For a country once derided by Napolean as a “nation of shopkeepers,” the English seems to have a hard time with certain basics of the capitalist system. A common complaint among American ex-pats is that customer service here is disastrously bad. That’s not entirely fair. In my experience, the ratio of good to bad service is equal in both countries, and if the clerks and cashiers of England aren’t quite as friendly as those of Los Angeles, they are vastly more polite than those of Boston.
Yet there is a difference.

Today, I present two more food-related photos. Warning: One of them is mildly not-safe-for work.

Over the past few months, Lauren and I have visited Edinburgh twice, and Oxford once–and now, at long last, I finally understand the US Constitution.

Walking through our local grocer last week, Lauren and I discovered the most unfortunately named product ever.
(Warning: this is another NOT SAFE FOR WORK UNLESS YOUR BOSS IS BRITISH entry.)

I mentioned in a previous entry that I miss that sense of strangeness that I first felt when I moved to London. I have found a way of recapturing it: by looking through the eyes of another foreign visitor.
I recently read The Silent Traveller In London, by Chiang Yee. A Chinese artists living in the UK in the 1930’s, Yee published a number of illustrated books giving Englishmen the opportunity to see their own country through Yee’s paintings and prose, both of which are simple, elegant, and clean. Yee’s book about London has now been reprinted by Signal Press, and it’s well worth a read.
Not surprisingly, Yee finds his new home city to be a strange land. “Had I not come to London,” he writes, “I should never have known there was a special time for tea.”

I am standing in the Marks & Spencer food store when something catches my eye: the package of bananas has a sticker on it that says “Ideal for the BBQ!” I am amused at what is clearly a labeling error until I look at the other packages of bananas. Every one of them has the exact same sticker.
Bananas? For the barbecue? This is the most baffling British food-label mystery since the jar of soup stock that suggested adding “one small swede, finely chopped.”

I’ve always suffered from a tendency to get songs stuck in my head. It’s never been as bad as some people’s, but it’s there nonetheless. My particular condition might be called Geographic Onset Stuck Song Syndrome, since it seems to be place names in particular that set it off.

Piccadilly Circus is one of the busiest spots in London, a non-stop swirl of traffic, flashing electronic billboards, and pedestrians. But amongst the whirl is an enduring symbol of constancy: the Odd Erection Guy.

When I first moved to London, a friend of mine gave me some good advice: “Notice things now, while they’re still strange.” All too soon, London ceased to be alien and exotic; it became, simply, the place where I live. I missed the sensation of vague disorientation, of living in a strange land whose customs are not quite my own.
Fortunately, I recently discovered a place where I can once again feel like a foreigner: the United States of America.

I’m sure that British people find American English absolutely hilarious. No doubt some of our most common phrases strike them as bizarre, or possibly obscene, but no British person would ever be so rude as to put up photos on their web page of signs that made them giggle.
Thank heavens I’m an American and have no such scruples. Herewith, my photo essay on Funny Signs of Britain. Warning: some of the signs are NSFWUYWIGB (“Not Safe For Work Unless You Work In Great Britain.”)