Mad dogs and Englishmen

At least some Americans know where England is, and in a country where only 23 per cent of the population have a passport - and thus an active interest in other countries - this should not be taken for granted. Even so, the major guides have pretty much tied themselves up to decent UK information sources, so you'd expect them to have got their stories straight. Those sites which are the result of painful personal experience, or perhaps a strange obsession with all things English, are much more fruitful.

In the latter, the same themes emerge time after time: the royal family, pubs, castles, bad teeth, English food, smoking, poor service and an unhealthy obsession with Guinness (them not us). And they're not shy about it either. "I would enjoy Great Britain much more if I was not being assaulted by cigarette smoke and body odour," notes a rather lofty-sounding Richard Geib at www.rjgeib.com.

Incidentally, he obviously hasn't been across the pond for a while as the first thing he mentions are the "efficient trains".

Shari, the author of an excellent travel site at www.shari.com reflects forlornly on the "strangely slim pickings" of UK satellite TV, and that she finds "sweet corn to be an odd topping for a pizza". Mind you, before we start to feel inadequate in the face of such sophistication, let's recall the obvious delight of her fellow countryman 'Jim' as he's seen in the middle of nowhere, posing next to a stile at http://users1.50megs.com/paean/random.htm.

Of course, while they're abroad our cousins from across the pond often inflict their 'out-of-my-way-I'm-an-American' philosophy on everyone else. Hence the US columnist who, having been touched by the thousands of condolence cards outside Kensington Palace after Diana's death tried to take one home as a souvenir (www.bergenrecord.com).

Then again, they can also embarrass you with their Paul Theroux levels of care and attention to detail. For example, at Scubamom's site (www.scubamom.com) you'll find page after page of well researched, beautifully photographed travelogues with only the occasional eyebrow raiser: "The roads in England are well maintained, more so than many in the US. You will find very few pot holes, patches, bumps or uneven paving." Must be a different England.

Amid the unintentional howlers ("Today I went to Herods - the royal department store.") it's good to see ourselves as others see us. At http://users.erols.com/ziring/uk-trip/ the author writes that Covent Garden "was full of people drinking and sitting on the street in broken glass, believe it or not. We found Neal's Yard and many shops with the name Neal in them."

And another clearly misses life back in the good old 21st century US of A: "Earlier today we went to Warwick Castle and saw so much history that I was almost sick." Conversely, some feel the need to bring their English experience home with them, hence the popularity of sites like www.orchidmall.com where Americans can buy appalling miniature replicas of the crown jewels.

Mind you, it's no wonder such confusion arises, given the level of advice handed out at sites like the 'Fifty Quintessences Of Englishness' at http://mural.uv.es/mdojuan/fifty.htm. These include Harrods, hypocrisy, homosexuality and half-timbering.

Culture shock
If popular soap operas are a barometer of the culture of a country, then what do the Yanks think of them? They can't get enough, apparently. The North Carolina EastEnders page, for example, runs a mailing list selling clothes, including cotton baseball caps (at least they're not Dot Cotton baseball caps) with their 'NC EastEnders Fanatics' logo embroidered on each item. The site www.pagesz.net/~eastend includes episode 'capsules', and you can download the theme music and lyric to the terrible Anita Dobson song.

Elsewhere, the Walford Gazette (www.spacelab.net/~albertsq) has good interviews with cast members past and present (although Steve McFadden (Phil) has to explain to them what he means by: "Most fan newspapers are crawling.") and the Trivianet at http://walford.2y.net is impossibly complete, cross-referencing not just the characters but the houses they've lived in. It even pays tribute to the unfortunate Reg Cox (Johnny Clayton) who's demise resulted in the show's opening line by Dennis Watts: "Stinks in here, dunnit?"

Now, we have to cheat a little here because the next site appears to be Canadian, but it's so funny that, for our purposes, we're going to consider the owners as honorary Americans. The Coronation Street nickname list includes gems like: 'Abattoir Costello' (Fred Elliot, the butcher) 'Brother Cadfael' (the pudding-bowled Sally Webster) and 'Sooty Sedgwick' (Alma). Meanwhile, Gail Platt is 'The Camel' for her interesting chin, 'Traxine' refers to the time when Tracy Shaw (Maxine Heavey) tried for pop stardom, and 'Uberminx' describes the loathsome Linda Sykes.

For a real laugh - even if you're not a Corrie fan - make sure to read the rest at http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/oliverb/. Incidentally, Brookside is so impenetrable and Emmerdale so dull that most Americans simply don't bother.

Obviously, we have a cultural life outside of TV and when the Americans take a shine to something English, they often like to claim it as their own. US inventions apparently include football (www.us-soccer.com), the realistic sitcom: CBS' All In The Family, actually based on Till Death Us Do Part, (geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/4754) Christmas stockings (http://members.tripod.com/~newyearseve/traditions.html) and witchcraft.

We know this because they got there first. "It was on a summer's day in one of the ancient magical stone circles at Avebury, England that Susan and I met. Again. In this lifetime," says Madelena Dragonaria on the www.dragonmuse.com website. If you've ever been to Avebury you'll agree that what's most amazing about this meeting is that they both found somewhere to park.

Food glorious food?
Americans love to pontificate about the awfulness of our diet: fatty English breakfasts, black puddings and things made from suet. At http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/mushy.html, for example, there's an interesting piece on how the economy has affected the food we eat: "English food used to be deservedly famous for its awfulness - greasy fish and chips, gelatinous pork pies and dishwater coffee. Now, it is not only easy to do much better, but traditionally terrible English meals have even become hard to find. What happened?" We discovered curry, that's what happened.

And our beer also causes a problem, apparently. It's either all witless California hard rockin' epithets such as: "This beer kicks ass," at the Opinionated Beer Page (www.tobp.com), dreary academic catalogues like Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter (www.beerhunter.com) or weird science experiments at http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/beershots which must be the only place in the world where they photograph Fuller's London Pride under a microscope instead of drinking it.

Finally, if cultural understanding is too much to hope for, the Yanks at least make the effort to understand what we're saying. Any Americans planning to visit these green and rather soggy shores must bookmark A Dictionary Of Slang at www.peevish.co.uk/slang where such tender terms as 'uphill gardening', 'mullet' 'giddy kipper' and 'wazzock' remind us that English is, after all, the language of Shakespeare, Milton, Austen and Dickens.