26. A game that only children, with their absolute sense of fairness and fun, can play without cheating. It involves a child, with eyes tightly closed, chasing friends round a pool in a bat-like manner, guided by their hollered response ‘Polo’ to his shouted ‘Marco’. They play until they are pruney, and generally long after they’ve all relieved themselves in their watery field of battle.
27. America’s ‘call return’ service, like Britain’s 1471, is marketed ostensibly as a handy way to get in touch with loved ones when you miss their phone call, but is in fact used almost exclusively by the victims of teenagers’ crank calls.
28. Through the miracle that is modern marketing, everyone knows what a Band-Aid is, but no doubt our tendency to use brand names as proper names is confusing to non-English speakers. Surely Tupperware is a mystery to those who don’t know what a ‘tupper’ is (i.e., everyone).
29. Like Han Solo’s shaggy sidekick in Star Wars.
30. Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, has dispensed etiquette advice to confused Americans since the 1970s. She always gives excellent guidance, like how to be gracious when the host has just sneezed into your soup at a dinner party.
31. The National Football League is the equivalent of the Premier League in the UK, except that it is for American football, not soccer. Incidentally, it’s called ‘American football’ by everyone outside America and ‘football’ on home turf, in much the same way that the Swedish massage is called simply a ‘massage’ in Stockholm.
32. Avenue Q is the very funny, very smutty puppet musical modelled after Sesame Street, much adored by anyone whose appreciation of irony stretches to puppets having sex and Nazis extolling racism in song.
33. Favoured snack food of seven-year-olds and stoners, which glow a sort of nuclear orange and may be imbued with an addictive substance that makes girls swallow an entire bag before they realize what they’re doing.
34. She is one of the world’s leading feminists, with the marvellous ability to push for women’s rights while wearing stylish shoes.
35. VPL = visible panty lines. Like nipples and dirty faces, obvious underwear brings shame upon our mothers.
36. Plaid, the US term for tartan, has a long and illustrious history in defining the very fabric (excuse the pun) of the Scottish clans. However brave, those fine burly men were not known for their fashion sense, and so, like helmets and chain mail, plaid is best left on the battlefields of history and off our catwalks.
37. American pocketbook = English handbag, but as Mr Shakespeare so aptly wrote, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’. Especially if it’s on sale and goes perfectly with that dress you just found.
38. This actress shot to stardom on American TV in the early 1980s through the triumph of cleavage over character development, but her lasting fame came from her association with that loved/loathed piece of exercise equipment the ThighMaster. Correctly used, it probably results in coconut-cracking thighs, but improperly handled, it risks shooting from between the legs at velocity to maim any bystanders unfortunate enough to be in the same room.
39. Americans will queue to buy their movie tickets (and popcorn), but booking ahead for something as democratic as a film flies in the face of our credo. It’s not quite why we fought the War for Independence against the British, but if there’d been cinemas around at the time, it would have been towards the top of the grievances list.
40. The fabulous department store in New York that contains not one item for boys. It is truly a feminine paradise.
41. The definitive film on the life and times of an American college fraternity house, starring John Belushi, may he rest in peace. The film did more to immortalize the toga party than five centuries of Romans ever could.
42. This is one of those things, like colonic irrigation or a botched face lift, that we have a morbid fascination with but never want to experience personally. Suffice it to say that sometimes men aren’t as robust in their toilet habits as they need to be and, due to the hairiness of most male posteriors, leave behind various bits that a good wipe with toilet paper should have taken care of. ‘Dingleberries’ are the result (a term that evokes a berry, dingling, and aptly describes what these foul hangers-on might look like). The condition is rare among women, but could theoretically happen.
43. Oklahoma City is in, as the name implies, Oklahoma. This isn’t as obvious as it sounds given that Kansas City is in Missouri. Anyway, lovely as I’m sure Oklahoma City is, its state’s slogan, ‘Oklahoma is OK’, isn’t exactly a resounding endorsement for visitors wishing to have more than a mediocre holiday. And Fort Worth’s slogan, ‘You get it when you get here’, provides no assurances that visitors will like what they get if and when they do arrive.
44. How is it ever a good idea to get into a ring with a steroid-crazed mutant determined to beat you to a pulp for viewer amusement?
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Single in the City
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Footnotes
Chapter 1
Page 3
Page 11
Page 12
Page 13
Page 18
Page 23
Chapter 2
Page 35
Chapter 3
Page 38
Page 44
Chapter 4
Page 51
Page 53
Chapter 6
Page 69
Page 70
Page 76
Chapter 7
Page 87
Page 88
Chapter 8
Page 99
Page 101
Page 105
Chapter 11
Page 143
Chapter 12
Page 156
Page 159
Chapter 13
Page 171
Page 172
Page 174
Page 187
Chapter 15
Page 195
Chapter 16
Page 206
Chapter 18
Page 221
Chapter 19
Page 238
Chapter 20
Page 256
Chapter 21
Page 273
Chapter 22
Page 279
Chapter 23
Page 285
Page 289
Page 290
Chapter 24
Page 297
Page 301
Chapter 26
Page 311
Page 316