by Iain Aitch
2-TONE
This was the last British fashion to make British youth take to the dancefloor and dress smartly. It was also the first to really make a feature of Britain’s growing ethnic mix, with the 2-Tone logos mixing black and white in the same way that they were mixed in the bands which made up the movement. At a time of political and racial tension bands like The Specials, Selecter and Bad Manners proved the idiocy of racists, as skinheads came to their concerts, danced to the music and then made Nazi salutes at the stage where a group of black and white musicians were playing for them. Many of these racist fans of ska still insist that the upbeat reggae was actually invented by Lonnie Donnegan and Cliff Richard but was stolen by black immigrants coming over here and taking our musical styles.
U
UMBRELLAS
A Briton without an umbrella is like a Frenchman without a string of onions around his neck or a Russian who has not passed out on the floor in a pool of vodka, that is to say it is simply unimaginable. From the city gent’s tightly furled full- length brolly to the see-through plastic canopy of a child, our umbrellas give out unspoken signals about our taste, status and character. Opening an umbrella indoors is said to be unlucky, though perhaps it is not as unlucky as being killed with ricin poison administered by umbrella, which is what happened to exiled Bulgarian journalist Georgi Makov in 1978. The assassination took place on Waterloo Bridge and is said to have performed by an agent of the Bulgarian communist government, of which Makov was a critic. The agent obviously saw the umbrella as the innocent British icon that no one would ever suspect of carrying a deadly poison.
UNDERSTATEMENT
As we are a nation of few emotions, visitors have to learn to read between the lines. For example, ‘No, it’s fine’ actually means ‘This meal is inedible’ and ‘I think it is just a scratch’ translates as ‘The Hun seem to have blown my leg clean off’. This also means that it is very hard to spot the Brit in a state of anger. Those unfamiliar with our ways should watch out for the phrase ‘Would you mind awfully?’, which is our equivalent of the American-English expression ‘Do the fuck what I say right now or I’ll put a cap in your ass, motherfucker’.
UNION FLAG
The flag of Britain has been mired in controversy since a version was first introduced in 1606. The flag we fly now has been in use since 1801: St George’s cross represents England in the design, St Andrew’s saltire for Scotland and the St Patrick’s saltire is for Northern Ireland. Obviously there should be a bloody great red dragon in the middle to represent Wales, but that would make a right mess of the design, so we just think about them instead, like we would think about a distant auntie who sends us gift tokens at Christmas but who we never meet. The red, white and blue colours of the flag are generally accepted to signify Britishness, yet the display of the flag is often seen as signifying far right-wing views. This is because the national symbol was hijacked by extremist groups such as the National Front in the 1970s. The name of the flag itself is controversial, and many refer to it as the Union Jack, even though this is generally the name for the flag when it is flown at sea. In order to be hung correctly the broad white band of the Scots saltire should be above the red of the saltire of St Patrick at the side nearest the flagpole. Those wearing Union Flag boxer shorts should always dress to the left.
UNSWERVING OPTIMISM
Whether it is the undying belief that our national teams will qualify for international football tournaments (see mathematical possibility), the idea that we will score any points in the Eurovision Song Contest or the notion that ‘it will all be over by Christmas’, we Brits are always willing to believe that things will turn out right in the end. Obviously things do not always work that way, but this belief that Britain is right and that Britain has the right, does help us endure hard times and come out on top eventually. This characteristic is best seen in the endless stream of young Brits willing to queue for the chance of appearing on Big Brother in the belief that even being voted out in week two will lead to fame and a lengthy career in the media.
V
VAT
This optional tax marks Britain out as one of the most forward-thinking nations when it comes to fiscal matters. It may be levied at a hefty 17.5 per cent, but VAT (Value Added Tax) is voluntary for both customer and business in many situations, with only social conscience helping us decide whether or not the transaction should incur the charge. VAT-optional purchases include many of those in the building trade, where buyers should ask for the ‘best price’ and possibly add a wink or a rubbing together of the thumb and forefinger to be sure of being understood. Some restaurants run special VAT-free days (at least for the business), which are denoted by a sign on the till saying ‘Card machine out of order, cash only’. *The author would like to point out that he always pays VAT, sometimes throwing in an extra 25 per cent or so just to be nice.
VESTA
Before every town centre boasted a Chinese and an Indian restaurant or takeaway there was simply Vesta. Named after the Roman god of rehydration, the exotic ethnic foodstuffs became a supermarket staple in the 1970s, bringing spicy glamour to a period of culinary austerity. The Vesta brand introduced many Britons to curry, as well as wowing them with the wonderfully curly crispy noodles that accompanied its chow mein meal. Naturally, Brits were disappointed when actual ethnic restaurants appeared in their towns; they paled into significance against the more authentic Vesta taste. Vesta products are still available in supermarkets and plans are currently afoot to send crates of the dehydrated food out to China and India so that chefs there can learn to make curry and chow mein correctly.
