There’s a bewildering array of options that vary according to location, personal preference and the kind of establishment you’re sitting in, but the key ingredients in a fry-up tend to be picked from a list that looks something like this:
Fried egg: usually sunny-side up.
Bacon: back, rarely streaky. Thicker is better, and cooked until leathery.
Sausages: probably the least reliable component in terms of quality.
Tomato: cut in half and grilled, griddled or fried. Mushrooms: fried.
Baked beans: a staple of the British diet and a reliable garnish for most fried dishes.
Toast: to mop up any leftover juices.
To these, the British menu will often add a few strange terms, suggesting food items that you may not be immediately familiar with:
Black pudding: a thick slice of blood sausage, fried.
Bubble and squeak: potato fritters that may also contain cabbage, onions or carrots. A fried slice: fried bread.
Then there are your specialist variations:
Square sausage: sausage meat hammered into a square.
Haggis: sliced (see: Offal).
White pudding: a blood-free alternative to black pudding.
Hog’s pudding: a West Country variation of white pudding.
Tattie scones: potato scones—like hash browns, only more so.
And a selection of extra carbohydrates, for the hard-core glutton:
Hash browns: just to bump up the starch. Chips: for when hash browns just aren’t enough.
The important thing to know is that while the fry-up can be enjoyed on any day of the week, at any time—there are cafés that specialize in all-day breakfasts—cramming in that amount of saturated fat in one sitting isn’t always advisable, especially if your day job involves sitting quietly at a desk smacking your fingertips on a keypad. Rationing is key, and so a really good fried breakfast, while highly prized, tends to be something that is put aside for special occasions. By which I mean the day of your wedding, the day of someone else’s wedding, the weekend, getting to the airport on the first day of a holiday (also requires a pint of beer, no matter what the hour), a meeting with an old friend, a meeting with a new friend, a hangover, a Monday, lunchtime, the day after an upsetting (or inspiring) event, or a trip away from home that requires an overnight stay in a hotel.
This last option is surprisingly powerful. Staying in a hotel is not just an opportunity to order room service—like the rock stars do—or invest in a stout set of earplugs if the couple next door are over-amorous, it’s a chance to live a momentary dream of indulgence and luxury. In normal life, no one is going to bother to dig the frying pan out if there’s a chance of an extra fifteen minutes of sleep. Toast, or a hurried banana on the way out of the door, will do just fine.
In a hotel, though, someone has already made breakfast. It’s there, ready for you. It would be not only wasteful to turn it down, but downright rude (and as we know, the British are nothing if not slaves to decorum). It would be like waking up after leaving a tooth under your pillow, finding that it has magically been replaced with a coin in the night, and then leaving it there because too much money is bad for the soul.
WHAT TO SAY: “It’s okay, I’m going to skip lunch anyway. And dinner.”
WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Can I get some syrup for my bacon?”
Children’s TV
As adults, it’s often hard to let go of the thrills of childhood, and when those things come dancing into the corner of your living room, it’s as if they are extended members of the family. So rather than carrying on a Brideshead Revisited relationship with childhood toys, dragging a teddy bear wherever they go, a significant proportion of British adults have an internal hard drive stuffed full of theme tunes and voices, cartoons and friendly adults, taken from the children’s programming of their formative years.
But it’s not just aimless nostalgia—which would be perfectly fine—some of those shows stand up to repeated viewing even in an era of Kung Fu Panda, Frozen and Monsters, Inc.
British children were, and continue to be, extraordinarily well served by their televisions. From the earliest dreamy homemade stop-motion animations of Oliver Postgate—a Roald Dahl-ish spinner of yarns with a voice like a honeyed bassoon who created Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog—right up to the BBC’s In the Night Garden, an even dreamier modern classic for tiny tots, magical things kept pouring into the living room. Spells cast by a Magic Roundabout, or terrifying dubbed fairy tales from eastern Europe like The Singing, Ringing Tree, continue to resonate in the back of British minds.
