Stuff Brits Like

by Fraser McAlpine

  In 2003, the British foreign secretary Jack Straw famously referred to the dossier of evidence for weapons of mass destruction that led to British involvement in the invasion of Iraq as “a complete Horlicks”, which cast the term in a far less charming light. Had he opted just to swear mildly instead, who knows what would have happened?

  While you’re mulling this over, and we’re on the topic of names, did you know that Ovaltine was originally called Ovamaltine? It’s made with malt; that’s a key part of the brand. But a faulty label on a packing note when shipping cases from Switzerland—where it was originally developed—to the UK caused a total rebrand of the product, one that now leaves the original name sounding not unlike Homer Simpson singing “saxamaphone” to the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth.

  So, Horlicks, then. Like Ovaltine it’s a malted milk drink in powder form, beloved of people who need something hot and filling just before bedtime. The ingredients are different, in that Horlicks is closer to being a ground-up biscuit or cake than being just a powdered mix of malt and milk powder, but that’s by the by. The point is people drink it before bedtime to aid restful sleep. But what you may not know is that even the people at GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures Horlicks, have no idea why it may work. There’s something about the malt being a way of keeping the stomach full overnight, but they’re as much in the dark about the effects as anyone.

  You don’t even need to drink it hot. In fact, in Hong Kong cafés Horlicks is served chilled with ice, much as you’d drink a malted milk. And in India, where the drink arrived with returning soldiers from the First World War, it represents 85 per cent of GlaxoSmithKline’s revenue in the entire country. Horlicks is second only to water in popularity.

  Back in Blighty, people who find the choice between Ovaltine and Horlicks to be too restrictive can also choose Milo, a third malted beverage, created in Australia and similarly ready for nighttime use. Due to a manufacturing quirk, Milo maintains a gritty texture, even when fully dissolved in water or milk, and some people even sprinkle the powder on ice cream as a garnish. It is made with chocolate, which means it has a sweeter taste and may even prove to be a slight stimulant. This makes it better suited to an early evening drink on a cold day, rather than a replacement for hot milk and cookies at the end of an evening. And certainly the advertising for Milo in Australia suggests it’s a get-up-and-go drink, rather than a settle-down-and-snooze one.

  Mind you, if you’re struggling to get off the sofa and get yourself to bed, maybe it’ll provide just enough of a jolt to get you up the stairs.

  WHAT TO SAY: “If I put whisky in my nightcap, would that make me an alcohorlick?”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Can’t sleep? Here, try this cup of hot bollocks.”

  Camping

  Not everyone enjoys roughing it, especially not during a hard-earned holiday, without which some kind of internal pressure valve would blow, necessitating the purchase of a long-distance weapon—and as it’s Britain, we’re talking either a starter pistol with a toilet-roll barrel extension or a peashooter with telescopic sights—and a conveniently central and elevated location from which to unleash fiery (pea-flavoured) vengeance on an uncaring world.

  The prospect of going to a field; building your own home; and trying to maintain a safe, clean and dry environment in the teeth of plummeting temperatures, howling gales and soaking rain, is simply not a universally appealing one, no matter what Glastonbury veterans would have you believe. And yet, for the people who don’t consider a hotel without room service to be on a par with living like cavepersons, camping remains incredibly popular.

  It may be because of the chance to go for a bracing walk in the fresh air, which is an often-used British euphemism for “a grumpy trudge in the freezing rain, looking at the sky with hopeful eyes and sighing”, or it could be a quest to defy the odds on the faint hope that one day it will be dry enough to light an actual fire and sit around it and roast marshmallows. That’s the dream. But the most likely explanation is that camping is cheap and you have to be cheerful to endure it, and those two words have a magical effect on those Brits who still harbour an affection for the spirit of the Blitz. “Oh, come on,” they’ll say encouragingly, “it won’t kill you, so where’s the harm?”

  And of course, Brits being Brits, a distinct class system has emerged among campers, albeit one in which each strand looks down upon the others: a kind of Mobius strip of snobbery under canvas.

  To mark this onto a graph of elitism, the x-axis would be marked “home comforts” and the y-axis would be “proximity to nature”. So people who own a static caravan in a campsite that boasts a leisure complex with a bar and restaurant and live entertainment have better resources than any of their campsite peers, a definite home away from home with electricity, a flushing toilet (within the walls of their dwelling) and the ability to boil a kettle without striking a match. But they’re not exactly at one with the environment.

  Whereas pitching a one-person tent in a field on a remote Welsh mountain where the only available electricity comes forking down from the very heavens and the only entertainment available is the satisfaction that comes from digging a latrine—that’ll test the mettle, it’ll irrigate the primal enjoyment cortex. Everything else exists somewhere on the spectrum between these two extremes.

  So if you arrive on a bicycle with a little pod tent in your panniers, that’s one thing; if you’re planning to decant a chillboxful of very drinkable Prosecco inside a year-round yurt and then head for the communal supper and talent show, that’s something else. Some people camp because they like to barbecue and drink and sing; others, because they have children and want them to spend their holidays running as wild as they can within certain clearly defined boundaries. Some like their temporary accommodation to be palatial; others huddle up together in the cold, telling ghost stories until late in the night and cooking bananas in foil. The only two things all campers have in common is a low opinion of the way everyone else is doing it, and an even lower opinion of caravanners.

