In keeping with the tradition of letting those who stay with us write a blog for you folks back home, here's a little something from Jessica, who visited last week:
I've never been one to disparage Canada. In fact, I love living in Canada and in Toronto specifically. It never gets too cold — or too hot — and we seldom have to worry about things like ice storms, hurricanes, tornados or other such extremes of weather. I love how middle-of-the-road and "bland" we are. And now, after spending nine days in London, my patriotism has found new life.
Don't get me wrong, Steph and Shane are wonderful hosts (a sentiment to which others have previously attested). The thing is, they gave this London newbie a taste of what "real" London is like, not the popular "oh-look-how-quaint-and-sophisticated-they-are" version most tourists receive.
London is dirty, noisy, and typically malfunctioning. In an incredibly dense city, London has a pretty amazing and extensive public transportation system, making it a breeze to get almost anywhere you want. Too bad it's almost never functioning properly. At any given time, trains are late, not working, or out of service. Officials may or may not tell you about it. It's the same for the famed Underground subway system. I was in Paris for two full weeks last year and although it runs on a similar system, I never experienced the same thing there. It was ok for me since I was on vacation, but imagine what a nightmare it is for daily commuters trying to get to and from work!
For the most part, Londoners are rude and have seriously unhealthy habits. The image of civility and things like staying in "queue" are only a polite veneer. As soon as the train/subway car/bus pulls up, it's elbows out and an angry, accusing "sorry" before you get banged on the head and shoved out of the way as someone bulldozes through.
But oh the shopping bliss. It was London Fashion Week and we had tickets to a fashion extravaganza in exclusive Chelsea, where Steph and her wickedly funny friend Jo baptized me into the world of shoe, handbag and accessory obsession. During my stay, the shopping ran the gamut of upper crust Chelsea to commercially wonderful Oxford Street, Regent Street and Covent Garden to funky and punky Camden Town. Steph and I oohed and ahhed over shoes we couldn't afford in Harrod's and I followed a Japanese tour group into Burberry so I could salivate over the goods there without being tossed out for being too poor.
Although I didn't get to enough of them, the sites are really pretty fantastic (the British Museum was especially amazing). And who cares what people think of us tourists sitting atop those red, open-topped, double-decker buses. They are a blast when you have the right tour guide.
Generally, London was a nice place to visit, although I don't think I'd want to live there (along with most Londoners apparently, since a recent poll found that most of the residents — 60 per cent — would rather live elsewhere). Also, because of the popular culture, Hollywood-fed impression I held going in, I found many things puzzling, a feeling that remained sometimes even after Steph or Shane answered my questions. That or I was completely grossed out.
Can't wait for you guys to come back to boring, polite, sane, and functioning Toronto!
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Jessica: Instead of "exit" signs in the Underground or train stations, why do the signs read "way out"?
Shane: My former colleague Roger used to explain away idiosyncrasies like this by saying that the British speak a more precise form of the English language. So, while EXIT may mean "one of many ways off the platform" it does not reflect the precise path to the street. Where as WAY OUT is exactly what it says: follow these signs and you’ll find yourself out of the station. For myself, I think it’s because they are dense, and a bunch of visiting Welshmen shrieking to each other "Wheeech lion is the Eexite line? Is that on yis toob map ma?" as they block the only exit might enrage the Londoners to the point of murder.
Steph: When they were building the stations, the guy in charge had a brother-in-law who made signs for a living. It was slightly more expensive to get WAY OUT printed than EXIT, and since it was on the public purse, they went for it. Yep, true story.
Jessica: If British people supposedly speak "proper" English, then what gives with places like Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road, which are pronounced "Lester Square" and "Topham Court Road"?
Shane: Again, this is the ultimate cop-out by the inventors of the language. They can simply say that it’s their ball and they can play with it how they like; Tottenham in some mouths becomes "Tot’nam" but that’s all accurate, whereas anyone applying the actual phonetic rules to the words would find something different. Elitist fuckers.
Steph: You can also include things like the pronunciation of words like “urinal” (yur-eye-nal) and “patent” (pay-tent) here. Don’t ask me why; I think they’re just trying to be contrary.
Jessica: Why does everywhere smell like urine? (Follow-up question: Oh my goodness, is that vomit?)
Steph: Yep, that is vomit. Looks like someone had chilli cheese fries before going “out on the piss”. As for the urine, well, people are pigs. No wait, let me rephrase: the drunken English lads are pigs, because no matter how uncivilized some women are, we would never ever pee on the street or on some public memorial after getting shit-faced in the pub after work. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it would be physically impossible for us to do so. Honest.
Shane: There are few public toilets in London, and that’s largely due to the campaign of terror inflicted on London by the IRA. There once were more toilets, you can occasionally spot the bricked-up walls and welded doors. It’s also expensive to maintain public bogs, and Britain has no money for anything, let alone toilets. British men have therefore taken to relieving themselves whenever they have a spare moment. Train stations, stairwells, corners, public monuments, parked cars, hedges — no one is safe from the rivers of lager piss that are spewed to rot and stink up public spaces.
Jessica: Why is the cakes and pastries aisle in the supermarket the same size as the fruit and vegetable aisle?
Steph: Aaah, but did you also notice that there is an entire aisle for dog and cat food? And what about those two full aisles of frozen food, and that other aisle of pre-made meals? My only answer to this question is that people here either don’t know how to cook/bake or don’t like to cook/bake, but still want to enjoy the luxuries of a “homemade” cake or pastry. Or maybe they’re just pigs.
Shane: They are sweet mad here. Plain and simple. I think it has to do with all those years of deprivation during the war and reconstruction, or the generally grim and dreary climate. Sweetshops are everywhere, with cream, chocolate, pastry and all manner of sticky gunk to shove down their pie-holes. I predict that the Krispy Kreme, which is opening at Harrod’s this month, will be a huge success: the heart stopping sweetness of the Kreme will be right at home here.
Jessica: If British people are supposed to be so polite and civilized, what's with:
a) all the public nose-picking?
b) bringing concession snacks back into the theatre after intermission?
c) all the people kissing their teeth all the time?
Shane: To be fair, these things upset even old-line English people. Again, my old mate Roger found the food in the theatre really disgusting (beer and wine more so, people burping or dropping glasses in the show hacks him off too). The nose picking has no bloody excuse but to go further, there’s even less excuse for the public eating of nose jam. BELARH! These people are a bunch of pigs and whores, what do you want? And the teeth thing, well... they are a gang of fucking old ladies, and we all know what old ladies sound like: always hemming and hawing, sniffing loudly and sucking their teeth. Fuckers.
Steph: Well, some people, like my boss, enjoy eating their own nosejam. And the only way to get that authentic nosejam is to harvest and pick the crop yourself. People seem to have taken a renewed interest in farming nosejam here; I don’t know why. I suspect it has something to do with EU farming rules against genetically modified foodstuffs. I chalk it up to the breakdown of civilization, which is expected in a city that gets 12 million stupid American tourists a year. I mean, really, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen, isn’t it?
