The End of a Love Affair
Good to be Back
Bank Holiday
Home Sweet Home
Cold
The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling
Christmas in Sussex
Return
The End of a Love Affair
09 November 2004
Unlike America, where only 49% of the population is in shock, 100% of the British people are currently staring westward in slack-jawed disbelief wondering how W could possibly be elected President. Again. I know you Americans aren’t terribly interested in the mood of the world beyond your boarders but let me assure you, if the election had been held in England, it would have been Kerry 51%, Bush 0% and Homer Simpson 49% (You think I’m making this up? Homer Simpson was voted the cartoon character most people would like to have as President of the United States.)
I generally eschew politics on this website, but the fallout from this event is impossible to ignore and, as an American, I have already been called upon to explain how my fellow country-people could re-elect a man who, from their perspective, is unquestionably the most dangerous man on the planet. All I can do is tell them that the perspective is different in America. They can’t understand that, any more than the Americans can understand how frightened the world is of Bush in particular and, now, Americans in general. I think an exchange program might prove useful.
Traditionally, the British view of America involves a nation of overweight boors, but there was genuine affection in this caricature. Underneath, the Brits embraced us Yanks and all things American.
Suddenly, however, we are no longer the loveable louts we used to be. We’re a huge nation filled with idiots, armed to the teeth, and led by the head idiot who claims he talks to God. In the British psyche, we’ve gone from fat and loud, to fat, loud and congenitally stupid overnight.
“How can 59,000,000 people be so dumb?” the Daily Mail asked rhetorically when the election dust settled, and stupid American jokes have become the jest de jour on TV and radio. But unlike the fat jokes, these barbs have a bite to them; we’re no longer amusing, we’re stupid and dangerous.
The Brits, it seems, don’t like us anymore, and I, for one, think this is a good thing.
Britain is a lovely country filled with very nice people, but its collective love affair with America blinded it to the ways it was being manipulated by a more dominant partner. Being in love is a wonderful thing, but being in love and giving up your identify smacks of low self-esteem.
Perhaps this newly discovered anti-American sentiment will keep another McDonald’s from popping up where a fish and chips shop used to be. And maybe the ‘Kill Krispy Kreams’ crowd will get a boost–no one wanted it here in the first place. If the Brits continue to hate us, hopefully they’ll start to turn their island back in to Britain and cease populating it with Starbucks franchises, Chevy Suburbans and Bud Lite as if it’s the fifty-first state. That’s Canada’s job.
Think of the millions of tourists who stream into England every year to savor its Englishness; when they discover it’s no different from America, they–and all their tourist dollars–will stop coming. They’ll go to America instead; it will look the same, and we have Disney World.
Don’t get me wrong; I love America, but I love Britain, too, just as I love chocolate and peanut butter, but that doesn’t mean I want them mixed up together (despite what the Reeses Pieces people claim). The result is a horrible, hybrid concoction that pleases no one.
It was never my intention to move away from America, but having done so, I don’t want America following me over here. What could be sadder than leaving your native country only to be denied the fun and excitement of experiencing a foreign culture because the culture you moved into is identical to the one you left? If Britain doesn’t come to its senses soon, I’ll have to move to France.
I’m probably the only person in Sussex who can see anything good coming out of this election and I think that’s a better way to live than hunkered down and scared.
Without entering into a political debate, can I just say to everyone who fears Bush, and what he might do, that the situation is not as dire as you are making it seem. You’re crediting the man with too much power; he’s just a President, not a dictator. To those who support Bush I’d like to say, this is your chance to show the world that America is as responsible as it is powerful. Please don’t fuck it up.
And to all you British comedians I say, well done! Keep the nation hating us; the tourist board will thank you for it.
04 November 2004
Good to be Back
I’m still not certain if, by ‘good to be back,’ I am referring to our recent trip to the US, being safely back in Sussex, or finally getting around to updating my web site. A little bit of each, I suspect.
We’ve just returned from a two-week, four-city tour of the US, wherein we spent the bulk of our time in Albany, NY, which is no one’s idea of a tourist destination but which happens to be where I came from. Nearly three years have gone by since I’ve been to the States and I found the experience both familiar and frightening. It’s a much more guarded place than when I last saw it, and patriotism–always an unabashed trait of the American people–has acquired an alarming insistence, to the point where we felt we might be considered traitors because the car we were driving didn’t have a yellow ribbon on it. And the elections! Don’t get me started.
