Speaking

Exercise 9.Use your outside reading, personal experiences, TV and video-watching, etc. to support, expand on or question the points and observations made in the chapter. Use com­pelling evidence and appropriate language to sound convincing.

Writing

Exercise 10.Write a 350-word commentary explaining the cultural things and stereotypes involved.

Unit 3. Brits and yanks abroad

AMERI-STYLE: Generally speaking, Yanks abroad come in two varieties: groomed and casual. Age has little to do with categories, since you can fit into 16 or 70.

Commonly, the American travelling abroad for pleasure is casual, but equipped. He’s got the most expensive ‘walking shoes’ money can buy and these are hideously ugly but orthopedically correct. His wardrobe is largely composed of crush-proof petroleum by-products. He has nylon-coated rainwear and fold-away hats, collapsible umbrellas and a light-weight high-resolution videocam. There is a pocket calculator to work out his restaurant tips and convert pounds into piastres or kilograms, wake him in the morning and deliver regular updates on the New-York Stock Exchange. He has brought with him a battery-powered toothbrush, an electric converter and a matching water-pic. He’s got a separate case for double quantities of all vital medications and a spare pair of soft lenses, plus a container of dental floss in case the water-pic breaks down.

Amer-Executive

When travelling abroad, he is groomed to corporate perfection. He is careful to look prosperous, heterosexual and clean. His fingernails are as immaculate as a dentist’s, and beautifully buffed. He appears to believe that many an important business deal rides on the quality of his manicure.

He wears the statutory Burberry raincoat-with-plaid-lining over his 400-dollar suit, which may have a matching waistcoat, but is in any case a nice mid-gray pin-stripe or herring-bone from Brooks or Saks. It hits perfectly on the shoulders.

His hair is as neat as his nails. If it’s thick enough, he wears it cut like JFK’s; if there’s grey at the temples, he leans toward Blake Carrington. He hopes to look like a Kennedy-clone, or at least a graduate of Harvard Business School. In fact, he’s been to Syracuse or U.Ohio … or (if over 45) nowhere.

Wrist-watches are important. He prefers tasteful traditional with lizard strap, or Cartier tank (the gen. article). Above all, no lumpy chronometers. His briefcase is fine calfskin, unscathed by the journey through three different airports (when travelling, he slips it inside a protective drawstring cover).

He is the living incarnation of that popular East Coast adage, ‘dress British, think Yiddish’. He knows that Yanks are perceived abroad as garish and tasteless dressers, and wants to avert the charge. There’s not a thread of Madras plaid, or polyester or ultra-suede in his Louis Vuitton luggage. He’s purchased with care, to appear understated but unmistakably prominent. He doesn’t understand that British for understated but unmistakably prominent is SCRUFFY (as in Chancellor of the Exchequer’s briefcase).

Ameri-wife

Her role-models are drawn from Dallas andDynasty. She sees herself as the ‘new woman’, peddled constantly on the covers ofVogue and Good Housekeeping. She knows you can BE FABULOUS at 40, TURN HEADS AT 50.

For the past two weeks, the Ameri-wife has doubled up on her California stretch classes and tennis lessons back home in Houston, in preparation for her trip. She shed a few pounds for Europe, so as to indulge in pasta and croissants with a free mind. But, each time she eats, her waistband gets tighter, and - unable to convert stones to pounds – she longs for the reassurance of her digital bathroom scale. Already, she’s liberated laxatives from her husband’s ‘medications’ suitcase, and is preoccupied with regularity (Europeans should eat more roughage).

Wardrobe includes pastel-coloured parachute suits and matching Nike sports shoes for sightseeing, with plenty of chunky gold jewellery (Loves ‘anything deco’.) Hair is the blonde-streaked mane of a Texas lioness, a bit long for her age, but ‘look at Dyan Cannon’. Anyway, ‘he won’t let me cut it!’

Ameri-wife enthuses a great deal about visiting museums and theatres, but what she’s really looking forward to in London is a chance to shop. She’ll buy more place-settings of her favourite Staffordshire dinner service, and some Waterford crystal so ‘much cheaper than in Houston’. She’ll stock up on cashmeres, Boots mascara and anything Burberry. Then, if there’s time left, she will spend it looking for ‘cute places to have lunch’.

There follows a list of Cute Places To Have Lunchwith ofCute Places to Shopin London.

Bond Street / South Molton Street area

Coconut Grove Restaurant, St Christopher’s Place

Widow Applebaum’s Delicatessen, South Molton Street

South Molton Street Creperie

Fenwick’s Cafeteria, 2nd Floor, Fenwick’s Department Store, Bond Street

The Place to Eat, 3rd Floor, John Lewis, Oxford Street

The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory, 17 Hanover Square (Great stuffed mushrooms!)

Knightsbridge

Harvey’s At The Top (Harvey Nichols Department Store)

Harvey’s downstairs Cafeteria (Harvey Nichols basement)

Harrods Dress Circle (Harrods 1st floor)

Harrods Westside Cafe (Harrods Ground Floor)

Joseph Pour La Maison (downstairs café inside Joseph’s shop of the same name, Sloane Street)

Fantasie Brasserie (Knightsbridge Green)

San Lorenzo (Beauchamps Place)

Menage A Trois (fav. Royal watering hole, Beauchamps Place)

Brasserie St Quentin (Brompton Road, Knightsbridge)

Mr Chow’s (Chinese lunches), Knightsbridge

Burlington Arcade / Green Park

The Ritz Hotel (book ahead for teas), Piccadilly

Cecconi’s (dressy Italian)

Langan’s Brasserie (Stratton Street, Mayfair)

Fortnum’s Fountain (Fortnum and Mason Department Store, ice cream to the gentry)

Covent Garden

Joe Allen Restaurant (underground at 13 Exeter Street)

Le Cafe’des Amis du Vin, Hanover Place

Smiths, Shelton Street

Creperie in the Garden

Orso’s, Wellington Street