BLOG 167: KYLIE!!!... eat yer chips!

“I don't hold with abroad and think that foreigners speak English when our backs are turned” Quentin Crisp


I’m toying with the idea of ‘abroad’ for next weekend. For a ludicrously cheap price, my son and I can spend all day Saturday in Paris, catch up with a dear friend of mine who is Paris from Australia and murder the French language as only a couple of Brits can.

It’s a very tempting idea... as you know Kent is the closest county of the UK to France and in fact the French are less than 22 miles from our shores at the closest point. The British Isles may well be bobbing about in the sea off the continent but we are indisputably European, and that means venturing abroad often means dropping in on our mainland neighbours.

However, those of my readers who are not from the UK may or may not be aware of the rather frazzled relationship between us and them ‘on the continent”. Most of my American friends do like to think of us Brits as permanently in an EM Forster novel... expanding our education by absorbing neo-classical architecture and talking school girl French to the locals. And I am sure, on an individual level, a Brit abroad is probably close to this model.

However, the reality of the Brit Abroad En Masse is a very different proposition.

In this scenario, the Brit Abroad turns into a horrid fusion of excessive flesh and uncouthness. It becomes more than apparently clear why the other Europeans hate hosting us.

It is quite frankly because we lower the tone... and to rub salt in the wound we are PROUD of it.

I recall an episode of the programme “Coach Trip” (series 6 day 19) in which a party of Brits were in the gorgeous city of Porto doing the world renowned cruise of the bridges on the Douro river. As seen from the river, the architectural forms of the city of Porto emerge majestically. It is a dazzling landscape, unique in the world. The summer temperatures of this lovely part of Portugal can rise to 35°C (95°F). Given the British propensity for having a less-is-less approach to clothing in hot weather, the pragmatic Portuguese had made available personal shade for each of the British tourists taking part in the cruise. Each tourist was given the cooling shade of a personal umbrella that the Portuguese had kindly made available with Union Jacks on to make them feel at home.

So what did the Brits abroad do with them? Use them as intended for shade from the sun?... NO, that would not be remotely as sensible as waving then in the path of on coming shipping screaming at the top of their lungs “INNNGERRRRRLHUNDDD!!!”. The following day, (unsurprisingly), the tourists were hospitalised for heatstroke.

This is not by any means a unique experience to anyone who has spotted my country men abroad. Although the British Reserve is renown worldwide... all it takes for us to shed it is a ticket to outside our borders!

I am fortunate that although born and bred and proud to be British... I do not look like your classical image of a Brit. My son is even more fortunate in that he has the brown haired, olive skinned, hazel eyed appearance that is indicative of a thousand nationalities. We can travel abroad without our continental neighbours feeling the urge to sell up and move cause (to misquote Paul Revere) “THE BRITISH ARE COMING!”. However once it is known that I hail from the island in the North Sea... the questions begin.

“... but WHY do you British WANT to wear clothes that exacerbate your rotundity?”

“What is so great about shouting “KYLIE!!! Eat yer chips!” at a child less than 6 inches from you?”

I am afraid each time I am asked I am stumped. I have no answers for them.

But is a fact that in the main my fellow country men travel to continental Europe to do just four things:

1) To dress badly

2) To shout at each other/passing strangers

3) To allow our children to behave APPALLINGLY

4) To get sunburned/heatstroke

We have to do these things. I don’t know why... but we do.

We shop especially before venturing abroad and find flip-flops covered in bling for the females and brown leather sandals that will accommodate socks for the males. We would not dream of such footwear at home... but the knowledge that we are leaving these shores says that that is ok. Women purchase batty-rider shorts that are only ever seen on gansta rap videos and grandma of 80 through to granddaughter of 8 wear them every day ‘abroad’ regardless if we are heading for a beach or visiting a religious shrine. Men purchase Hawaiian shirts regardless of the fact they are heading to Europe and alternate them with football shirts for teams for which they have never purchased a season ticket – both are worn with shorts that have the biggest pockets ever seen on clothing (this because the wife/girlfriend/daughters batty riders do not accommodate the usual contents of her handbag). This uniform makes us easily identifiable as British (NO other European national would be seen dead dressed like it) but in case of any possibility for being mistaken as a local we purchase accessories with our union jack flag on it, just in case.

We cannot converse at the delicate pitch we use at home when abroad. Being somewhere foreign to us, means nothing works the same as at home and that includes our personal hearing. That means we MUST roar at each other even when in close proximity... it also means that the delicate tinkering laugh we do at home is not going to work abroad so we assume it helps if we scream instead. In the case of conversing with the locals (who we must always think of us foreigners even though it is us who are foreign and it is them that are at home) we know that our native tongue is superior to theirs so really they MUST understand it. The only reason why they seem not to understand is because we are not talking loudly enough... so we shout in English at them. When in doubt it always helps to roar out the constitute country you are from in the British Isles... “INNNGERRRRRLHUNDDD!!!” allows Johnny foreigner to know you are from England, but equally “WERRRRRRRHAAAALLLES!” “SCAAAATTLIND!!” or even “OOOORRRREEEEELUND” gets the point over that they are enjoying the presence of a Welshman, Scot or an inhabitant of Northern Ireland.

Our children have the longest school hours of any of our continental neighbours. British children also enjoy the least freedom on the grounds that an unrestrained and totally free media have created a totally fictitious world in which every child is at permanent risk of unimaginable peril. Thus British children are car-ferried about at home and are under parental watch not short of 24/7. So once we leave our unsafe borders and wander into continental Europe... we can relax and let them off the leash. Thus it is the British child that is running up and down in restaurants, climbing up Art exhibits and mistaking their adults sudden ability to shout all day long as an invitation to roar obscenities at anyone.

The Norwegian band A-ha, famously sung that here in Northern Europe it often seems as if the Sun Only Shines On TV. Not that that stops our fellow northern neighbours like Holland, Denmark, Sweden or indeed Norway taking the factor 30 with them when visiting our more southerly neighbours. We don’t. We purposely go abroad to test the hospital systems of the continent. As our representatives on “Coach Trip” showed... even when given protection from the sun by our more knowledgeable hosts... we will find alternative use for them and fry ourselves to a crisp. If we haven’t left enough DNA in our hotel rooms from the amount of skin we shed abroad... then we might as well have stayed at home.

It’s what we do.

It’s how we roll.

So I am thinking.... Saturday, Paris to go or not to go?

Paris puts on its postcard face in July and really is the place to be. July tends to bring on a laid-back, yet stimulating, mood in Paris. People are out and about, roaming the picturesque streets at languid pace or nursing drinks on sunny terraces. What with them being our near neighbour after all... shouldn’t we pop over?

But lets get real our harshest critics are of course the French. They’ve been miffed since 1066 as the colony they founded here just didn’t quite work out for them. If they can find a reason to snipe at us (French cooking is better/French kissing is better)...they will. They love to say that a Parisian in London would pass seamlessly through notable only for the fact he will be better dressed and sexier than his hosts. They love to point out that a Londoner in Paris will stand out like “une balise de lumière sur la nuit la plus sombre” (a sore thumb!).

Could my son and I go to Paris and shock them with our ‘de chicdressing’, could we converse in school French at “decibles régulier”, could he conduct himself like a child used to being in the “sphère publique“ and recognise that even with our colouring a little “facteur trente” on a 75.2°F (24°C) day may be called for. Could we in one day improve Anglo-French relations by being abroad waving the flag for “Cool Britannia”?

Or would they think THAT would be an accessory too far!








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