Book groups and other amusements

I had never been in a book group or a book club before, but I certainly had heard of and about them. First I heard about them from one of my professors who was German but always pretended to be English. She said that in Britain book clubs are so popular that even Judy & Richard established one in their show. She said that every library has one, and then there are millions of unofficial book clubs because some just do it at home etc etc. Then she gave us some figure, which I remember being pretty close to the figure of Britain’s population, and I thought: wow.

I had also heard about book groups from the series called The Book Group, in which some guy referred to them as “fucking middle-brow. Yuck”. It was by watching the very same show that I found out that book groups are normally not exactly about books (which I could have figured out myself, knowing that there there’s usually coffee and biscuits).

So I had heard bits and pieces about this phenomenal social activity, but I had never heard that when people who join book groups say “Oh I have read this book centuries ago”, they DO actually literally mean a CENTURY.

When I entered the library, I immediately started patting my pockets, looking for the leaflet of the event, so I could double-check if it didn’t say “over 65 only.” But the grannies seemed pretty happy to see me (and three other young people who came with me) there, so I calmed down. We gathered to discuss Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

“A jolly good read!” the bravest one exclaimed. The good thing about old people in the book group, I thought, is that they don’t know how to use internet, so they don’t gather just to quote some universal truths from Wikipedia.

“Oh I thought Sebastian was so delightfully romantic”, another one said and blushed, while others were shyly nodding.

“The more facets you pick up as you read, the more interesting the book becomes”, explained the third granny in an asserting tone, and you immediately knew she had worked as a primary school teacher.

The religious aspect in the book was touched upon, and the discussion about Catholicism was soon in full swing. Somebody suggested that maybe Charles Ryder (the narrator) converted to Catholicism in the end because he found its wicked side acceptable (in Brideshead Revisited Catholics aren’t “true Catholics”). The teacher kindly explained: “That would seem peculiar to adopt religion for such reasons. That is against human nature.”

“I can’t remember the exact bit of the book”, said yet another granny, and pointed at her left hand side neighbour. The neighbour didn’t seem to be able to find what she needed, so the woman started desperately looking for the quote herself. She found it and started quoting after five minutes, when the topic of the discussion had long been changed.

Another one indeed surprised everybody by admitting that she has the book at home but never read it. She still came because she really wanted to, and now she was even more tempted to read the book. “I’m with her”, her husband excused himself, and we moved to the discussion of the screen adaptation of the film.

“Well, I certainly believe the film should have been called Brideshead rather than Brideshead Revisited, if they really skipped the first bit of the book” (which is basically there for the sake of the flashback that follows). Some people laughed, a few others modestly nodded, and you could see how proud the woman was of her recourcefulness.

“Oh I will definitely go and watch the movie, even if it’s only to grumble about it,” said the enthusiastic granny to whom the authorship of the phrase “a jolly good read” belongs. “I just hope all of the actors are British.”

It was also her who answered somebody’s question whether all of the readers are from one and the same group. “These people over there belong to the elderly people’s college book club, these people belong to the library’s book group…”

“And I belong to my wife”, said the grandpa, and by that he revealed one more truth about book groups which I hadn’t heard before.

Counting up to twenty

“Britain Britain Britain. Discovered by Sir Henry Britain in 16010.”

“It’s complicated”, I would always answer to people asking “but why Britain?” after I had just seen them wearing sunglasses and summer clothes in pictures from Greece and Monaco.  I would, however, only use the word “complicated” if the “purity of language” argument doesn’t work (which it shouldn’t, considering how brutally, as my dear fellow American wants it, this language has been butchered by Kilts, Cloves and Criminals).

“Oh I like so many other things here,” I say, and turn the volume down so I could hear myself better. Michael Crawford is singing some song which doesn’t contain the lyrics that are in its title. “Counting up to twenty.” A fairy tale about the clever Magical Mr. Mistoffelees ends soon and, before I realize it, I do start counting.

I like to see the guy with a map of the UK behind his back on BBC news shocked that “we are likely to have a second dry day in a row.”

I like the “general belief”  all around Stratford upon Avon that Shakespeare indeed existed.

I like that everything “may contain traces of nuts” and that ice-cream is also suitable for vegetarians.

I like when old people smile at you in the streets and call you ‘my love’, even though the warmest feeling they may have is the feeling of pity “for a poor girl from Eastern Europe.” I like how people say “sorry” ten times in a sentence, even after you have just stepped on their feet.

I like British Television. I like that the UK is among the very few countries in the world whose comedy shows are actually funny.

I like complaining to everybody that British chocolate cannot be compared to Swiss or German chocolate because it doesn’t really dissolve in your mouth, is too sweet and too sugary etc etc etc and then buying a seven-bar-Cadbury pack.

I like that a sandwich is only a sandwich if it’s triangular. I like funfares and double-decker buses.

