just to let you know

the british way

People sometimes ask me what I think the "British Way" is. To me, a little anecdote describes this best.

During January 1998, I visited a german friend who did a practical down in Bournemouth. I was still a student and lived in Coventry at the time. It was my friend's birthday on Saturday and I took the National Express down to lovely Bournemouth. I arrived fairly late and we went straight to an Irish Pub where we consumed substantial amounts of alcohol. We continued celebrating until the wee small hours and had a great time.

Needless to say that I felt a bit under the weather the next morning - I stayed in a B&B that my friend had arranged for me. I either must have been the only visitor that weekend or terribly late because when I finally went downstairs for breakfast, there was no one else there but the landlady. After placing my order and staring into a Nirvana behing the Cornflakes box, she reappeared with my breakfast and also decided to have a conversation with me. "Oh dear", I thought and it turned out to be one of the biggest morning-after ordeals I have ever had in my life. She wanted to know all the glory details - Where I come from, what I do in Cov and if I would stay in the UK forever - the usual stuff. After a while of talking through a major headache I put my courage in both of my hands and popped the important question, "Excuse me, but do you maybe have an Aspirin for me?". "Oh,", she said, "have you got a headache?". "Yes," I replied, "we've been to O'Neills last night - the Irish pub in town, you know".
And here it comes: smiling, she replied, "Oh, I know this place, they play terribly loud music there. I'll get you your Aspirin.".

How lovely! To me, it doesn't get more british than this. Even though her smile revealed a certain kind of Schadenfreude for my misery, she would *never* be rude and mention this to me. A german landlord would have probably lectured me about age and alcohol and drugs - she simply kept stumm about it and would never even dare to interfere into what's my business.

Posted by Michael at February 17, 2004 01:31 AM