VESTS
There is nothing more unedifying than the sight of a British man wearing a string vest on a foreign beach; the attendant chicken wire tan/sunburn effect the day after is really something to show off by the pool. These surprisingly efficient under-garments have been warming and cooling our men for many years, but have fallen out of fashion in recent years, as has the simple cotton vest. Most men now prefer to wear plain T-shirts beneath a shirt, though such garments on children do not allow for the ritual humiliation of being forced to play in pants and vest if they forget their games kit. Vests are still popular with the proprietors of bed and breakfast hotels and are traditionally worn with an egg stain down the front. Americans call vests ‘wifebeaters’ – a colloquial term we use for a brand of lager.
VICARS
Though priests are popular with the Catholic population and those investigating sexual misdemeanours, the vicar is a truly British figurehead of religion. That is to say they are generally considered to be unthreatening figures of fun, bumbling and just about up to conducting a wedding, funeral or christening. The vicar is often a central figure in sitcoms, with The Vicar of Dibley being one recent example. Our respect for men of the cloth is shown by the fact that they are one of the main choices for men when it comes to fancy dress, making the tarts and vicars party a popular themed evening. This popularity may have a small amount to do with mocking the propensity of members of the clergy to embroil themselves in scandal, but it has far more to do with the fact that men hate fancy dress. Most men, however, do own a pair of black trousers and a black shirt, together with a willingness to don them accessorised with a small white strip of card at the neck if it means they get a chance to see a large number of women dressed as tarts.
VILLAGES
As our urban environment becomes increasingly Americanised and genericised, with many town centres looking nearly identical, it falls to our villages to retain all that is individual and special about the British way of life. A proper village should have a pub, church, village green and, preferably, a duck pond. To maintain an authentic village bloodline there should be no breeding with those who do not live in the village. After all, a graveyard with more than three family names looks chaotic and unruly. Outsiders should be treated with suspicion, especially those who buy holiday homes in the village. Greetings such as: ‘Oh, you’re from London. I went there once. D
idn’t like it’, should be used at all opportunities.
V-SIGN
Whichever way you wave yours, the V-sign is a huge part of our culture. Winston Churchill was famous for showing the V for victory during World War II, though he was often seen using it with his palm facing inwards, which is our way of saying ‘fuck you’. Less crude than the American single-digit version, this sign is at its best when waved from the window of a car at a fellow motorist who has committed some minor transgression against your personal motoring code. For proper effect, the V-sign should be quickly shown and then withdrawn with a snap of the wrist. This is known as ‘flipping the Vs’.
W
WANKER
This is our most unique swear word, being so far outside mainstream understanding in most other English-speaking nations that it was snuck into an episode of The Simpsons with no outcry. Had the show used the US equivalent ‘jerk-off’ then it would have been cut from the episode. Australians do use the word, but they change its initial insulting meaning and turn it into a verb that means drunk. ‘I am wankered, they are wankered, we are wankered’. Yes, we get the idea: the whole country is completely pissed 90 per cent of the time. Well done. The word ‘wanker’ should be used as a term of abuse and preferably accompanied by the correct hand signal, which replicates the act of male masturbation. The term can also be used as a term of affection upon meeting a friend, as in ‘How are you, you old wanker?’.
WAR GAMES
‘Da-la-la-la’ goes the sound of a small boy machine-gunning his school friends in the playground at morning break. Unlike similar scenarios in the US, the British boy is playing and it is an invisible, imaginary semi-automatic weapon that is cradled in his arms. As we are so good at war it is only natural that children wish to act out our famous victories during their playtime, with the least popular children being forced to play the Germans, the Argentinians or some allied troops coming under friendly fire. For a generation raised on playing war, reading Battle or Commando this urge to play war continues into adult life and many join historical reenactment groups or war-gaming societies. Some, though simply hang around outside football grounds wearing Stone Island jumpers saying ‘Jog on’ a lot and arranging dust-ups with other divorced fathers-of-three via their mobile phones.
WARM BEER
Contrary to the beliefs of some visitors and even some natives, when we Britons talk of warm beer, we don’t mean something that has been heated up in a microwave oven before being served or cans that have been left out in the sun. We simply mean proper British beer that is served at or just below room temperature and which can therefore, like good wine, be savoured when a good gulp hits the taste buds (see ale). Australian lager brand Fosters, who exported their beer to the UK in revenge for all the convicts we sent the other way, advertise their antipodean brew with the slogan ‘Well, you wouldn’t want a warm beer’, though personally I would rather down the tepid urine of Peter Andre than drink Fosters. Not that I do imbibe Mr Andre’s waste fluids, you understand.
WEATHER
There is a theory that we simply would not converse with each other were it not for the British weather and the opportunities for conversation that it throws up, such as ‘Looks like rain’, ‘Rain again today’ and ‘I told you we shouldn’t have bought this executive home on a flood plain’. The weather in the UK ranges from too cold to too hot and too wet to too dry; approximately four days in mid-May are reasonable and completely unworthy of comment.