But seeing friends and family again was a joy. I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned this on the site, but I don’t have any real friends here in Britain yet, no one I can call up and say, “Hey, wanna go play skittles tonight?” I’m not having a moan, just stating a fact–when one ups sticks and leaves behind friendships which have been evolving for decades and plunks down in a foreign country filled with strangers, one has to expect something like that is going to happen. So, talking to people on the phone and meeting up with them at familiar watering holes was refreshing and fun.
Having grown used to navigating narrow, winding roads, it was shocking to cruise along the broad boulevards, bordered by fast food joints, shopping malls, bowling alleys and cheap motels, rolling into the distance as far as the eye could see. This Olympian level of tackiness and excess exists no where else on the planet. God bless America!
The complete tales of our adventures will be posted to the travel section soon. You can read all about it then, and see the pictures, so I won’t talk much more about it here. I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention Eamonn’s Irish Pub in Loundonville as being the highlight of the trip for me. It was reassuring to find it just as friendly, familiar and fun as the last time I was there.
During my trip, I began a scorecard showing which location did what better. The final tally is listed below:
– Eggs Benedict; US 1 : UK 0
(This doesn’t seem to exist in the UK)
– Customer Service; US 1 : UK 0
(This supposedly exists in the UK, but not to the ‘making you happy is the sole purpose of my life’ extent it does in North America)
– Construction; Canada 1 : UK 0
(Or, more specifically, the CN Tower 1 : Spinnaker Tower 0)
– Queuing; US 0 : UK 1
(Outside of Britain, the concept of proper queuing simply hasn’t caught on)
– Conservation; US 0 : UK 1
(The USA: 4% of the world’s population and consumes 25% of the world’s resources, and proud of it!)
– Water Pressure; US 1 : UK 0
(Have you ever tried to take a shower in Europe?)
– Rules for Walking; US 1 : UK 0
(They queue well, but they can’t walk on the right side of the pavement)
– The Weather Channel; US 1 : UK 0
(With the British obsession over weather, you’d think this would be required viewing)
– Wal-Mart Super Stores; US 0 : UK 1
(Yes, they have ASDA in the UK, but nothing like the hanger-sized horrors we endured in the States)
– ‘Bottomless’ cup of coffee; US 1 : UK 0
(Not that you’d want a second cup of UK coffee)
– Decent cup of tea; US 0 : UK 1
(Yes, it matters to me now)
– Clam Chowder: US 1 : UK 0
(Inexplicably unavailable in the UK)
– Public Transportation: US 0 : UK 1
(The UK has the worse public transportation system in Europe but it’s miles ahead of anything the US has to offer)
– Snow; US 0 : UK 1
(Never liked it; don’t miss it)
– Pubs within walking distance; US 0 : UK 1
(What could be more convenient?)
– Pubs you can smoke in; US 0 : UK 1
(Until the nicotine nazis catch up with us.)
You’ll notice this list was contrived to come out even. That’s as it should be; both countries have so much going for them it all boils down to personal preference. In my case, despite some inherent disadvantages, I prefer living here.
After the hectic schedule and hubbub of the holiday (which, at one point, involved driving from Boston to Buffalo) I am appreciating the more relaxed lifestyle I enjoy in Sussex. Right now, I’m waiting for a train, en route to a business meeting in Wales, and feeling less harried than I have in weeks. While that may sound contradictory, train travel is preferable to climbing into a car for a three-hour session of negotiating traffic jams and meandering about on unfamiliar city streets. I never lived anywhere in the States that allowed me to go from my front door to an office two hundred miles away totally on public transportation, and I have grown accustomed to having that option.
Where would you rather be early on a Monday morning, in a world-class traffic tie-up, or sitting in an out-of-the-way café in Paddington Station, sipping a cup of coffee (US 1 : UK 0) with plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast pasty (US 0 : UK 1) before the next train arrives?
It is, indeed, good to be back.
11 April 2004
Bank Holiday
We’re on a bank holiday right now. That’s what we call a three-day weekend over here.
No one asks, ‘What are you doing over the long weekend?” They say, “Are you planning anything special over Bank Holiday weekend?”
