Brits on us hols ... A word of warning

Some Euro-visitors dislike ‘commercial’ hotels – i.e., anything with a 24-hour coffee shop, hi-speed elevators and working plumbing. America has no other kind. Brits will waste a great deal of time and face certain disappointment if they persist in searching for ‘something with character’ – i.e., akin to British hotels which offer temperamental plumbing and no services, but charge you even more.

A Brit goes Stateside

He is somehow the antithesis of the Somerset Maugham figure: the man kitted out in a tropical cream-coloured suit with matching Fedora, languorously sipping mint tea under whirling ceiling fans and avoiding mad dogs and the noonday sun. It seems that, when the Empire struck back, the Brit-sense of tropical attire took a direct hit.

America in summer can be a hot place, and the visiting Brit often exudes – discomfort. He looks a bit frayed at the edges, and generally is as under-equipped as his American counterpart is over. This has nothing to do with income-group. It is a policy decision. So, he does not have the converter and the water-pic. He does not even have much of a toothbrush. He’s purchased no extra clothes for the journey, and the ones he has make no concession to the climate ... ‘no point, when I’ll only be there for a week or two’. He is ‘making do’ by wearing the trousers to an old office suit, teamed with a short-sleeved Aertex shirt. It has a cream background (he dislikes the ‘glare’ of pure white) and has a way of looking soiled in strong sun light.

Feet are clad in dark City slip-ons, because the only casual shoes he owns are wellies (‘for the gardening’), some old cricket shoes and bedroom slippers. If caught short, he’ll splash out on a pair of rubber foam flip-flops half-way through the holiday, but only after he’s been forced to wear his City slip-ons down to the beach.

The sun presents real problems; he burns if he stands for too long under a strong light-bulb. So he wears lots of protective cream (his one item of special expenditure) and always needs help in applying it to his back. He discovers that his bathing trunks are revealing by American standards (Yanks consider anything skimpier than boxer shorts as de facto flashing). He has not bought a matching cover-up(de rigueur by US pools) and appears every day sporting yesterday’s Aertex, unbuttoned to the waist to reveal his gradually reddening chest. He hasnot invested in swish sunglasses (‘£30 forthose?’) and instead has shades that clip on over his prescription glasses. For some reason, he usually wears them flippedup.

Mrs Brit

So does his wife. If she is middle-aged, she is his counterpart – but slightly better equipped. For instance, she has sandals. They’re robust, tannish leather flatties with lots of buckles to adjust the width, and owe more to Dr Scholl than to high fashion. But they are comfy, especially as her ankles tend to swell and she ‘retains water in hot climates’ (anything with temperatures higher than Reykjavik). She never quite gets to grips with tropical sun-colours (‘too garish, like Hawaiian shirts’) and instead favours subdued shades of sage green-to-grey ... ‘more tasteful and flattering’. Cream is nice, especially with sage green, avocado or brown (or all together). At heart, she is happiest wearing the colours she’s used in the lounge.

She worries excessively about food... not about gaining weight, or cholesterol or regularity, but about getting ‘gyppy tummy’ (the runs). She worries even in ‘sanitary’ countries like the US, and has strange theories about what causes it (‘raw onion with hamburger, too much ice in drinks, air-conditioning everywhere, even in cars’). She doesn’t care for the tea, the coffee, the cooking or the salad dressing, is ‘if-y’ about the bread (what’s a bagel?) but approves of the variety of fresh produce (‘quality is nice … such a good seasonal selection!’).