All Hallows Eve and Fawkes, Guy

In supplement to our ongoing efforts to chronicle daily life in England, we turn our attention to Hallowe’en. Based on interviews with several authentic English persons, we have assembled the following principles regarding English Hallowe’en:

1. At best, English people don’t like Hallowe’en; at worst, English people convey outright hostility. This may or may not have to do with the fact that, instead of carving pumpkins, the English traditionally carve turnips. That, I figure, is enough to make anyone cranky.

2. The Teenaged English seem to be very aware of the original pagan purpose of Hallowe’en, that is, to bribe evil spirits into leaving one alone. In practice, what seems to happen is that unsuspecting villagers find a large group of young people on their door-step demanding cash (that is, dosh) and, failing to receive a proper bribe, proceed to rough up one's house, car, dog, garden, baby, shire, etc.

3. Far more appealing to the English is Guy Fawkes’ Night (November 5th). According to Wikipedia:

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night and Plot Night, is an annual celebration (but not a public holiday[1]) on the evening of the 5th of November primarily in the United Kingdom, but also in New Zealand, South Africa, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador (Canada), parts of the British Caribbean, and to some extent by their nationals abroad. Bonfire night was common in Australia until the 1980s. It celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of Catholic conspirators allegedly attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London on the evening of 5 November 1605, when the Protestant King James I (James VI of Scotland) was within its walls.

The celebrations, which in the United Kingdom take place in towns and villages across the country, involve fireworks displays and the building of bonfires, traditionally on which "guys", or dummies, representing Guy Fawkes, the most famous of the conspirators are burnt. Before the fifth, children use the dummies to beg for money with the chant "Penny for the guy".

In the United Kingdom, there are several other regional traditions that accompany Guy Fawkes/Bonfire night: the eating of bonfire toffee, a dark type of toffee made with black treacle; parkin, a cake made with the same black treacle[2]; toffee apples, the traditional 'apple lollipop', which consists of an apple coated in toffee on top of a stick; and baked potatoes[3], which are wrapped in foil and cooked in the bonfire or its embers.

Of course, the best part of Guy Fawkes Day is the rhyme:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
should ever be forgot.

The full rhyme, rarely used, continues:
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
to blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow:
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Hip hip hoorah!

The following verses, though originally part of the rhyme, are usually left out of modern day recitations for the inflammatory anti-Catholic remarks:
A penny loaf to feed the Pope.
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah!

Who says religious intolerance can’t be fun? Remember, remember the fifth of November.

[1] Presumably because of the strong anti-Catholic connotations behind the “celebration”. Who cares, I say; a day of is a day off.
[2] I have been “fortunate” enough to sample some Parkin. It tastes like gingerbread cake soaked in Guinness. Frankly, I’d rather just have the Guinness.
[3] I anticipate that those Bonfire Night revelers whose main treat consists of a baked potato are going to be mightily upset.

Briefcase bartender

Since we are on a drinking theme of late, let me take a moment to discuss a new phenomenon we have discovered: train drinking. As we both commute to work on the train we have many opportunities for observation of this phenomenon. The first time this occurred was on a Tuesday afternoon during the commute from Sheffield to Leeds. I sat beside a a middle aged man who told me he was a construction worker. I was slightly suspicious that he may be a bit of a drinker when I sat down and was greeted with a waft of alcohol, but decided not to think too much about it. When he managed to drink four tall boy cans of Carling during our 50 minute ride my suspicions were confirmed. I have also on another occasion seen a man in a suit pull out a mini bottle of wine and a wine glass from his briefcase. This seemed somewhat charming compared to the Carling incident. But this week Brent witnessed a whole new level of briefcase bartender. During his end of day commute from Bradford to Leeds he observed a middle-aged suit pull out his wine glass, drain half a full size bottle of wine, and then open a second bottle for a third glass. Let's remember for a moment that this train ride takes a total of 20 mintues. Three glasses of wine in 20 minutes and from two different bottles no less. Now that's some briefcase.

The First Few Days in Leeds

Although we have been here for almost two months now, we thought we might recap some of our earlier days here to provide insight into our settling in process. So the next few blogs may be recapping events that took place a little while ago. For instance, here is the story of our first few adventures….

Everybody should have a driver meet them at the airport after a long flight. Going home, this is not a problem. Family are always gracious and giving enough to attend at the airport and meet us. In England, it costs 70 GBP to have someone stand in for family and drive us to our “flat”. In any event, after a long drive from Manchester Airport to Leeds, fighting Monday morning traffic and five times around the block because our crazy taxi driver could not figure out the one way streets outside out apartment (sorry, “flat”) building, we finally arrived. Much to our delight, the place is great. Really pretty swanky or posh or Beckham or whatever you want to call it. Everything we needed was here. As for location, our flat is beside the river, so we get to walk along beside it whenever we leave the house. The only down side to the location is it is right in the heart of the city center. This means it can be pretty noisy at night and there are usually remnants of other people’s nights of drinking on the sidewalk the next morning. I think a good rule for future housing searches is to avoid places where you can walk from the train or bus station within 10 minutes. This is something we probably could have thought of before selecting our place when one considers housing options within 10 minutes of the Hamilton bus station.