Obviously, we don’t have the same holidays as the States. We don’t barbeque and set off fireworks on the fourth of July, run to the sales on Columbus Day, or sleep late and lounge around the house in our bathrobes–grateful for the day off but not sure what it’s all about–on President’s Day.
Instead, we have an odd variety of holidays based on traditions no one can properly explain (i.e. May Day, Boxing Day) and a smattering of religious-type holidays which are off-limits to church-and-state-separated countries like America (such as Whitsun, Good Friday and Easter) and which is why I’m currently enjoying four days off.
We took advantage of Good Friday and the brilliant weather to make the short trip to a local, scenic overlook knows as Devil’s Dyke. The Dyke is a deep and unusual looking cleft in the otherwise gently rolling down land. It is 300 feet deep and over half a mile long, and it is situated in one of the most outstandingly beautiful spots in Sussex.
I remain astounded and chagrined that I allowed myself to live here for so long without once visiting this area. It is astoundingly beautiful–so much so that it rates its own page (which I will post as soon as I finish our Spanish trip). What I will say here is that its breath-taking views rival those of Thatcher Park–my favorite scenic overlook in New York. And unlike Thatcher Park Overlook, someone had the foresight to build a pub at the Devil’s Dyke summit.
There were a scores of hikers putting the numerous hiking trails to good use, as well as a bevy of paragliders (performing the types of aerial feats that would leave me with a hefty laundry bill) and a crowd of relatively pedestrian kite fliers. We joined the hikers and completed a rambling loop that brought us down a gentle slope, through the quaint and picturesque hamlet of Poyning, and then straight up the side of the bluff.
Along the way, we happened upon a family, with two young boys, on their way down. The boys capered past us while the father–a mild-looking man–stopped to ask us if the path we were on went into Poyning. My wife assured him it did, just as his wife–a hulking woman with a shock of hair in a color never seen in nature and a face that could curdle milk–came up behind him.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING ASKING DIRECTIONS?” she screamed. “WE’VE BEEN ON THIS HIKE A HALF DOZEN TIMES”
“I’m just asking if the trail goes through Poyning.”
“NO IT DOESN’T! IT GOES OFF TO THE LEFT. YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THE TRIAL DOESN’T GO THROUGH POYNING!”
Still browbeating the poor man, they continued past us without even a look. I have never, in my life, met anyone so inexcusably rude. I felt so badly for her unfortunate husband I briefly considered following them and finding out where they lived so I could sneak into their house some night and kill him to put him out of his misery.
Instead, we ascended to the pub where I had a beer, smoked a cigar, enjoyed the view and had occasion to contemplate my good fortune in having a life-partner who does not consider it her responsibility to make my life a living hell.
Life is, finally and at long last, very good indeed.
24 March 2004
Home Sweet Home
If you discount the fact that I have yet to enter the confines of an airplane without being absolutely convinced that the flight was doomed to end someplace unpleasant and nowhere near an airport, I actually love to travel.
Seeing new places, tasting exotic foods, meeting people from different cultures and, in general, enjoying the novelty of unfamiliar territory brings me great pleasure. A more subtle pleasure gained from travelling, however, is coming home again.
No matter where I am, after a week or so I begin to miss sleeping in my own bed. And, while I might be enjoying the local cuisine, I eventually find myself wishing for a simple, homemade meal and, God help me, a nice cup of tea in front of the telly.
Spain was like that. Despite the warm sun and pampered existence, when Sunday morning dawned I was ready to go home. My wife and I gazed one last time at the view from our terrace–the sky was aquamarine and the slanting rays of the rising sun coaxed brilliant greens and browns from the shrub-covered hills and engulfed the scattering of villas in nearly audible bursts of brightness–it was going to be a grand day. We went back into the room, collected our bags and began the trek home.
Air travel, in addition to being terrifying, is mind-numbingly boring and carefully calculated to impress upon you that you and your fellow passengers are nothing more than cattle being feed down a chute. The sooner you get over this, the better off you’ll be.
To keep myself entertained, I engage in various mental exercises, speculations and self-assigned tasks.
For example, when checking in, I imagine I’m being processed into Auschwitz and that the smiling BA ticket agents and grim-looking immigration officers are really Nazi bureaucrats. This isn’t exactly a difficult exercise, but it keeps me amused.
