Cold Heretics

Gamecock article for 2/22/05. I wrote it in about an hour after having to spend two hours hiking around Canterbury to find a cap gun for a monologue (i had to go into literally 8 different shops before i found one that was suitable and reasonably priced) but i actually impressed myself with my writing capacity--to write 600 words off the top of my head in an hour and have it sound okay and fall into a fairly recognizable essay- or article-format maybe doesn't take skills, but it does take a world of patience. Look for it in all its edited glory tomorrow on www.dailygamecock.com .

Its snowing outside, and rather than bundle up and go down to the pub to stay warm I thought I might examine a couple of entities that England, for whatever reason, doesn't have. I've been in Canterbury for about 5 months now and have gotten to know most of the ropes of this area (besides the whole driving thing) so I think I can mention a bit more than the usual “they don't have American accents” and “nobody has SUV's because they don't fit on the narrow roads“ etc.

For instance, most folks here don't have religion. Whether they're atheistic or simply apathetic, church just doesn't come into play much here. Churches are tourist attractions and are usually full of beautiful tombs and relics of old, but the actual number of people who attend services could barely fill a pew. The clout Christianity has in American legal matters is often equated to religious policy in Islamic nations by the English, so they have a hard time judging just who are the fanatics. The new constitution being written for the EU omits religion completely and, aside from irritated comments by a few Catholic groups in Poland, everyone is pretty comfortable with it. If you are religious here no one is going to hassle you, but they may smirk about it behind your back. Secularism is just the only policy that all the different countries and cultures in the EU can agree on. Better to have no religion at all than pick one and fight over which it should be. It also prevents varying religious motivations for criminal actions (like jihads, crusades, and ethnic cleansing) from letting murderers and invaders evade punishment.

Another thing the English don't have is the diet craze. When news of the Atkins Diet came to England most everyone had a good chuckle and went back to their daily lives. They love carbohydrates here. My favourite food on this continent is, hands down, the Pasty (with an “a” sound like “agriculture”, not “Cambridge”) which is a wonderful beef-and-potato stew in a thick, crusty pastry. One goes great with a pint of lager. Pie, also, is not just a dessert food. Mince pie is lovely, along with Cottage, Shepherd's, and varying Potato pies--all of them full of fat and calories. The English generally don't count carbs, you can feel comfortable eating a candy bar in public without fending off remarks about “500 calories in one sitting” and the number of Kent students who use the gym fails to justify its existence. But most people here aren't obese, though a good percentage of girls are pleasantly pneumatic. It's a good look, to have curves. Most young people here don't have cars so they walk a lot, so by their very lifestyles they stay healthy.

Unfortunately, a third thing they don't have here is sunlight. I've never been so pasty (with an “a” sound like “pain” not “amicable”) as I am since I moved over here. It doesn't help that it's chilly most of the time so you have to wrap up in coats and scarves. Interestingly, because it is chilly most of the time, the coat and scarf have become leading fashion accessories here, unlike South Carolina's winter-wear look of “I had to dig for this in the back of the closet for our one cold day of the year.”

So I guess the English are a bunch of cold heretics, but at least they're fat, happy, cold heretics. Personally, I find them to be excellent hosts, and I almost, but not quite, fit in seamlessly.