Greg Wesson's Esoteric Globe

The most British sounding thing yet said to me since arriving in the United Kingdom was said over breakfast. It was this.

"You are lazy with the knife."

The comment was made back in November, just a couple weeks before I headed over to Arizona for my 2 month long project in Phoenix. I was invited out to breakfast by one of my flatmates, Pete. He had a girl visiting him from San Diego, California, and the three of us, along with another flatmate Chris, went out to eat.

I ordered the full English breakfast, which is oft known here as a "fry-up." The full English breakfast includes eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, toast and tomatoes. At least, the one that I ordered had those things. Technically, a full English breakfast should include blood sausage, however many places seem not to include the blood sausage any more. Apparently the thought of oatmeal and pig's blood isn't even appetising to the Brits anymore.

As an aside, or rather a second aside seeing as the whole blood-sausage-thing wasn't really pertinent to the story, Bacon here is different than in North America. Bacon, as we know it in North America, known here as "streaky bacon." Streaky bacon comes from the belly of a pig, comes in thin strips and is heavily veined with fat. British bacon, on the other hand, is back bacon, coming from the loin of the pig. It is claimed that this is the same as "Canadian bacon," though I've had both Canadian bacon and bacon here in the UK, and Canadian bacon always tastes more like ham to me. I think it is because Canadian bacon is usually trimmed into a circle with no fat, whereas British bacon is left as an oblong piece of meat and fat. The long and short of the bacon discussion is this - I miss streaky bacon.

Back to that breakfast in early November, I was eating my eggs, sausage and bacon when Chris said to Pete's visitor that she was, "quite lazy with the knife. Is that an American thing? I notice that Greg is quite lazy with the knife as well."

I looked up from a bite of sausage and said, "wha?", probably spewing bits of sausage from my mouth.

"You are lazy with your knife," Chris repeated.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"You tend not to use your knife, smashing food into bits with your fork instead of cutting it with into proper pieces with your knife," Chris explained.

I looked down at my plate. He was right. Other than the sausage, I wasn't using my knife for anything. The eggs and bacon I was using the side of my fork to tear apart. Even the sausage, which required the knife, I had cut into little bits right at the start of the meal, and was now just picking up the pre-cut pieces.

It wasn't always like this for me. After all, I came from a good British background and so I learned as a child how to eat like a proper British person. Over the years, though, living as a bachelor and spending a lot of time in the USA, I've adopted American eating habits.

Since that breakfast and getting called to task for it, I have tried, when possible, to eat more like a Brit, and be less lazy with my knife.

So, how do you eat like a Brit?

First, you need to ensure that your elbows don't touch the table. After years of working in the United States, I tend now to eat with my elbows planted firmly on the table. My fork and knife stab downwards from there, kind of like Jason from Friday the 13th stabbing at young campers in the forest.

In Britain, you need to hold your elbows off the table, almost like you are about to break into the chicken dance. Elbows out, arms parallel to the table.

The knife goes into your right hand, the fork in the left. You cut your food by holding it down with your fork while slicing with the knife. Once you have sliced off a bite sized portion, you put the knife down, switch your fork over to your right hand before bringing the food to the mouth.

Once you finish chewing, you put down your fork to take a sip of your drink. Then you can pick up back the fork and the knife and move on to your next bite.

That is how you eat like a Brit.

...or, more correctly, that is how I was taught as a child to eat like a proper British person. Looking around, though, I am not sure that is how British folks really eat any more. In my examining how others eat, I have made some observations.

Brits do eat slower and more deliberately than North Americans. They aren't lazy with their knifes, they do properly cut their food, rather than tearing it apart with the fork. No more, though, is the restriction against elbows on the table hold. I'm fine with that, because it's always nice to lean against something. If the British are going to make me be less lazy with my knife, than at least I can be a little lazy with my elbows.

