25/6/2019
"The Twelve Rules of Brit-Eire Travel For Ignorant Australians"
(I have to confess that I - here the archetypical Ugly Tourist whom I normally hate- compiled this lot way back in 1991 after a VERY trying week, and I can only apologise to the many lovely and hard-working people I probably pissed off. I was still a travel virgin and very naïve, and what can I say? - I'm from dear old Auntie Adelaide in parochial South Australia and back in 1991 we were still country people. Sort of. And I have to add that in more recent times all of these examples have been airbrushed away by the application of some serious updating. Thank God.)
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(1) Spender-stress is best avoided by pretending British Pounds and Irish Punts are Aussie Dollars and that way you'll think you're getting your money's worth. There is as yet no pretend-conversion rule for Euros.
(2) Never enter an English roundabout of any size or complexity with your brain switched off as HGV drivers are not required to have a sense of humour and do not in fact notice when a car smaller than a Land Rover goes under their wheels.
(3) Never stray onto the fast lane of the M25 Orbital unless you are (a) driving a Porsche or better, (b) have no fear of coppers, HGV's, or of reaching escape velocity, and (c) are marginally psychotic.
(4) Always have at least five unused tissues in your pocket on reaching Heathrow as you will surely pick the toilet that has run out of bumpaper, a fact that you will not notice until your need of it is obvious and the circumstances too late and you with only a well-travelled and severely-plasticised boarding pass and lordy lordy they do surely smart.
(5) Take your own blankets if possible as all rental accommodation in Britain attracts a special Government subsidy if they are only equipped with a single bed cover that is (a) more than nine inches thick, and (b) is filled with insulating rockwool up to NASA standards.
(6) Also take your own plumbing as apparently Northern Hemisphere plumbers know absolute shit about showering, and also there’s a little known legal requirement that no casual visitor to the UK be allowed access to TWO handles while standing nude and shivering under a spout with holes in it.
Apparently, under the Aliens Shower Control Act of 1927 (which was passed in a rush that particular winter when it was rumoured that Australians were coming to visit on a regular basis and it has never been repealed), it requires that owners of every camp ground, at least half of all B+Bs, or any premises advertised as a Tourist Hotel, must employ plumbing engineers with an IQ significantly less than a bathplug, and who sincerely believe an Australian tourist can effectively operate a bloody shower with ONE control, even though all rational showers have two - one that says ‘HOT’ and one that says ‘COLD’.
This Law also specifically requires that when one turns this single knob the water must spout out desperately cold, and only by keeping on turning the knob can it eventually get warmer, although one is then not allowed to have any control over quantity.
(7) Never attempt to cross Cork city between the hours of 8am and noon, or between noon and 6pm, on any day with a ‘y’ in it, and especially never attempt it at night. If you must cross Cork city from east to west or from north to south or from any other direction to any other direction ensure you have in the car three bottles of spring water and a cut lunch.
(8) Any time you see a public toilet in Ireland have a pee whether you need it or not. This Rule also applies to seeing large-ish rocks, and trees of any dimension, in isolated places.
(9) Don't get all uppity when you find you have to go in the Full-Process queue at Heathrow Immigration with the ‘Aliens’, who are Americans, Japanese, New Zealanders, Argentineans, and Tasmanians, while the Germans and the Italians go pretty much straight through under the ‘EU’ sign even though their forefathers arguably did very little significant rallying to the Imperial cause in several World Wars and sundry skirmishes.
(10) Watch out for Garfunkletipping. This is the practice where a restaurant (such as Garfunkle's) puts prices on its menus that aren't actually what you are expected to pay. They suggest what you are expected to pay by hinting at this in the fine print of the Customer Contract. Something about a ‘Service Fee’ being ‘Not Included’. Garfunkletipping was designed specifically to confuse and embarrass the hell out of dumbwitted Australians who have no cultural exposure to paying extra to have someone bring you your coffee without spilling 15% of it in the saucer and don't know how to calculate the value of this service anyway. A good rule of thumb is to always leave a quid in the saucer with the spilt coffee.
(11) For all transitting in any mechanical contrivance that actually leaves the ground, pack your luggage on the assumption that any bag that is removed from your sight by design will first travel several days in the opposite direction to yourself, or not at all, and the contents may or may not be fully or partially returned to you within two days, whether you have filled out the Lost Luggage forms or not, and regardless of whether police, travel agents, insurance companies or the gypsies are involved.
(12) Narrow lanes with hedgerows are designed to remove the outer pieces of all vehicles that pass each other, except if you live in a two mile radius of a designated Passing Point, whereby miraculously only your wing mirrors and wheel trims will be wrenched free and lost forever. If the other passing vehicle is a standard farm tractor, around which the lanes were designed to begin with, losing door-handles or even whole doors is optional.
(The sub-Rule to [12] is .. Always keep an eye out at sharp corners as there will invariably be at least two wheel trims at the roadside neither of which will be the same as yours but can often be counted as credits by the car rental people if collected and washed and dried and left in the boot. Wing mirrors however are exempt from this Rule as they never fly off unaided).
Extracted from “Pilgrim’s Hotpot”
© T. R. Edmonds 1991
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