Stuff Brits Like

by Fraser McAlpine

  WHAT TO SAY: “Boo!” and also “Hiss!”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “No, Mr Bond, I expect you to diet.”

  Desserts with Unappetizing Names

  To be fair, the Brits just like desserts. To say they only like desserts with unappetizing names is to do a disservice to Angel Delight, the Bakewell tart, the syllabub, flummery and every other sweet thing that sounds like it was handmade by the Teletubbies using all the yay! machines in their scrumminess factory.

  However, pudding is a luxurious item, and one that can stand a little affectionate ribbing. So while it’s preposterous to take a perfectly lovely-looking suet sponge with raisins, coat it in thick, sweet custard and call it spotted dick, it’s not because the people who made it wanted to keep it all to themselves; it’s an old, old name, possibly derived from the second syllable of the word pudding. It’s not even a reference to someone called Richard. And do you know what the same pudding is called if it contains plums instead of raisins? Spotted dog.

  Mmm! Lovely custardy dog: a perfect end to a Sunday dinner.

  The humble jam roly-poly—a kind of jam-filled Swiss roll that could not sound more squidgy and delicious if its proper name ended with a baby’s chortle—suffered a similar fate. To keep the roll all together, people would pack it in an old shirtsleeve before boiling it. Thanks to its shape, with perhaps a little bit of jammy seepage at either end, it became known as dead man’s arm, or dead man’s leg, presumably for people who wear shirtsleeves as spats.

  Any sweet pastry that has been filled with currants or raisins in a thick black layer of sweet goodness runs the risk of being referred to as flies’ graveyard, or flies’ cemetery, because raisins look a bit like dead flies. There are regional variations on this; the squared-off slab version, known as a fruit slice in Scotland or a currant slice in Northern Ireland, is referred to in the northeast of England as a fly pie.

  A genuine spotted dick & custard.

  In fact, the biscuit Brits know as a Garibaldi (see: Dunking Biscuits) has taken this whole fly theme and run with it. Depending on where you are, Garibaldis are known colloquially as fly sandwiches, dead fly biscuits or squashed fly biscuits. And yet the humble Eccles cake, which resembles a tiny circular pastry pillow packed five-deep with raisins, has escaped with not one disgusting nickname relating to flies or anything else.

  It’s not even a working-class thing. Eton—one of the most prestigious educational establishments in the world—has a traditional dessert it serves at the annual cricket game against the similarly rarefied Harrow School. It’s a beautifully simple affair, a mixture of strawberries, cream and meringue pieces (although practically any summer fruit will do). Being highly educated, precision-minded young men, the pupils have elected to call this dish Eton mess. Factor in the fact that these are teenagers at an all-male school and well, maybe you’d rather make your own at home.

  One popular spiced tea cake, made in southern parts of England, languishes under the terrifically health-conscious title of lardy cake, lardy bread or, for reasons probably connected to obesity, lardy Johns. In Yorkshire, a similarly blunt approach to the long-term effect of certain ingredients created the sconelike fat rascal. And while a similar rich-battered little cake in Newcastle would be called a singing hinny, a few miles over the border in Scotland they call them fatty cutties.

  Of course, most of the best of these affectionately off-putting names come from the past, and some describe recipes that are rarely put to good use any more. Encase a whole lemon in suet and boil it for hours and you’ve got a Sussex pond pudding (which just makes it sound like a frog spawn sorbet). Add currants and it’s closer to a Kentish puddle pudding.

  No, hold me back before I eat your helping too.

  WHAT TO SAY: “So what’s really in this ‘breast-milk ice cream’?”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Come away from this place, Myron. I can’t even repeat what that man just offered to show me . . .”

  Movie 2: The Railway Children

  The Railway Children is an uncomplicated story that plays charmingly with a topic dear to the hearts of British culture: class, and the fear of what happens to good people when their social status is lost.

