Your Blood (Honey)

In England, ‘Merry’ is a term associated with alcoholism. Many of the signs (all of the one’s I’ve seen) don’t use the word merry, instead they use the word ‘happy’; as in, “Happy Christmas.” (edited much later: this is sort of a myth actually, but in retrospect merry can generally construe intoxication. This, coupled with my perceived bluntness  in the English mind, leads me to believe that the association is still a relevant observation) In England there are additional on and off switches for each and every individual power outlet—in case you need that extra measure of control. I don’t know if this helps to prevent “vampire” energy loss (from electronics left plugged in), which accounts for something like 1% of the worlds power. Many of the street lamps in England are sort of an Orangish-hue, that is much different from the glow of American street lights. The street signs are different, and there is a lot more use of Helvetica. They use people instead of polar bears in their Christmas Coke commercials.

In England the many length measurements are in kilometers (on most exercise machine’s it’s the default option for instance), while the roads/streets are still measured in miles. Similarly, petrol (short for petroleum, as opposed to gas for gasoline) is sold by the liter. It’s currently at around .97 pounds per liter. According to my (brief, and perhaps in error) calculations that works out to nearing $6.50 per gallon. Stop lights in England shift and pause on yellow both on the way to to red and on the way to green (as opposed to switching straight to green after being red). In England the light switches for most public and private restrooms hang from the ceiling on strings, you pull on them in order to turn on the light.

Here’s a quick English film quip (similar to a line in the original “Scream”):
Person A: “What’s your favorite scary movie?”
Person B: “Carry on Camping”

Carry on Camping is a sex taboo British comedy from the sixties. It sort off plays the sexism/sexual taboos that can never be completely erased from western cultural and historical psyche. The movie is reminiscent of Donald McGill’s postcards, which sort of remind me of the work of R. Crumb (though without the crucial bit of being self-reflexive), hence the horror movie joke. In an essay by George Orwell about the art of Donald McGill (aptly titled, “The Art of Donald McGill”), he wrote “On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.” Thanks to my British film history professor Dr. Nigil Mather for the insight and notes on this one.

I also used the NHS today. When I went in to schedule an appointment, I think they thought it irregular—usually people just call in. When you arrive, you check in via computer screen. You are only asked your date of birth and your gender to check in. When a room is ready for you, your name and the room number appears on a large LED text ticker above the seating area, accompanied by a notifying (loud and annoying) beep. In the entire series of events you really only need to speak to your doctor, and you never have to talk out loud when other people are around. I need to have a cyst cut out of my lip, a very very simple operation that I had done in Seattle two years ago. At that time I visited a community doctor, which was an entirely different experience (it was sort of crowded and at least looked slightly less clean/modern and sterile, though it was still really clean by my standards). When I went to the community doctor the operation was conducted right there, in the patient room, and they just charged me 20 bucks. Through NHS my doctor assured me that I would be treated, she just needed to make sure it was the same problem, and then she could re-direct me to have the operation done in a few weeks with someone else (possibly off campus). I look forward to it, because the cyst is annoying of course, but also because I wonder if it will cost me money and I wonder how long public health care really takes.

In relfecting on these subtle differences between two English speaking western nations, I’ve noticed how really small things can affect the way you make decisions and think about the world around you.