Cheers, mate
I guess I’m a card-carrying Anglophile. I love England and relished the chance to return. But I was like a dog chasing a rabbit through a field, slicing back and forth, trying to figure out what I wanted to do first and where to focus. In the end, I did it in a pretty random way. A pub here. A museum there. And that resulted in wince-inducing blisters from tromping all over London.
One of the things I like best about England is the way they bend the language. It’s theirs, and they love to dribble it like a soccer ball. Punters, wankers, loos and cheers, mate. Just brilliant. It didn’t take longer than the ride in from the airport to get my first dose.
“How has the weather been,” I ask the driver as he steers the Mercedes sedan through a maze of Fiats, foreign Fords and motorcycles.
“Indifferent,” he replies.
I’m a little perplexed by what he means. Then he explains that it’s been a mix of rain, sun, clouds. Unusually warm. Very unpredictable. Indifferent.
As we drive, he notes traffic might not be as bad as usual since it’s “half-term.”
I ask for a translation.
Schools out, he says. The students are on break.
I forget about this turn of phrase until the next day, when I’m reading the free Metro newspaper on the Tube. Turns out my half-term good fortune is another person’s terror, as he indignantly points out in a letter to the editor:
“Sir, Half-turn may be commuting heaven but it is swimming hell.
My 32 lengths of the local pool take me an hour instead of the usual 30 minutes as I must zig-zag through hordes of splashing children."
John M. Ward
Norwich
Could anyone other than an Englishman have penned that letter?
Brilliant, John M. Ward. Just brilliant.
Posted by Bob Benz at October 29, 2006 9:28 PM
When I in in London six years ago, I loved it. I felt like I belonged there. More than that, it felt like home. There is something about that city ... if there is anything to past lives, I once lived in London. I was homesick for more than a year after I returned, and your wonderful posts the past couple of days have brought back some of those feelings. Somehow, someday, I must get back.
Posted by: Howard Owens at October 31, 2006 2:30 AM