And as with every item of minor trivia upon which opinions can be forced, this forms the basis of one very long and often rewarding pub conversation. One that you can always start if you’re stuck with people you don’t know.
Start with something nice and easy, a breezy reference to Padding-ton, Camberwick Green or Mr. Benn, then if it’s looking like they might bite, throw in a Womble or two—with the deathless bonus fact that the Wombles were so popular they had actual hit singles, one of which was promoted on Top of the Pops by members of Fairport Convention in Womble costumes—and prepare the final baited hooks to drop in the water. Try a Danger Mouse, a Take Hart, a Count Duckula, maybe something cultish like Jamie and the Magic Torch, Button Moon or Trap Door. If you’re getting really desperate and nothing seems to ignite the conversation, it’s time to break out the big gun: Grange Hill.
The hard-hitting school soap Grange Hill is your fail-safe because it had the lot: an instantly remembered theme tune, characters that everyone remembers (Tucker Jenkins, Gripper Stebson, Roland Browning, Bullet Baxter) and characters that dimly tug at the memory (Miss McCluskey, Ziggy Greaves, Pogo Patterson, Danny Kendall). Then there was the story line in which Zammo McGuire became addicted to heroin. That kicked off a campaign around drug awareness and another hit single, “Just Say No”, sung earnestly by the cast. Brits of a certain age remember the whole affair as if it happened to someone on their (Sesame) street.
Of course, this only works for Brits in their thirties and above. If they’re still in their early twenties, the same conversation can be attempted but there’s a chance they will flinch a bit. Some of the memories will be a bit too fresh for comfort, and childhood will still feel like something they have escaped, rather than lost. Still, the key reference points will be shows largely based on people who work in public service industries: Bob the Builder (who also had a hit single), Fireman Sam, Postman Pat, The Story of Tracy Beaker (lived in a foster home with foster carers) and Thomas the Tank Engine.
Dustbinman Nigel was never a thing. Don’t even mention it.
WHAT TO SAY: “Have you ever noticed how the names of the Teletubbies correspond with the members of the Who? John Entwistle is Po (faced), Roger Daltrey is Laa-Laa, Keith Moon is certainly Dipsy, and Pete Townshend is Tinky-Winky, swinging his handbag.”
WHAT NOT TO SAY: “I never watched TV as a kid. I used to read books, actually.”
America
The kinship between Britain and America is often characterized as a complicated one, an indefinable and slightly sullen cultural exchange that hides under the vague umbrella term “special relationship” and tries hard not to pick faults in either direction (although they definitely could find some if they were forced to). That said, there’s evidence of enormous affection on both sides: British kids in baseball caps and hoodies listening to hip-hop and keeping a weather eye out for “the feds” would be lost without American culture, and bookish American teens with Tom Hiddleston tumblrs, Adele’s latest in the earbuds and a stack of Conan Doyles to work through would be similarly cut adrift.
In fact, while the American view of Britain is probably generally fond but largely disinterested, it’s very easy to illustrate how most British people see America, using one figure from popular culture: Jer-maine Jackson. To be specific, the Brits are Jermaine Jackson looking at Michael Jackson (who, for the purposes of this illustration
, is America) at some point during the 1980s and trying to figure out where all his emotions are coming from.
On paper, Jermaine has a lot to offer. He’s the older sibling, has talent and charisma, and stands as a reminder of his younger brother’s roots and faltering early steps. He shares a lot of common reference points and, while there has been tension in the past, there’s a lot of understanding and admiration there too. At one point, he was the leader, the strong, confident voice ready to take over the world. But he has since withdrawn in the face of ‘80s Michael’s scorching charisma, and now his contribution, while worthy, and well loved by people who take the time to learn about such things, is as naught when compared to that of his brother.
Sometimes they work together, and everyone looks at Jermaine again. And sometimes they work apart, and . . . well, it’s different.