  The essential story is the same whether taken from the original book by E. Nesbit or the 1970 movie adaptation by Lionel Jeffries, although the latter is really where the bulk of the affection comes from, not least because of the central performances by Jenny Agutter, Dinah Sheridan and Bernard Cribbins.

  It’s the tale of a middle-class Edwardian family by the name of Waterbury, told through the eyes of the three children, Bobbie, Peter and Phyllis. They have an idyllic life in the London suburbs, with servants and status and as much food as they could ever need. Then Mr Waterbury—a civil servant in the Foreign Office—is accused of being a spy and arrested. Mrs Waterbury decides to move the family to rural Yorkshire “to play at being poor for a while”.

  This naturally unsettles the children, who at first appear to be slightly spoiled and overly accustomed to their little luxuries, so when they all have to up sticks and move to the countryside (after getting a dressing-down from the family’s own servants) it’s something of a shock. The narrative hooks are by now well in force. Working-class viewers will enjoy the distress of these posh kids having to slum it, and middle- and upper-class viewers will be empathizing with that distress.

  Mrs Waterbury elects to make ends meet not by scrubbing floors but by writing short stories, because that is the class to which she belongs, and at first the family struggles to find enough to eat. Peter resorts to stealing coal from the railway yard, but prim, proper Bobbie forces him to put it back. During the upheaval the three children form an emotional attachment to the railway that runs at the end of a field near their house, waving at the passengers every day and developing a special friendship with a particular Old Gentleman on the 9:15.

  They then embark on a series of adventures that effectively knock the sharp edges of privilege off them. Asking the Old Gentleman for a handout may result in the delivery of a handsome hamper of food, but it also delivers a firm rebuke from their mother, who does not approve of charity. This does not stop her from taking in a Russian dissident who has collapsed on the station platform, because she is a kind person. The distinctions, while subtle, are clear. Charity bad; compassion good.

  The children take this as their model in becoming morally upstanding and independent citizens themselves. They prevent a train from running into a landslide, the Old Gentleman turns out to have connections that can reunite the Russian with his family, and they save a young lad who has collapsed in the train tunnel while taking part in a “fox and hounds” paper chase (who turns out to be the Old Gentleman’s grandson).

  Perks, the mostly affable working-class station manager, acts as a form of reality check for the three, as he also gives them a valuable lesson in class conflict when they conspire with the local community to celebrate his birthday with useful and thoughtful gifts. At first he considers their efforts to be a humiliation, an act of charity from a community that looks down their noses at him and his family, but eventually he comes to realize that everyone gave what they wanted to give and he is enormously touched. It’s at this point that Bobbie discovers her father has been sentenced to a long spell in prison and won’t be coming back.

  Except the Old Gentleman has once again worked his magic, and one day the children are surprised to discover that everyone on the 9:15 is waving excitedly at them. Bobbie wanders down to the station and spots a tall man on the platform, obscured by smoke. In a scene that continues to draw wet eyes and red faces from British fathers of all ages, she wails “Oh, Daddy, my Daddy!” and rushes into his arms.

  That’s all there is to it. Three privileged kids discover the life-enriching effects of mixing with the lower orders, being good in a crisis, not asking for handouts and being kind to everyone they meet. It’s the same plot as Cars or Doc Hollywood or any film in which the common good beats down personal entitlement.

>   But the charm of The Railway Children comes from its placement in an era untouched by the ravages of either world war, a supremely confident, and entirely innocent, moment (compared to the horrors that were to follow) when the British were the dominant power in the world and felt like they were doing a good and moral job.

  It’s also a moment from which most of the dominant clichés of English culture are drawn. There’s the love of the countryside, affection for the romance of steam railways, and the strict observance of the rules of etiquette and manners. The cottage the Waterburys live in is not thatched, but it might as well be. So it’s almost a set text for romanticized Englishness; and it’s a model of class friction. A view that is only exaggerated if you take the slightly sharp view that Bobbie’s anguish at the end seems to come as much from the relief of being rescued from their horrific life among the poor folk as from the joy of seeing her father again.

