England Culture Shock
The children here are so pale that it gives me a stab to the heart every time I look at them—until I remember that this is normal for England in winter time.
It is strange to be back. I’ve started to notice all the little quirks and peculiar mannerisms of the people around here. I’m currently perceiving the country as if it was a Richard Curtis film (‘Notting Hill’; ‘Love, actually’)—as if England is some kind of fairytale land and I am a tourist here, albeit one who is unusually familiar with some of the locals. But not everything is quaint.
Burried underneath a mountain of free-sheets and flyers from the various estate agents who are circling around lucrative properties in this area like vultures, I found a red envelope which John had dismissed as spam and left on the floor, probably because it screamed: Open immediately! This is not a circular!. Inside was a terse letter, dated over a month ago, which demanded that we get in touch with Thames Water within three working days or bailiffs would ‘visit’ with a warrant of execution. I started to tremble.
“Ah that,” John said: “I’ve sorted it. Before they can send in the bailiffs legally they have to go through a debt recovery agency which then contacted me. I’ve paid.”
The amount owed was £ 38.70. Can you imagine what this kind of threat does to little old ladies with heart problems and without relatives who are lawyers?
***
Today, I went for another eye examination because the optometrist found some scarring in my retinas when she tested me for my new glasses. First she made me peer through a tube into a long, dark tunnel at the end of which glowed something like the Eye of Sauron: red tentacles flickering around an evil, pulsating green light. At random intervals, the machine fired pulses of pressurised air straight at my eyeball and each time I nearly fell out of the chair.
“Sorry, I have no control over when it fires,” the optometrist said cheerfully: “It’s an automated process.”
She proceeded to administer eye-drops which stung like hell and distended my pupils until I looked as high as a kite, then shone a bright light directly into each for an eternity while she made me look in various directions, not daring to even blink. She then repeated the whole process, this time focussing through a lens.
“The scarring appears to be old,” she said, almost disappointed, while I blinked away the dancing spots; but she recommended I’d be referred to an eye hospital anyway, where they could repeat the torture procedure with more advanced instruments.
I had clearly made her day, breaking up a boring series of routine tests. “Let me know how it goes,” she said eagerly as she shook my hand. In case that I should suffer a ‘rare but possible adverse reaction’ which she had neglected to mention beforehand (or the police wanted to arrest me for being on drugs) she gave me an official leaflet with the crest of the College of Optometrists on it, which explained that the drops were a solution of tropicamide, which should wear off after 6h ‘but sometimes the effects may linger until the next day. The large pupils will make you more sensitive to light, and distant and near objects may appear blurred…’ It’s also given me a bit of cross-vision. I’m trippin’ on eyedrops.
***
No, this is not a quaint and happy land. On the way home my pupils widened even further as a horse came racing down the opposite lane, eyes rolling wildly, head thrown up, covered in flecks of foam and with the (competent) rider struggling to keep it from breaking out and jumping into the oncoming cars. Right on its arse—and I mean close enough to touch its tail—crept a 4WD Chelsea Tractor with the driver clearly figuring he could either make the horse go fast enough to break the speed limit or else push it into the ditch so that he could finally overtake.
Back home, a half-broken bottle lay scattered in the middle of the road in front of the COOP, cracking loudly as the cars drove over it, splintering it further. I’m waiting for one of those pale children to cycle right into it.
Ah yes, and they are threatening the peaceful protesters at our Friendly Neighbourhood Atomic Weapons Establishment with anti-terror legislation. Won’t do to disrupt the government’s preparations to bomb the hell out of those Iranians before they get their hands on weapons with which they could retaliate.
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Denni