yes, I see those articles too."

NAAIL: "Well. I've got an idea for them. STOP DRINKING OUT OF BUCKETS ALREADY."

My kind of place.