Jermaine knows this to be true, and he understands why things are the way they are. He is as impressed with Michael as anyone, and he knows that to stand against his exceptionally talented brother’s moment of total assurance would be foolish. He has even taken up some of Michael’s characteristics, become something of an expert in the things his impish sibling has already abandoned. Almost like a curator.
But that doesn’t mean his view is uncritical. Jermaine still feels the pain of being overtaken, knows that his brother’s ascent has been at his expense, and not without leaving behind some valuable things along the way. Which would be bad enough (no pun intended) without the sense that troubling things are happening over there at Never-land and someone should really say something. Structural changes are taking place that hint at future problems that could take down the entire family, but while Michael remains the uncontested King of Pop, all Jermaine can do is watch and ponder quietly while still being borne aloft by all the hoopla.
Or to be less metaphorical: Brits love America. They love the food and the music and the TV and the movies and the culture and the weather and the landscape and the optimism and the confidence and the baseball caps and the sneakers (only they call them trainers, because they are used when training, not sneaking).
But sometimes they also love saying that America is a bit dumb and easily dazzled. And they can find plenty of evidence for that too.
WHAT TO SAY: “Hi, I’m your new neighbour. Would you like to come over for root beer and snickerdoodles?”
WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Hey, buddy, how do I get to Chel-ten-ham?”
Desert Island Discs
When preparing an interview with someone in the public eye, it should be fairly easy to sit down, ask questions about her life and come away with some plain and honest truths. But if you really want to colour in the picture and find out what that person is really like—the things that motivate her, the way she grieves, her formative influences—you’d be better off asking her about her relationship with music.
That’s the simple truth that underpins the format of one of British radio’s most successful shows, and one that remains a national favourite over seventy years after it was first devised.
The format for the BBC’s Desert Island Discs is based in a simple question, first posed in 1941 by the show’s creator, Roy Plomley: if you were stuck on a desert island, which eight records would you wish to have with you?
Of course, the answer is nowhere near as simple, and plenty of people have unravelled when having to choose which of their audio darlings to leave behind and which to include. Do you pick songs that were with you during key moments in your life, or do you pick songs that you really like at the moment? Do you try to cover a broad enough sweep of music to represent the full range of your music taste—ask any Brit what kind of music he likes and without fail he will airily say something like “I like a really eclectic mix of things”—or do you just pick the longest possible songs you can, in the certain knowledge that no one can stand to hear just eight songs over and over again without pining for variety like an unstroked dog pines for attention?
The answers to the question form the backbone of an extended interview, in which Roy (or most recently Kirsty Young) asks a notable figure to tell the story of his or her life, with significant breaks to explain these records and play them. Then at the end, the guest is offered the Bible (or equivalent book of faith), the complete works of Shakespeare and a third book of the guest’s choosing, and one luxury item, on the understanding that it cannot be used to aid in an escape. One final twist of the knife, as the guest is asked to choose his or her one favourite of the eight, and that’s the end of the show.
It’s a featherweight conceit, one that takes longer to explain than it does to grasp, but the glory of Desert Island Discs is that the format creates a bespoke radio show around each of its interviewees. They are placed into a comfortable sonic space in which uncomfortable truths can be relatively painlessly expressed; they feel they are standing on home territory, that everyone else is on their desert island. Consequently each show is its own entity, a different place to visit. And since the BBC unveiled an online archive of over five hundred episodes, it’s possible to island hop not just in space, but in time too.
Of course, it’s not all about revelations. Sometimes you really do just get to hear what some A-list celebrity or public figure thinks about music, and that can reveal interesting truths about the person’s character. Themes start to emerge: politicians pick records that will curry favor with their constituents; serious actors pick serious records that make them seem deep and thoughtful; grumpy TV chefs, for whom taste is all, often pick bland, mulchy and unseasoned records, because you can’t be an expert in everything.
Sometimes there are guests for whom music is clearly nothing but a background noise, but even that has its own psychological fascination. Surely everyone loves music on some level, don’t they? And if not, why not?
