Driving for long stretches around the East Midlands the past few days, I’ve noticed the principle characteristics of the English landscape remain reassuringly unchanged.
First, because England is top of its World Cup qualifying group, England jerseys are massively back in vogue, especially among fat blokes with short hair. The red away shirt, the ‘lucky’ one England was wearing when it won the World Cup in 1966, is the most popular, a good omen for when Lamps, John T and Stevie G inevitably go all the way to glory in South Africa next year.
With the spell of warm weather, though, Tubby England Fan is confronted with a dilemma. While sitting outside the pub drinking pints of lager and staring at passing drivers, does he take it off and free his lard-white, wobbly guts up for the rare chance to absorb some Vitamin D? Or will that open him up to accusations of not fully backing the lads, even though England’s next game is a couple of months away? Judging by the extremely hard looks I got, one thing is for sure - with or without the shirt, Tubby England Fan is always ready to defend his pub table, especially if you’re going past him at 35 miles per hour.
Second, a lot of the pubs are now boarded up, perhaps as many as one in every three. Worryingly, some English people are cutting back on their ale and are maybe doing yoga classes instead. Or perhaps they’re staying in to watch the DVD of the 1966 World Cup final. My picture above shows The Memory Lane in Heanor, Derbyshire. Like England, it has seen better days.
Third, it seems that any boy outside the grounds of his school, no matter what the time of day, is bound by law to be holding a polystyrene tray of chips, which he consumes vigorously and without regard to etiquette. Who says England is not planning for the future? In a few years time, he will have accumulated enough belly flab to sit outside the boozer on a hot day wearing a sweaty replica football shirt and defending his table.
Finally, all young mothers with prams and pushchairs are obliged to look like they are on the point of killing themselves. In America, young mothers walk down the street looking radiant, and smilingly invite you to stop and bestow compliments upon their shrivelled, bleating offspring. In England, they look as though they have forsaken the right to live, let alone party. They would rather be out defending their man’s pub table. Albeit with an expression of forlorn, haggard misery, English Mum has sacrificed her place at the lager taps to nurture the Johnny Bulldogs of tomorrow and ensure that England’s tri-partite heritage – alcoholism, football-based patriotism and hard stares – survives unscathed for at least another generation.
You have to say one thing in suburbia’s favour. It’s so fucking dull out here that every day at six o, clock, without fail, you’re dying for a good stiff drink.
Just think. The day’s behind you, and you’ve accomplished nothing besides getting half way through the laundry, buying some groceries, successfully managing the school run, drinking scads of coffee (and peeing it out again), and thinking vaguely about some much more fruitful, creative and rewarding projects that you’d rather be doing instead, but are currently putting off until the next decade.
Ahead of you lies the evening, when you’ve got dinner to make, and home to stay at. This could further involve activities as pulse-pumping as finishing off the laundry, watching a broadcast program on the highly popular electronic medium known as television, or trying to read a book or a magazine before falling asleep in the process.
In between, though, is cocktail hour. There’s no getting around the fact that this is the best moment of the day out here on Quiet Street. That keen rush of want, round about 1800 hours, is almost as delectable a hit as the first swig of the drink itself. It comes with the acknowledgment of the need - which is an integral part of knowing, recognising and ultimately enjoying your own weaknesses - followed by the decision on whether to succumb or defer the pleasure for a further 24 hours.
Either way is fine. Give in, and you get the drink. Resist, and you can allow yourself the brief and deceptive comfort that you are not, really not, in any way alcohol-dependent. This makes the following day’s cocktail hour all the sweeter. If you’re in that rare suburban club that can hold out until Thursday (otherwise known as The Big Fat Liars’ Society), then good luck to you and all, but you should know you’re severely missing out on suburbia’s greatest reward.
The ironic thing is that in US suburbia there’s rarely a bar (or anything else useful) within walking distance. One of my great schemes that I’m putting off until next decade is a chain of impromptu roadside suburban cocktail stands, open between 5.30 and 7 only, to be called something like The Shot Of Life. They should do roaring trade, and by the time every street’s spoilsport puritan has called the cops, we’ll have packed up and left.
This would require people to leave their houses, talk to their neighbors, loosen up, and publicly take part in something considered to be detrimental to one’s moral, mental and spiritual health. In the rest of the world it’s known as ‘drinking.’ Here it would be a revolution. Until then, we remain the silent majority, serene and satisfied for an hour each evening as we gratefully knock back our fool’s medicine.
Driving for long stretches around the East Midlands the past few days, I’ve noticed the principle characteristics of the English landscape remain reassuringly unchanged.