  Not, I should add, people who live in caravans because of their culture, heritage or ethnic background; they have enough of a rough time without accusing them of being poor campers. No, the real venom is reserved for the slowpoke road snails who carry their homes behind them on two wobbly wheels. They’re looked down upon not just by the other campers; drivers also hate them for clogging up the A-roads, which they do with precision accuracy every bank holiday and for a good deal of the summer.

  Somehow the act of taking all those mod cons along for the ride and then attaching a tent on the outside—like campers do—is enough to enrage temporary field dwellers of all stripes. But mostly those who sleep under canvas, those who know they could take themselves off into wilder climes if they wanted to. Being in the presence of caravans makes them feel not unlike the wolf that has been chained up in the back garden in a wooden house with “Poochie” above the door. They hate that.

  Not that caravanners give a stuff. If they did, they would not be caravanners. Cool is not something that unduly troubles people who tow caravans to and from their holidays. They’re too keen on the practicalities, on the delicious joy of avoiding two key camping headaches that everyone else has to put up with, namely (a) cramming bedding and groceries and clothing into a car and (b) having to put up tents.

  Although none of this lot is anywhere near as bad as the people who drive motorized caravans and tow a smaller car behind. A clearer argument for just bloody booking a hotel is hard to imagine.

  WHAT TO SAY: “Let’s just book four or five pitches next to each other and make a little enclave in the spinney, like explorers!”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “We should just sleep under the stars, man. And if we wait here long enough, we’re bound to see them eventually.”

  Scolds

  Thanks to the boom in reality TV talent shows over the past few years, the British have been able to clearly see something about themselves that hadn’t been immediately apparent before. They adore
being told off. They just can’t get enough of it. And the best person to administer a really good telling-off is a professional scold, a nag, a termagant: the person whose job it is to poop the party that they clearly feel was beneath them to attend in the first place. Never mind the extraordinary efforts, talents and achievements under discussion, the scold is there to remind everyone that nobody is perfect, and that even if you succeed, you can still fail. Utterly.

  Naturally they will perform this duty with the maximum disdain, because that’s the job. Being unimpressable means that when you finally crack the mask and offer the very slightest moment of grudging encouragement, it is proof positive that something momentous has happened. These are the rules of drama; a conflict has taken place—all across the scold’s sour puss and out of his mouth—and then it is resolved, for now.

  And it’s a rule that has been applied across countless TV shows in Britain: The X Factor, The Hotel Inspector, Dancing on Ice, The Weakest Link, Supernanny, Masterchef, Strictly Come Dancing, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, The Great British Bake Off—every one has a flinty and judgmental scold at the heart of the show’s appeal, often hiding behind his or her own scowl, ready to lay down the final evaluation with devastating coldness. Or in the case of Gordon Ramsay, naked aggression.

  The key to being a good scold is twofold: have a face that looks as though disappointment has somehow physically eroded it. Two of Britain’s biggest scold exports are Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsay: two men who would confidently claim to be strong, thrusting alpha males. And yet their faces hang heavy with the weight of their darkest thoughts. Gordon’s face contains deep ravines, and looks like a sculpture of an angry bulldog carved into an old leather cushion, while Simon’s is a kind of glowering kitchen appliance, an expensive blender or coffee grinder with deeply angry eyes that simply can’t see why it isn’t allowed to take over the whole kitchen and lick it into shape.

  Speaking of faces, there’s also Anne Robinson, who has gone to such extreme lengths to reinforce that steely countenance that she appears to have surgically altered her features so that they are incapable of smiling, lest a rogue cheekbone suddenly protrude through the middle of her forehead. The severity of her facial expression (singular) is merely there to further reinforce the aura of a strict headmistress facing a cowering pupil who only wants to please, but won’t.

  And then there are the professional contrarian scolds. These are people who will hold deliberately unpopular and scathing opinions on any topic, in order to secure a slot on a TV or radio debate. They can be writers and columnists for news organizations; they can be thinkers and authors; they can even be entertainers with an axe to grind. The current grande madame of British professional contrarians is Katie Hopkins, a former contestant in The Apprentice, columnist for The Sun and full-time bigmouth. Just like her namesake, the 17th-century self-styled Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, Katie sees her role as twisting barbs of stands-to-reason logic around the barest minimum of facts in order to malign people she does not like. These include: fat people, poor people, disabled people, unsuccessful people, people with red hair, but most especially people about whom it will serve Katie Hopkins to say intolerant things on TV and in the press.

  She does it well, too. So well that there are campaigns against her appearing on certain TV shows, and if you say her name three times into a mirror she steals a part of your eternal soul, but the Brits rather enjoy watching a forthright exchange of insane opinions while thinking someone is a colossal bellend, so she’ll never be short of work.