On the plane, there is no shortage of things to do: keep an eye on that left wing (is it supposed to wobble like that?), watch the other passengers, calculate how far it is to the ground and what we would all look like if we suddenly fell to it from this height, things like that. And no matter how hard I try to recall my high school physics, I cannot accept that a gazillion ton tube of metal is capable of floating five miles above the earth. I don’t care about thrust and lift and all that; it simply isn’t possible. Yet I have to admit, the ground does appear to be a long, long way off. Thinking about these things keeps me occupied for hours; then I ask the flight attendant to bring me more beer.
Without question, my absolute favourite part of the journey is landing.
My first few flights happened to be to the Caribbean where they have the most delightful custom: when the plan lands safely, all the passengers applaud. I love that. I enthusiastically joined in, thinking this was what all passengers in all airlines did every time a plane landed.
Consequently, when I made my first trip across the Atlantic I actually brought my hands up to begin clapping as we landed. Then I looked around and slowly lowered them, with the feeling I used to get at Catholic Masses when the congregation suddenly stopped chanting the Lord’s Prayer halfway through while I, the lone Protestant, would mumble on for a few seconds before realizing I was the only one who knew all the lyrics.
So now, upon landing, I simply say a quiet, “Hurrah!” and give an enthusiastic “Well done!” to the pilot if he happens to be standing by the cockpit door as we are all herded out for deprogramming.
The processing at Gatwick was surprisingly quick, but that meant we arrived at baggage claim before our luggage. We waited, and waited and waited some more. Eventually, I ran out of WWII prison movie scenarios and had to content myself with speculating on why it was taking so long for our bags to show up. Hadn’t the ground crew had enough time to ransack through them yet? Were they no longer content with simply taking what they wanted? Were they inviting family and friends in to pick them over as well? I think that’s a bit over the top, don’t you?
Forty-five minutes after landing, they arrived. Intact. There was the usual flurry at the feeding trough while we all picked out our things, then we were away, through customs, to the shuttle and on to the train station.
A short while later, I was wheeling my suitcase down the walkway out of Three Bridges station. I looked up at the grey slate sky and felt the chilly wind blowing drops of icy water against my sunburned face. I took a deep breath, taking in the scents of damp earth and petrol fumes.
Ah, it’s great to be home.
27 February 2004
Cold
I admit to being a bit of a prat about the weather here in that I derive great delight from writing to friends and family back in upstate New York, regaling them with tales of how I am sitting on my balcony enjoying a beverage and watching the daffodils sway gently in the warm, February breeze while they are slogging though blizzards and enduring yet another hideously soul draining, mind numbing, bone cracking season that we in the north eastern US innocuously named winter.
I know it’s annoying, but if you don’t like the weather, move.
Well, the gods or karma or whatever you believe in seem to have heard about this and they aren’t letting it slip by; for over a week now it has been abnormally cold. Okay, so cold here generally equates to about 34 degrees but when you’re used to walking around in a tee shirt and a light jacket, it comes as quite a surprise. And, as I write this–rumbling through the Sussex countryside on a drafty commuter bus en route to my office in Brighton–it is as cold as I have ever seen it; -5C, or 22F. I don’t think the daffodils are happy.
The main reason the cold in England feels so cold is that no one is prepared for it; rain they can handle, but they don’t know beans about cold. For one thing, all their houses are built of brick or concrete. Not exactly the coziest of substances. Even on the warmest of days the walls feel cool, and in the winter they simply ooze frigid air. No one seems to have figured this out yet either, as all new dwellings are erected using brick, mortar, and poured concrete, which has the dual effect of providing a super-highway for the cold and damp as well as possessing all the visual appeal of a milk carton.
The only concession to climate newer buildings can boast are better heaters and double glazed windows. I’m not certain, but I suspect they also allow heat in modern bedrooms and, perhaps, even the bathroom. More traditional buildings, such as ours, have a single heater in the living room and one in the hallway, but none in the bedrooms or bath. This unfortunate oversight, coupled with the concrete walls and single pane, metal framed windows (which conduct cold so readily that, on a still day, you might as well just leave them open) makes our bedroom seem more like a neatly squared off cave than a cozy comfort zone for much of the winter.