  I mean, you can take that view if you want. I’ll be over here dabbing my eyes again.

  WHAT TO SAY: “So none of those kids thought to get a paper round?”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Those girls stopped that train by waving their underwear at it? And this is a movie for kids?”

  Innuendo

  Rather than embark on a lengthy history of the British love of talking about sex without talking about sex—taking in pantomimes (see: Cross Dressing), seaside postcards (see: Saucy Seaside Postcards), dirty songs, music hall comedians and an entire film franchise (the Carry On comedies)—let’s imagine I’m putting up a tent and I’m telling you how it’s all going. This will hopefully not only shed some light on things, it may even reveal all, and when I say all I mean everything.

  I could start by pointing out that I’ve laid a sheet down and I’m running my hands along my pole, up and down, gently checking that everything is firm and smooth, until it is fully erect. Then, having had a gentle feel about to make sure I’m in the right area, I carefully stick it right up between the flaps, so the spike goes into the little hole. It’s a tight fit and a little bit fiddly to get the angle just right, but it’s very satisfying once it’s done.

  I brace my pole with a little wiggle—we don’t want to go off half-cocked—then get to work doing the same thing in the other hole, so both ends have been firmly buttressed, leaving me free to devote my attention to the other areas. For a while, you’ll find me beavering away, facedown and working around the outskirts with a collection of devices I keep in a little bag. I’ll start by manually driving my prong through the undergrowth, and once I am satisfied that it has gained a decent purchase, I’ll commence hammering away until it is time to roll over and change position.

  An aside: I find if there are too many people around while I’m getting it up, I tend to get a bit tense and stiffen. It only takes a bent peg or an unexpected leak for things to become a little heated and that’s when the vulgar language starts to fly. There again, it’s less fun on your own, so it’s best to ask just one close friend (or two, if you’re sure you can trust them to cooperate) for a hand with the fiddly bits.

  Anyway, once all the pounding is done, the material should be straining on all sides. It’s at this point I start to pull on the first guy I can lay my hands on, untangling and then stretching the dangling hawser until it is practically rigid, and then I whack my spike in, holding on tight all the while. There are a few guys located all around the tent and if they’re not kept nice and stiff, the whole thing will go limp and collapse after even the most gentle blow. I’ve also got to be a bit careful that I don’t accidentally knock the guy off the head of my spike, otherwise I’ll have to take hold again, slip my finger in the hole and pull until I can feel the strain, then slip the guy’s end over the top with my fingers.

  When all the guys have been pulled and tethered, I gently tug at the zip, being careful not to catch it on anything on the way down, and, having carefully removed all obstacles and ensured there are no barriers to entry, stick my head all the way in. I may have taken the precaution of pulling a hood up for protection first, particularly if it’s really wet, and I’ll enter tentatively at first, but with growing confidence, until I’m all the way inside.

  That’s when the inflatables come out. I spread them on the floor, put the nozzle in the correct flange and start pumping and pumping for all I am worth. This can be tiring work, and I’ll be red faced and sweaty before too long. With each thrust, my hands roam up the back, across the top and down to the bottom, squeezing and stroking, until I am finally happy at how firm everything feels. When I have pumped until I just can’t pump any more—it’s quite a workout—I pull the nozzle out, jam in a plug, and then I can just throw myself facedown on the rug, panting and spent.

  Conclusion: If you meet any Brits and they mention how much they enjoy innuendo, make sure you give them one.

  WHAT TO SAY: “Would anyone like to nibble on my juicy pear?”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Pear as in fruit, obviously. Grow up.”

  Animals

  You may think you are attached to your dog; you may have feelings towards your cat that border on obsessive; but trust me, no one is as soppy about animals as the British. Or at least, if they are, their soppiness won’t be as sharply juxtaposed with the unsoppy way they treat humans.