No more, either do folks switch their forks from their left to their right hands. As a kid, it always struck me as being as waste of energy. After all, my left hand is as good as my right to bring food up to my mouth. So the fact that the Brits have caught on to this, and now no longer switch forks between hands makes sense. It shows they are able to learn and make improvements. It is the same spirit of innovation that brought about the industrial revolution, the Spitfire, the flush toilet and curry as a late night snack food. Okay, that last one was more a transfer of an existing food to a drunken, late night snack, but still, it is impressive.

There is, though, one problem with not switching the fork over to my right hand. My right hand is more coordinated than my left, and thus there are times when my clumsy left hand winds up dropping food on my shirt. In those cases, using my stronger hand probably would have made more sense. Ah well, I am a North American, after all. Occasionally I need to eat like a slob, otherwise I'll shatter the finely-crafted feeling of superiority that the Brits have developed over us North Americans and our lazy knifes.

"Come on, just one more," they say.

You look at your watch. Ten minutes to midnight. If you ran, right now, to the tube station, you'd be able to catch the last central line out to the DLR, and then onwards to Mudchute, where you live. You look at your glass, empty, and your friends, only half full of beer. "Hmm, maybe another pint can't hurt," you think. After all, your friends aren't full of beer yet.

And, of course, you can always catch the night bus...

A few beers later, after you are most drunk and your friends are full up on beer so you head out. Soho is, as always on a Friday night, crazy.

"You looking for some women?" a woman asks, not the first and not the last to ask as you move through Soho.

"Sure," you think, I'd always be up for a women, but they aren't asking because they have a bunch of women hanging out looking to sleep with pasty, fat Canadians for free.

"£200 for a night," they say. £200, you think, is 80 pints. That is a lot for a woman, especially, you think, when if you drink 10 pints women who used to look... ummm, to be kind... not so good looking would, after 10 pints, look awesome.

So you skip past the women offering the services of other (mostly eastern-European) women and keep walking through Soho. The temptations are not finished, though.

"Coke," the man hiding in the shadows says. Unlike those offering sex, those offering drugs hide in the shadows, quietly offering their wares. You, though, aren't interested in much beyond bed at this point, though, so you keep walking without even acknowledging those offering you cocaine.

Soon, though, something tempts you. The smell, as you get closer to Oxford Circus, gets stronger and stronger. It is the smell of hot dogs.

The hot dogs are boiled to almost being finished. Close to being ready to eat, they are finally slapped upon a grill to finish before being put into a soggy bun to be served. Boiled hot dogs are, to be frank(furter), crappy. But something about frying them on the metal grill prior to serving gives it an excellent taste. The frying give a crispy outside.

Then comes the best part of the Oxford Circus hotdog. The toppings.

"Onions?" they ask.

"Of course," you say. And the hot dog vendor piles on the fried onions, partially brown and partially translucent, the onions add a sugary blast to the meaty taste of the crispy-outer, gooey-inner taste of the hot-dog. Only one thing can make it better, you think to yourself, as you trace a line of mustard along the length of the hot dog. You take your first bite of the dog, and you can only think one thing.

"Oh my god, this is so good. Cook me up another," you say.

Halfway through your first dog, you are given your second dog, and your thoughts turn from getting fed to getting home. Hot dog and a half in hand, you wander over to the nearest bus stop and check out if you are anywhere near a night bus which is heading to where you live.

The night buses take over once the tube, trains and regular buses stop running. The London night buses run out from the centre of London into the suburbs like the arms of a spider. No matter where you are going, you can find your way home, as long as you are starting out in the centre of London. Most of those who are looking to catch a night bus are, whoever, looking to get out from the centre. After all, what other reason other than drinking, dancing and partying at some club in central London can you think of for taking a bus at one thirty in the morning.

You check out the bus stop, and realize that you are in the wrong place. To get to the Isle of Dogs, where you live, you need to head down to Piccadilly Circus and catch the 550. It's not a far walk, and it gives you time to finish your hot dogs and pick up a Diet Coke for the ride home.