WHISKY
Citizens of other countries may be able to put forward decent (though obviously fallacious) arguments about how their homelands outrank Britain in terms of the advancement of engineering, the discovery of cures for life- threatening illnesses or even the production of pop music, but not one can claim to be anywhere close when it comes to spirits. Scotch whisky is the default drink dispensed when you ask for whisky almost anywhere in the world and its hundreds of varieties drive the Whisky Trail tourism in the Highlands and the need for drying-out centres in the major cities. Distilled from water and malted barley, Scotch whisky is thought to have been in production for as long as 1,500 years; Resolve, Alka Seltzer and Irn Bru (see irn bru) were invented just after the secrets of distilling were brought to Scotland by monks. Some Brits prefer Irish whiskey, which has an ‘e’ in, by which I mean the name has a letter ‘e’ that Scotch is missing, not that it has an ecstasy tablet in it, though some pubs in Essex do offer the drink this way. Irish whiskey is mostly made in Southern Ireland, although the Old Bushmills Distillery is in Northern Ireland.
WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER
‘There’ll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover,’ sang Dame Vera Lynn in her prescient wartime song about the potential effects of global warming. The bluebird is a native of the Americas, but could soon breed in Kent if Dame Vera’s predictions are correct. The White Cliffs are very much a symbol of coming back to Blighty, of spying those precipices and feeling a warmth and love for home. It can also signify that your booze cruise is over and you should at least try to look sober, as you may have to explain that those 240 crates of lager are for personal use only and that you really don’t know how those two Chinese gentlemen got into that secret panel in the back of your van.
WIMBLEDON
The annual Grand Slam tournament at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is one of the major events in our sporting calendar and is used by many as a reminder of when not to book a holiday in Britain, as rain (see rain) is always guaranteed for its two-week duration. This period is also the only fortnight in the year when anyone becomes remotely interested in purchasing barley water, which is a drink for those who find orange squash a little too exciting. Since time immemorial, menopausal women have gathered on Henman Hill during the tournament to repeat the incantation ‘Cumontim’, which is believed to be an ancient prayer for a British victory in battle. The last British singles winner was Virginia Wade, back in 1977, and Fred Perry (see perry, fred) was the last men’s singles winner in 1936. Fans will often queue overnight for a chance to purchase one of the day tickets for the centre court, and some use the time to sell sexual favours in order to be able to afford to purchase the traditional strawberries and cream.
WIMPY
It is frightfully British that our introduction to the never- ending tide of American-influenced branded fast food should come on a proper plate and be accompanied somewhat confusingly, by a knife and fork. Wimpy bars were a step up from the frothy coffee houses and offered a strange selection of burgers and sausages served with chips, with many dishes not being too alien to those more familiar with the menu at the greasy spoon café. Wimpy was loved for its enormous milkshakes, though it was also famed for exotic desserts like the Brown Derby, which always looked intriguing but sounded far too scatological for most teenagers to order. It turns out it was just a doughnut with some ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Why didn’t they just say that? Wimpy bars still exist in towns where time has stood still since 1973.
WORKING MEN’S CLUBS
These shrines to sticky carpets, cheap beer and nicotine- stained old folk are a declining part of British life. As traditional trades and industry die out, so the leisure facilities built for those workforces are starting to be sold off and redeveloped. Some still hold out though, instantly taking visitors back to a period when brown decor was considered to be quite racy and when smoking 40 cigarettes a day was seen as giving the lungs a good workout. Various schemes have been mooted to help save these traditionally male environments. Suggestions include opening them up to a wider range of social classes or even turning some into middle-class men’s clubs, where like-minded souls can discuss status anxiety over a reasonable Merlot while watching news on house prices, without the possibility of being confronted by anyone with a threateningly large knowledge of gas boilers.
WORLD WAR II
There can barely be a Briton alive who does not feel the hairs on his or her neck stand on end when hearing the speech that Winston Churchill made as a pr
elude to the Battle of Britain, speaking of the struggle to come and the spirit that would be needed. The speech concluded: ‘…if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour”.’ This term ‘finest hour’ has come to represent the whole of World War II, with some justification. Everyone’s lives changed. Many didn’t survive to see victory and Britain at peace again. This was a pivotal moment in our history. World War II disproved the theory that a sequel was never as good as the original, retaining top spot over World War I to this day. Without it we wouldn’t have had Dad’s Army, Action Man, Battle comic or that brief, awkward period where we had to be all pally with the Russians and pretend that Communism was good. The war taught us a lot about ourselves, about community and about how to pretend that parsnips tasted a bit like bananas. It also gave us enough material to keep the British film industry alive well into the 1960s.
X
XENOPHOBIA
The natural state of Britons, perhaps due to the number of invasions we have suffered during our history, is one of fear and suspicion of anything or anyone foreign. We fear the Germans because they might invade, the French because they seem a bit frisky and a good number of Britons fear anyone more than a shade darker than pasty-white because they are probably richer than us, as they have to spend less on bronzing lotions and sunscreen. Xenophobia is, at its root, probably a healthy defense reflex, though it is often confused with racism, which is not. The British form of xenophobia is more about the dislike of French markets in our town centres selling overpriced bread and olives than any real hatred of the French people. Sentences containing the words ‘coming over here, taking our’ tend to be a signifier of racism as do sentences beginning ‘You know what’s wrong with this country?’ when said by taxi drivers or any middle-aged comedian who constantly moans that they can’t get on television anymore ‘because of political correctness’.