  Her fellow newspaper columnists (across the political spectrum) fulfil an identical remit, proudly standing in opposition to the perceived wisdoms of the day—most notably “judge not, that ye be not judged”—and wondering aloud if they are the only people that can see how idiotic everything is. They know they are not really, but that’s all part of the exaggerated stance of the contrarian scold. Even the exasperated cliché about “going to hell in a handbasket” puts the emphasis in a contrary place, suggesting that the means of transportation is the key factor, not the destination. Presumably “going to hell in a comfortable saloon car with airconditioning and a minibar” would be far less vexing a proposition.

  Jeremy Clarkson wrote a whole series of tetchy books on this exact theme, repeatedly asking why he should personally care about things society has to care about. And the fact is, he does not. Society definitely does, but Jeremy Clarkson, celebrity car up-smasher? Nope. That’s a seductive idea for his readers to consider, although slightly worrying for society—society does love a worry—but so long as common prejudices are reinforced and everyone gets to go away from the experience feeling a little bit naughty while someone else gets the telling off, he’ll be just fine (see: Cocking a Snook).

  WHAT TO SAY: “Even Simon Cowell’s NAME is a SCOW.”

  WHAT NOT TO SAY: “Book Katie Hopkins on your TV show once, shame on you. Book her twice, shame on everyone.”

  Slang and Making Up Words

  As a patchwork nation made up of counties upon countries upon kingdoms, Britain wears its idiosyncratic quirks of language like fans wear the T-shirt of their favourite band. New communities mint new words on a daily basis, whether because they wish to hide something from the authorities—as is the case with almost all youthspeak, rhyming slang and Polari, the secret gay language of mid-twentieth-century London—or because they want to find a way to discuss coarse matters in polite society.

  Some slang fits neither brief, of course. Popular Britishisms like cheerio and tickety-boo and fab are just colourful ways to use language. And the Brits do love a bit of colour in their social discourse. There’s not enough room to cover every made-up phrase or invented word in the British English language, but here’s a decent smattering, a lastminute glossary of possibly unfamiliar terms, to get you started.

  Note: Not all of these are in common use everywhere.

  Bairn—baby or small child

  Banjaxed—broken

  Bare—lots of, many or really, as in “I’m bare drunk”

  Bawbag—scrotum; but mainly used as an all-purpose insult

  Beast—top-notch, very good

  Bee’s knees—the acme of excellence

  Berk—idiot (affectionate term); taken from a slang term for vagina

  Bevvy—alcoholic beverage

  Blag—get something for free

  Bob’s your uncle—“and there we have it”

  Bonce—head

  Bonk—have sex

  Cheerio—good-bye

  Cheers—a drinking toast, also a fond farewell, also a thank-you

  Chirpsing—flirting

  Chuffed—proud, pleased

  Chunder—vomit

  Cling film—plastic wrap

  Clinker, beezer, cracker—good

  Cock-up—all gone horribly wrong

  Codswallop—nonsense, piffle

  Dicky—unwell

  Dosh, wonga, spondulicks—money

  Dry—no fun

  Extra—over the top

  Faff—(verb) waste time; (noun) fuss or bother

  Fancy—find someone attractive

  Fanny, quim, tuppence—vagina

  Fit—sexy

  Fizzog—face

  Fringe—bangs, as in hair

  Gammy—lame, sore or infected

  Gipper—old person

  Gobsmacked—surprised

  Goolies, wedding tackle, meat and two veg—male genitalia

  Grotty—disgusting, of poor quality

  Gutted—very upset

  Gyp—pain, as in “my gammy leg is giving me gyp”

  Her Majesty’s pleasure—prison

  Hobbledehoy—a swaggering youth or awkward buffoon

  Iffy—dodgy

  I’ll give you a bell—“I’m going to call you on the phone”

  Jobsworth—overly officious official

  Kip—sleep

  Knackered—tired, as in “fit for the knacker’s yard”, where horses were taken to die />
  Knackers—testicles

  Knob, todger—penis

  Lost the plot—gone a bit mad

  Lush—very good or very attractive

  Minger—unattractive person

  Numpty—idiot (meant as an affectionate term)

  Nut—head

  Off your chump—crazy

  Oh, my giddy aunt!—“oh, crikey!”

  Parking the tiger—throwing up

  Plastered—drunk

  Poxy—faulty or dirty

  Quite—very, as in “quite sure”, “quite finished”, “quite cross”

  Rat arsed—drunk

  Rubbish—refuse, also nonsense, also poor quality

  Scrumping—stealing apples

  Scundered—embarrassed

  She looks well in that—“she looks hideous”

  Slag—sexually promiscuous person (usually a damning insult for a girl)

  Slag off—criticizing someone

  Slapper—sexually promiscuous girl

  Smart—well groomed

  Smasher—attractive person; can also be used fondly to refer to nice friends, children etc.

  Snog—kiss

  Sod it—“oh, what the hell!”

  Sod off—“go away”

  Speaking Welsh—throwing up

  Spliff—marijuana cigarette

  Steaming—drunk

  Stitched up good and proper—conned, fooled

  Ta—“thanks”