Nobody plans to get a night bus, but rather stumbles out of a bar late in the night and wanders to a night bus stop. If you are lucky, the bus arrives soon. If you aren't lucky, you have to wait for 20 minutes, maybe even 30 minutes, until the bus arrives. Tonight, you are lucky. As you are trying to focus your beer-muddled eyes on the schedule, trying to figure out when the bus will arrive, the N550 drives up to the stop. You quickly jump from the schedule out to the street, flagging down the bus.

You walk up to the second floor up the bus, grabbing a seat up amongst the other travellers heading home for the evening.

The bus windows soon fog up with the breath of those riding the night bus. You keep wiping off the windows of the bus to see what is passing you by. At the start, it is the historical monuments of London. St. Paul's Cathedral, the Victorian Embankment and the Bank of England pass by you. Soon, you are in East London, and monuments give way to less impressive edifices. Kebab shops and the occasional Chicken Shack are all that is open, but you pass the closed clothing, stationary, and grocery shop. You sit silently watching the landscape move by you. Other bus riders sit quietly, some chat among themselves. Rarely, you get someone who causes trouble, but that happens rarely. Tonight, you get a quiet bus, other than a couple sitting near the back , the man who is from London and the woman who is from Chicago, the bus is quiet. You watch the scenery pass you by as you, like the rest of the silent bus, listen to the couple from London and Chicago discuss their lives.

Soon enough, after the bright lights and glass towers of Canary Wharf pass you by, St. Edmund's School arrives. You press the red button, and once the bus stops you work your way down to the ground floor before jumping off. A 3 minute walk takes you home and to bed. The night buses has delivered again. You had a good night in the centre, and somehow, without issue, you made your way home.

If you weren't already quite drunk, you might think about raising a glass to the night buses. But as it stands, you really just want to go to bed, and so the night buses are, as usual, unheralded. One hopes, though, that the night buses know that you really love them. Cheers to you, night buses.

Thanks for getting me home, you buses with an N before your number.

I knew before arriving in England that there are differences between Canadian English and British English. They ride up and down in lifts, wear trousers over their pants instead of pants over their underwear, keep their luggage under the boot of their car and deliver goods in lorries.

I know all these things because I’ve watched British TV shows and movies, and read British books.

Something has bothered me since getting here, though. I’d encountered most of the words I’ve learnt from TV since getting here, and even learned a few new words. One of those words I knew hasn’t appeared – Shilling.

Pounds and pence, quids and pennies - I’ve heard lots of words for the money, but I’ve never seen or heard a reference for a shilling. That is because the shilling no longer exists.

The British Pound dates back to the Sixth century, when King Offa of Mercia introduced the silver penny. 240 pennies weighed one pound, and thus £1 was worth 240 pennies. To split up the difference, the Shilling was introduced, equal to 12 pennies, meaning that one pound was worth 20 shillings.

The coins adopted abbreviations based on Roman names, with the penny being abbreviated as d for denarii and the Shilling abbreviated as s for solidi. The pound took on the Latin librae, thus the L shape of the £ sign. Thus, prices were originally written as 3s 4d (3 Shillings and 4 Pennies). Over time, as with most things, instead of writing out the s, a short-hand of a slash was used, so that 3/4 became 3 Shillings and 4 pence. This was back in the days when “s” was written to look more like an “f,” and thus the slash looked somewhat like the first letter of Shilling.

3/4 would be spoken as “3 and 4.” By the 1960s the lowest bill was the 10 Shilling note, called the “Ten Bob,” and therefore a common budget price was 9/11, one penny short of the paper money.

Calls to move away from this fractional system based on 12s and 20s and to a decimal system date back to the early 1800s, after France introduced the decimal Franc in 1795. Various schemes were proposed, from splitting the pound into 1000 Mills to replacing the Pound with the Royal (4.8 of which would be worth a pound).

Finally in the late 1960s, it was decided that the pound would remain given its role as a key reserve currency, and that it would be split into 100 “new pence,” to be represented by the abbreviation “p.” Prices are now written as £5.40, pronounced as “5 pound forty,” or sometimes “5 pound forty p.”

On the 15 of February, 1971, Decimal Day arrived. Shilling and “old” Pence disappeared, replaced by the “new pence.”

