Bonefishing in England

Understanding the English is so long and complex a subject I have stayed away from it until now. After watching "Jeeves and Wooster" (Yeah, turns out Dr. House, aka Hugh Laurie is famous for that stuff) last night and not being able to muster more than a half-assed grin, I have been reminded that my cultural assimilation is not going so well.

After a year of residency on this windy island, a nice little book came my way: "Watching the English" by Kate Fox, an English anthropologist who admits that she hates the damp tropics and prefers looking at her own culture. Very English if you ask me. The English sure like watching themselves and are pretty damn obsessed with how genius yet tricky their behavior is. And rightfully so. Nothing makes that more obvious than a good natured question regarding social class. People fall over themselves trying to explain that there there is no real class structure left and then inevitably every English person involved ends up speaking about themselves, their family, their college, ultimately about their class, comparing notes and strangely enough, all knowing exactly where they fall in that class structure that no longer exists and even more strangely, no matter if identifying with upper class or working class, each loving and embracing theirs.

Sometimes I get the idea. I have been learning the obvious key words in order to identify who I am dealing with. I mean, do you go to the loo or the toilet, do you eat pudding, dessert or afters? Is your fave local pub named "The something or the other Arms" or does it serve steak bites in red wine sauce? Also I learned that some pubs better be bypassed by someone as clueless as myself, not because I will get my ass pinched and I have to say I adore being called "love" by big husky guys, but because someone will try to get in a fight with newly acquired husband, just because. And I don't adore watching that (although of course he'd kick everyone's ass).

Unfortunately for me, I also don't seem to get what is sanctioned behavior and what is not. People get so trashed they fall down a full flight of stairs in the underground, city boys pass out on the sidewalk, Armani suit and tie dipped in Guinness; girls dress like sluts with an endurance and dedication that amazes me (and I have lived in Miami mind you), but yet I always manage to say or do something even to those sluts and drunks when I figure nothing could be insulting now, that does not go over kosher. Because thinking that anything goes is an illusion; I just don't seem to understand the fine nuances of what goes.

As Salman Rushdie said and I am paraphrasing: Learning to understand the English is like eating a bony, spiky fish. There is a right way to do it and everyone knows it, but nobody will tell you, instead everyone will watch you choke and figure it out yourself. A great exercise, that bony fish eating.