  In fact, legislation preventing cruelty to animals arrived on the British statute books long before legislation preventing cruelty to either children or vulnerable adults. This is partly for stout business reasons—animals were transport, livelihood and food—although sentimentality does come into play too. Even now, British TV plays heartrending commercials every day for dog rescue charities or cat sanctuaries, plus public awareness movies about leaving dogs in a hot car without cracking a window, and the narrative is always the same: How could humans treat us this way? What have we ever done?

  Brits adore animals. They knit things for their pets; they embark on public crusades to protect not just endangered species but individually disadvantaged creatures. They build special bridges and crossings for bats, hedgehogs and frogs and create legislation that protects certain animals from being disturbed once they’ve made a nest in an attic space or loft. Rather than making Lady and the Tramp, with its unforgiving dog pound and cruel dogcatchers, they write 101 Dalmatians, in which the baddy is a cold stepmothery baggage who wants a puppy-hair coat. And they make heartwarming TV shows based in Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, which is that same unforgiving dog pound, only far, far nicer.

  British children’s literature is riddled with anthropomorphized animals that speak and interact, either in an animal re-creation of human communities—The Wind in the Willows, for example, or the tales of Beatrix Potter, starring Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and Jemima Puddle-Duck—or in a rationalized version of feral nature, as you’d find in The Jungle Book. Then there are the narrator animals that exist in trying times: the horses in Black Beauty and War Horse.

  George Orwell knew exactly what he was doing when he chose a farmyard as his metaphor when satirizing totalitarianism in Animal Farm. It’s almost as if an affection for our four-, two- and sometimes no-legged friends replaces the kind of demonstrable, uncluttered public outpourings of warmth and kindness that other nations reserve for, y’know, people. Because animals can’t be guilty of anything malicious, in the way that humans apply the term, it’s harder to be tricked or hoodwinked and therefore defences can come down more fully. A cat may throw up on your pillow, but he will never defraud you of your life savings.

  Take the singer Morrissey, who epitomizes so many of what are typically considered to be the great English virtues. He’s bookish, soft-spoken, poetic and misty-eyed about the past. But two topics are guaranteed to get his (presumably very well-treated) goat: one is the royal family, of which he is not a fan, and the other is cruelty to animals. In the latter case he’s so committed to the cause that he refuses to play in venues where meat is sold, or cooked for the crew, or at festivals where burger vans are visible from the stage. His feelings on international issues of a
nimal mistreatment such as whaling, vivisection, seal clubbing and factory farming are heated and venomous, to the point of wishing similar treatment for whalers, vivisectionists, seal clubbers and factory farmers. And while he can be something of a single-issue bore on this topic, his views are entirely in keeping with the passionate rhetoric of the British animal lover.

  Calls for fund-rasing or direct action against vivisection, foxhunting, badger culling and the like frequently emphasize the cruelty to the animals. The pro-foxhunting/badger-culling lobby claim that this misty-eyed view of country affairs is a wrongheaded interference and often state the opposing case with equal vehemence. This pitting of tradition against sentimentality is a recipe for a colossal dustup. But foxhunting and badger culling are not the only animal-related public scandals in British society. In 2013, the news was dominated with stories of frozen meals, in particular beef lasagne, having been contaminated with horse meat in European processing plants. That’s because, despite the long list of things they definitely will put in their mouths (see: Offal), the British don’t eat horses. They love them too much.

  Every summer, during the long parliamentary recess that means hot political news stories tend to be fairly thin on the ground, one of the tabloid papers finds and publicizes an animal that has been treated poorly, most commonly in a country with laxer animal protection laws and a cavalier approach to pet ownership. Take the 2010 campaign The Sun ran to save a Russian donkey by the name of Anapka, who was being regularly hoisted into the sky in a paragliding PR stunt. Or indeed the 1987 campaign, run in full elbow-jostling competition between The Sun and the Daily Star, to rescue another donkey, this one called Blackie.