So that is what happened to the Shilling. Previously worth 1/20th of a pound, it was replaced by a coin worth 1/20th of a pound, the 5 p piece. For a while folks would continue to call the 5 p piece a “bob,” the nickname that the Shilling had, but over time that disappeared as well.

Today, the word Shilling is relegated to the past, but at least now I know when I am handling my change that those 5 p pieces would have, almost 40 years ago, been a Shilling.

200 years ago, on the 12th of February, 1809, Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. A few decades later, he was wandering about on some islands off the coast of Ecudaor and noted that the birds and turtles differed from island to island, though seemed to share similar traits to creatures from the mainland.

(Note: creatures in pictures below from neither Ecuador, England or the Galapagos Islands, but seeing as I've never been there, I don't have any pictures of them. These are, however, creatures, and as such seem fitting).

In 1859, Darwin published his seminal work On The Origin Of Species. While others had suggested that species evolved, Darwin's work was the first one that grabbed the imagination of the non-scientific community. The book was controversial because it contradicted the religious concept that the world's species were static, created by God in perfect form at the start of time.

Today, the concepts that underlay Darwin's book still underpin the theory of natural selection, the most widely accepted theory of the development of species.

Today, Darwin can be found on the ten-pound note, along with a bird, one of "the flora and fauna that he may have come across on his travels" (lest you forget why he was famous).

In the event you feel like getting down "with a celebration of science and reason" in honour of Darwin, you can find events on the Darwin Day page. Nothing is going on in Sheffield (even though it's only a couple hours from Darwin's birthplace), so I guess I'll just have to celebrate by myself.

Happy birthday, Chuck.

People in Northern England are nice. That’s what I had heard, and my first couple weeks in Sheffield have certainly proved that assertion. When people come into the office, they inquire as to how everyone is doing. They are all very friendly and concerned with what is going on in your life. It has certainly made getting into the swing of working here in the UK easy.

All this friendliness does have one major drawback. It has to do with what happens whenever anyone gets up to head to the kitchen.

“You want something to drink?” they will offer, and they aren’t just being polite.

Nope, whoever is heading to the kitchen will offer, and anyone who wants a drink says, “Yes, please.” The person heading to the kitchen will return a few minutes later laden down with cups and glasses for the team.

The drink most often requested is a cup of tea, and that frightens me.

I was never much of a tea drinker back in Canada. I had tea a few times a year, and mostly when other folks made it. Here in England, though, I have been drinking tea more and more. It is constantly on offer and everyone is drinking it. It is hard to avoid. Not that I mind drinking it too much. A decently made cup of tea with a touch of milk is a very tasty thing.

The problem is that while I enjoy a cup of tea made by others, whenever I make the stuff, it tastes like swill. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. Perhaps I leave in the bag too long, or not long enough. Perhaps the water is too hot or too cold. Perhaps I add too much milk, or not enough, or too soon, or not soon enough.

I don’t know what I am doing wrong, all I know is that my tea doesn’t taste like the tea other people make. It tastes bad, and that is my problem. See, whenever I find myself thirsty at work, I can’t just get up and head to the kitchen, because then I would have to offer to get drinks for the team. They would ask for tea, and I would be forced to make the brown-coloured bog water that seems to result when I put a tea bag in hot water.

Like I said, people in Northern England are nice, so I am sure they would drink the tea I make, put on a brave face and make yummy noises. “Good tea,” they would say, but it wouldn’t be. It would be awful, but they wouldn’t want to offend me, so they would say it’s good. They would think that Canadians can’t make tea. Some Canadians probably can make tea, but I can’t, and I don’t want to be the cause of half of Sheffield thinking that Canadian tea tastes like bitter water.

Of course, now I feel guilty whenever anyone else gets up to get a drink and offers. I can’t say yes, because I never get up and get the tea myself. The Sheffieldites would see me as the greedy type, always taking and never returning the favour.

So instead I sit in my seat, thirsty and frightened, and count the hours until lunch, when I can get out, run down to the deli and buy myself a decent cup of guilt-free tea.