There are times when I begin to marvel at how people who live in such a traditionally dreary climate could build houses without proper heating, but then I remember that I grew up in a wood-frame house where the only source of heat was a kerosene heater in the central hallway (and this in a land where -20 Fahrenheit was not uncommon). My wife, when she talks about cold, tells how she can remember seeing frost on the inside of her bedroom window. Where I grew up, we couldn’t even see our windows for the thick swirls of ice caked to them; we had frost on our walls. If you wanted to murder someone living in one of those houses, all you had to do was shut their bedroom door after they retired for the night and they would freeze to death in their sleep.
Isn’t this interesting; without meaning to, it appears I’ve come full circle. Granted, I live in a flat where layered clothing and extra blankets are necessary for survival, but I have had it worse–much, much worse. So I guess I’ll close now and simply enjoy the scenery.
It is frosty, but the rising sun is glinting fetchingly off the rolling fields and distant downs while, out on the street, people are scraping ice from their windshields, no doubt cursing the weather and wondering how much more of this they will have to endure.
Perhaps a few of you in the northern US would like to trade places with them for a winter or two?
04 February 2004
The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling
Yesterday afternoon, for the first time in a long time, I heard some bag pipe music. This is a dangerous situation, as it never fails to put into my mind the notion that I ought to dig out my pipes and have another go at it.
The bagpipes and I have a long-standing love-hate relationship; namely, that I love them and they hate me. It’s been a year since I packed them away and–with a feeling of utter defeat–put them on the top of the wardrobe, to keep them out of my reach and me away from temptation.
I love the pipes, not in the way you might love Chocolate Chunk ice cream or the Harry Potter movies; it’s more subtle, elusive and much harder to explain than that. I can roughly compare it, for you English, to the emotion you might experience (but never mention) while sitting in your favorite pub surrounded by your best mates sampling a pint of the county’s best bitter. For you American’s, it equates to the sensation of sliding your hand around the grip of a Glock 20C 10mm automatic; a feeling of belonging, of oneness with something greater than yourself.
When the pipes play, while those around me cover their ears and scramble for shelter, I feel a stirring deep in my soul of the type of heart-wrenching sentimentality popularly ascribed to the mythical highland heroes wandering the lonely hills in tartan skirts. I am stirred in a way that makes me think my mother has some serious explaining to do; in a way that made me, well . . ., decide I should play them.
I figured, how hard could it be; there are only nine notes?
Unfortunately, while many of my other pursuits required hard work and diligence, the pipes accept nothing less than total and continual dedication. They are not for the faint of heart.
I am happy to report that, after two years of lessons, I was able to play ‘Amazing Grace’ with some degree of skill, but no amount of tenacity and discipline seemed to get me much further. Then I moved to England and everything went downhill pretty quickly after that.
I tried to keep it up, honest I did. My practice chanter travelled with me in my briefcase so I could practice during my lunch hour at a local park, and most weekends I would spend an hour or so squeezing what I hoped sounded passably like music out of my pipes. But the pipes differ from most traditional instruments in some very fundamental ways and, over the weeks, these differences made themselves known and gradually brought the practice sessions to a halt.
Unlike, say, a guitar, you cannot lean the pipes up in an unused corner and pick them up for a quick song or two during the odd moment of unclaimed time. Before playing, the pipes have to be assembled and tuned; an arduous, time-consuming and awkward process that generally left me too fatigued to play and often had the neighbors calling emergency services in the mistaken belief that someone was trying to murder a pig by beating it with a blunt instrument.
The bagpipes also demand a certain degree of fitness, which is gained in painfully slow degrees but lost, seemingly, over night. The stamina required to puff and squeeze with enough force to power three massive drones (imagine, if you will, someone attempting to strangle a small giraffe while holding it upside down under his left arm; the drones would be its legs) and the chanter (its neck) roughly equals the hardiness required to jog up Ben Nevis with a hod of bricks under your arm.
And, most obvious of all, the pipes are loud. They aren’t loud in the way an enthusiastic pre-teen on a drum kit is loud, they are loud in a sixteen-year-old kid with an electric guitar, 5 million watt amplifier and grudge against his parents sort of way. Outside, on a still day, they can be heard at a range of two miles. If you’re enclosed in a small room with them, they will make your ears bleed.
In order to muffle the sound and annoy as few people as possible, I tried shutting myself in the spare bedroom, closing all the windows and waiting until my wife went into town to shop. Even so, my wife reported being able to detect the sound of someone throttling a giraffe before she even turned into our apartment compound. And when I finished, I noticed several people in the next block of flats leaning out of their windows and applauding.