But the real hook of Desert Island Discs, the one British listeners have been wriggling on for decades, is that question. It would not be a stretch to claim that everyone has some idea which records they would choose. It’s not uncommon to overhear people, when hearing a beloved song on the radio, exclaiming “This is one of my desert island discs” proudly, as if opening a golden envelope at the Academy Awards.
And that’s because to be on Desert Island Discs is a public honour, a rite of passage for anyone with an ambition to be noticed. It’s Carnegie Hall, a shot at the White House, the front cover of Time magazine; and British listeners treat it with due reverence, always vaguely wondering what they would do if presented with the same dilemma.
WHAT TO SAY: “You can’t pick ‘Mustang Sally’ over ‘Nessun dorma’! That’s just wrong!”
WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Of course, nowadays you’d have your entire music library on your iPod anyway. Which would have to be solar powered . . .”
Creating New Worlds
It’s tempting to blame everything that happens in Britain on the weather. We already know Brits enjoy talking about it; they certainly take perverse pleasure in going on long walks in it; and when it closes in, there’s little to be done except sit by a hot thing with a cup of hot runny stuff nearby and imagine what other, more welcoming realities must be like.
It’s not a simple case of dreaming of a world in which it is possible to go and buy a Sunday newspaper—so called because it is packed with such an acreage of supplements it won’t be fully digested in a month of Sundays—and return home without the paper becoming a sodden papier-mâché model of an Arctic roll. Bad weather makes everything seem grey and dreary, and that’s what the British makers of worlds seek to escape more than anything else.
So when C. S. Lewis conceived of Narnia, it was as a place of binary extremes: a golden kingdom, glazed in sunshine and scented with the blossom of spring, or a frozen wasteland, a paradise in waiting. At no point does Aslan’s kingdom experience sludgy autumnal drizzle or the kind of dreary sogginess that characterizes the British February. In every other respect Narnia is Britain, of course; a medieval Britain with no mud, better toilet facilities and a lot of mythical
creatures, but still recognizably not Italy.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth is familiar territory too. The Shire is clearly an affectionate caricature of the eternal myth of British village life, with sun-dappled harvests and lots of drinking, pipe smoking and tall tales about dragons. Granted, Tolkien’s sharp eye could not resist showing the hobbits up for being provincial—they are, in every respect, the little people—but for all that there is adventure and astonishment taking place in the wild lands over yonder, home is where the hobbit heart is, especially if it is not raining.
That’s not to say British fantasy writers are obsessed with the myth of the great British (meaning English) countryside. Terry Pratchett rather likes a spot of rain, and his Discworld, while still notably medieval, is muddier, wetter and murkier than the golden visions of Tolkien or Lewis. But that’s because his books are supposed to be funny. Mud is always funnier than sunshine. Douglas Adams had a similar tack in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. By making the character Arthur Dent as English as the children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and as parochial as Bilbo Baggins—he travels space and time wearing the dressing gown he had put on shortly before the Earth was blown up—and then plopping him onto a spaceship, Adams gets to play with the traditional British values of being a bit starchy, uncool, slow on the uptake, and obsessed with finding a decent cup of tea.
Then there are Wonderland and Neverland, two magical worlds in which all the rules of (respectively) Victorian and Edwardian British society are turned on their heads to prove to children that they have been put there for a very good reason. Alice goes hurtling from rabbit hole to croquet lawn, being grown by cakes and shrunk by potions and threatened with execution by a crazed queen. It’s a horrifying ordeal, even for such a bossy girl, and an unbeatable metaphor for children knowing their place and not being in too much of a hurry to grow up. On a similar note, Peter Pan actively refuses to grow up and take responsibility, living on an adventure island and fighting with an eternal father figure who is scared of the passage of time (that crocodile—clockodile, more like—with a ticking stomach: a literal consumer of bodies).
Stuff Brits Like Page 17