Thanks to our taxi tour of Leeds while trying to find our flat on the first day, we spotted a Costco just around the corner from our place. Can you believe it? Costco – in Leeds?! It was one of the first places we went when we woke up from our jet lagged slumber. Luckily for us our Canadian membership card worked, so we were good to go. We strolled the aisles at Costco for a while, finding that as one would imagine it is basically the same as Costco in Hamilton, until that is…..we came across the best aisle ever…..the booze aisle!! Here is a sampling of their inventory: cases of 24 tall boy cans of every beer you can imagine, two litre pop bottles of Strongbow, giant bottles of vermouth for martinis. The Davis family could buy cases of their Lindemans Chardonnay for super cheap. Also much to our delight they also sold giant bottles of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry and a selection of fine single malt scotch. It reminded me of my favourite book when I was a kid: Charlie and the Vodka Factory. This remains perhaps the greatest gift England has to offer—super cheap, super giant alcohol right around the corner from our flat! No wonder teenagers are vomiting on the streets at 3pm.

With our priorities now clearly centered on drinking, our next challenge in a new city was to set out to find our local watering hole. We approached this task methodically. We went in every pub within walking distance of our home. We sampled drinks, we talked to locals, we read the Itchy Leeds guide to pubs. As a result, we have come up with our own categorizing system for the selection of pubs we discovered here in Leeds. First, there is the dance bar. This place plays loud obnoxious music, regardless of whether it is 3pm or 3am, and is frequented by scantily clad girls and boys with too much product in their hair. There seems to be a great number of these pubs in Leeds. In fact, on our Sunday morning constitutional to retrieve The Times, the revellers frequenting such places are just having their last throw-up before finding a cab home. The second type of pub we encountered is what we call an Old School Local. It is so old school that the men (and women!) inside are really, really old and have probably not set foot outside the pub for many years. This is immediately obvious when one enters the pub. After the thick haze of cigarette smoke clears all the old men locals turn around to see what the outside world has dragged in. When it is clear that the person who has entered is not a local, there is sneering and silence. Coupled with the sticky tables, dirty carpet and a bad selection of beer (Carling anyone?) it is a hostile assault on the senses. Fortunately, amid these bleak choices there is the third type of pub. This pub is warm and welcoming with beguiling architecture, people and beers on draft. We have been fortunate enough to find three such gems. One is even stumbling distance from home and most importantly, serves Sleeman.

So as you can probably surmise, we managed to drink our way through the first few weeks. We went from jet lagged haze to alcohol induced haze. It was simply part of the cultural adjustment. If there is one thing the British do well, it’s drink.

English Thanksgiving

The Heathen English don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but, if they did, it would be on October 21^st because that’s when we were finally able to get around to cooking ourselves a feast. This morning we went to Morrison’s to pick up all the fixings. Our trip was on the, wait for it, bus.

Now let me stop right here to say that this was my first trip on the bus (excluding tourist related bus rides) since April 18, 2001. How do I know the day? Because on that day, the day of my last ever law school exam, I vowed to never take the bus again. Why should I? Fancy corporate lawyer and such. I’ll always have a car. Nice one too. But there I was shamefacedly back on the bus. So much for making vows.

Back to Morrison’s. Morrison’s is an English grocery store but really is subpar by any standards. By way of example, Morrison’s failed to stock any turkeys. No turkeys on English Thanksgiving. The mind reels. So that is story behind the fact that English Thanksgiving is celebrated with roast chicken.

This brings us to one of the most important matters of Thanksgiving: Pie. To my knowledge, the English fail to engage in the delights of Pumpkin Pie. Or if they do, they call it something else, like Wikki-stick Pie or Bumjam Pie meaning that, if I’m looking for Pumpkin Pie, I can’t find it. Besides even if they did have pumpkin pie here they would probably do something crazy like put 'treacle' in it. Either way, all the bakers are wankers, clearly. Luckily, we outsmarted them by sending ourselves pumpkin puree from Canada before we left.

So the Thanksgiving menu is as follows: Roast Chicken with gravy, stuffing with mushrooms, Davis family world famous mashed potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, green beans and Pumpkin Pie with whipped cream. Not bad at all.

This now brings us to the part where I outline those things for which I am thankful. Apart from the obvious, I am most thankful that today, out of the blue, the North American Sports Network has started to appear on our Sky Cable. I have watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders play the Toronto Argonauts and now the St. Louis Blues are home to Vancouver Canucks. I’d blog more but I’m Canadian and have gone 126 days without watching a hockey game. Hockey is more important. Let me just say that I can’t wait to watch Hockey Night in Canada tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good night.

There is a god....and it's name is British Telecom!

British Telecom may in fact be a god, not the God, but a god none the less. It seems that British Telecom makes the world go around here in England. They finally fit us into their busy schedule to arrange for our home connection for phone and internet. We tried everything under the sun to get this done sooner as we were feeling quite desperate to stay connected to everyone back home, but you can't get any other internet suppliers until you have a phone line or a BT internet connection. Argh! But at last, we finally have email and a phone at home which feels like a gift from god!

We realize we have a lot of blogging to do to get caught up on the events of the last month or so. Some people (mostly just Stephen) have been heckling us for our lack of posting, but it really didn't seem appropriate to blog at work. But now there is nothing holding us back! We will keep adding posts over the next few days and we will try to blog in order of events that have occurred, so stay tuned.....