Much as I’d love to think they were appreciating my fine playing I can’t help but acknowledge the fact that the applause didn’t begin until I started packing the pipes away.
And so, over time, the practice sessions grew shorter and further apart until one day, winded after just half a chorus of Scotland the Brave, my pipes were unceremoniously consigned to the top of the wardrobe and peace returned to our little neighborhood.
But the pipes won’t rest easy. Every now and again I hear them calling and my soul stirs, as if waking from a long, boring dream, enticing me to drag a chair up to the wardrobe and pull them down into my waiting arms. I am, once again, convinced this is what I was born for, though I am never quite convinced that the neighbors would agree.
Maybe if I bought them each a set of earplugs . . .
12 January 2004
Christmas in Sussex
As in America, the Christmas Season on this side of the pond is pretty much wrapped up: the decorations are down, trash bins everywhere are buried under piles of pine-tree skeletons, and in all the stores, Christmas displays have been replaced with Easter merchandise.
The season itself is similar in many ways as well. The British Santa Claus (aka Father Christmas) looks just like the illustrations in the Coca Cola ads and, although on a whole they tend to be less flamboyant with their decorations than we Americans, you can generally count on every village to have at least one homeowner who, with reckless disregard of the electricity bill (not to mention good taste), gleefully festoons his house in a collection of blinding, blinking lights garish enough to give the neighborhood a collective headache, send his children into therapy and warm the heart of any homesick Yank who happens to wander by.
So, really, Christmas in the UK wouldn’t be so different from Christmas in the US if it weren’t for crackers and Panto.
I must warn you about these British Christmas cracker: you can’t eat them. I expect this is a common misconception; I can’t have been the only one.
From the end of November right through to the beginning of January, crackers appear on dinner tables at all festive occasions. The ‘cracker’ looks like a gift-wrapped toilet paper tube and the idea is for you and your dinner partner to play tug-o-war with it until it busts open with a tiny explosion. Inside the cracker is a small toy (I got a water pistol), a card with a few painfully awful jokes and a colorful paper crown. Everyone at the table then puts on their crowns and takes turns reading the jokes (and, incredibly, laughing at them).
I have to believe that some sort of legislation or ancient Royal edict is involved here because that’s the only way I can make sense of a table full of normally stolid Brits in party hats laughing over unfunny jokes. It’s as if they suddenly forget they’re English.
And Panto is even harder to explain. Simply put, Panto (short for Pantomime) is a play; but there’s so much more to it than that.
In an attempt to come to a better understanding of Panto, I convinced my wife–who then convinced two other couples–to come see one with me. The end result was six adults sitting in a crowded theatre packed with about 6,000 screaming children. (Did I mention Panto is for children?) Actually, there is a fair amount of adult material woven into the dialogue, but it’s still generally good form to have at least one child in tow.
And when I say ‘screaming kids’ I don’t mean to imply they were ill behaved; on the contrary, they were obediently performing their parts of the dialogue. Think of it as a Rocky Horror stage show, but for a younger audience.
The play itself is always one of a handful of stories handed down from who knows when. The main character is always a boy (Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Peter Pan, among others) and is traditionally played by a girl. There is also a major woman’s role–called The Dame–played to great comic effect by a man. Everyone in the audience (bar me, of course) knows their lines and shouts them out at the appropriate moments. “He’s behind you!” seemed very popular.
The plays are audience-driven–without a loud and rowdy audience, there can be no Panto–and are filled with slapstick, bad jokes, double-entendre and cross-dressing. But the oddest thing about them is, they contain no mention of Christmas, even though they are an integral part of the British Yule-Tide experience.
If you were suddenly set down in a theatre in the middle of a pantomime play, you might think . . . well, I can’t imagine what you’d think, but I can be fairly certain you wouldn’t think of Christmas pudding, mince pies, crackers (the exploding kind), twinkling lights and piles of presents under the Christmas tree. Yet these are the images Panto brings to the mind of almost everyone who grew up on this island.
As a mere interloper, I may someday come to appreciate the fact that the Christmas season brings with it the Pantomime plays, but these two entities will never become linked in my deepest psyche; you really need to be British for that.