I like to watch twenty young chaps, desperately trying to come back to the 30-pints-of-beer-free reality after the driver had just asked them to please sit down if they wanted to continue their journey.

I like when Brits stay in their own country for stag parties.

I like how Zoosk warns you that “you are missing out flirts because you haven’t indicated your location”. I like the ambiguity the word ‘gay’ brings into ‘Brideshead Revisited’. I like how you can support Young British Artists by buying shortbread in Marks &Spencer. I like that longbread doesn’t even exist.

I like how the British media warned the nation of soon-to-be-increasing levels of crime right before Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU. I like how they blame Poles for killing the Queen’s swans for food.

I like the expression “our tiny island” when in Europe, at least population-wise, only Germany and France are bigger.

I like to think that naked girls with symbolic dresses on Friday nights are indeed not freezing. I like the fact that you can start booking Christmas parties in summer (I mean the season starting in June and lasting until August) . I like Guinness with blackcurrant syrup but I guess that’s Irish.

I like it that Brits divide people into enemies and friends according to the results of football matches. I like how everybody gets excited about biscuits (which are in fact cookies). I like reading reviews in The Spectator even when they are about books I’ve never read.

I like how women in my office scream that ‘Strictly come dancing’ is back. I like that Brits can say “sure” and “of course” without having a clue (or without wanting to have a clue) of what you are talking about. I like political irony. I like to have my umbrella with me.

I like when people grow out of the age when they can only be friends with the people “of the same style”. I like to all of a sudden get a maximum amount of points in the ‘How British are you?’ test on Facebook. I like green shoes, ‘Primark’ paper bags, Jeremy Paxman and coffee… I like you if you are still reading this.

Cheltenham

“If that poor girl hadn’t broken her arm, she would’ve gotten silver in the Olympics, but now she got nothing,” an old granny tells me after having stopped me by the entrance to the Town Hall. She looks exactly like the granny from ‘Little Red Riding Hood’’and makes it sound as if our conversation is so natural that I have to almost start feeling like she has been expecting me with a cake in a wattled basket.
“Yeah,” I say.
“So where are you from, luv?”
“How do you know I’m not local?”
“Oh, I can tell by the way you say ‘yeah’, luv.”
“Lithuania.”
“Oh, is that near Russia?”
“Well, it is not THAT far away from Russia…”
“I don’t understand those people in Russia. They got their independence, I don’t understand what they want now, I just don’t understand it”.
“You mean the war with Georgia?”
“That one, luv, yes. I just don’t understand those people, they got their independence.”
“Well, it’s not exactly independence that they want…”
“So how long are you here for, luv?”
“Three months.”
“Oh what a shame! Three months!”
“Why shame?”
“So what’s the weather like in your country, luv?”
“It’s kind of like here.”
“It’s raining here all the time but a few miles away you can see people in bikinis! Unbelievable!”
“So are you saying that the weather in Cheltenham is worse than in the rest of Britain?”
“Oh no, luv! Take care!”

She turns left, crosses the road and I feel like I’ve just taken a computer-based IELTS test, in which further questions are independent of your answers. After a few conversations like that you kind of feel like you’ve been talking all day long cause your tongue has been moving, trying very hard to insert some gap fillers (brilliantfantasticsureluvdarling), but in the end of the day you still feel like you’ve come to this country “to spend some time with yourself”.

So is England for you, luv. A country where sunglasses should seem like an unnecessary invention or a snobbish fashion extreme. Where summer clothes could be on sale all year long cause nobody needs them anyway. Where it only rains twice a week – first for four days and then three days for the second time. Where your boss seems to be trying to squeeze in 10 sugary epithets within 10 seconds while on the phone, at the same time making such faces that you can only hope that the customer does not have some kind of a video-phone. A country where you buy one and get a second one for free.

What is Cheltenham like, then?

“In the 19th century it had the most famous spas in the w…. in the country,” explains the woman to her husband, who is looking at some ‘Chel Ale’ posters in the Cheltenham Art Gallery (the expositions in that gallery seem to have been updated in the 19th century, too).

Cheltenham is a city that can be divided by the thoroughfares for shopping. One for chain stores and another one for specialist shopping: antique, jewellery, porcelain shops and designer studios.

It is chick and famous for ridiculous cost of housing. A town with a great divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’, as some reader on BBC’s ‘have your say’ pointed out.

And because it’s so rich and expensive, there aren’t many immigrants, so Brits themselves have to take jobs in fast food restaurants.

There are, of course, a couple of dozen of Poles. An English city cannot do without them. I still haven’t figured out what attracts them so much to this island. Possibly phone shops offering cheap calls to Poland.

And the size of Cheltenham?

A journey from the outskirts to the city centre does not take long. About 150 g. package of ‘Smarties’. Unless, of course, somebody decides to stop you to chit-chat about the Olympics. (Britain has just given up the third place on the medal table.)