I wait until I’m semi-safely out of the UK before adding that subtitle; for all I know it’s a hate crime in Britain to imply that folks without a passable command of English and without any genetic or cultural connection to the England that their ancestors didn’t build are somehow non-English. (I say ‘semi safely’ because I’m currently in Canada, part of the realm- and likely with the same laws or worse).
Guggli
Only a couple days into our trip, we had to fly to England for our three interviews there. Our flight was from Baden-Baden/Karlsruhe to London/Stansted. We arrived past the hour of regular public transportation. As the crow flies the hotel was only about a mile and a half away, but I had no clue how to walk there with motorways and highways and highway exits circling all around the airport. Plus I had no cell-tower service for the map app so we got a cab. There’s no meter in the cab- the fare is figured out at the counter in the airport. The taxi company must pay a hefty amount to be the sole cab provider because the fare for the 6-minute ride was 26 pounds. I was tired and a bit cranky about the price for a ride which amounted to driving down the block, so I didn’t tip Slavjic, our mute driver. The hotel desk clerk TOMAS looked Eastern European too but his accent was pretty working-class Brit and he was a nice, talkative dude, though dressed more like a Belgrade clubber than a London concierge. He told us a little about his last girlfriend. Like me, Andy is polite and showed some good-natured interest. The room had about 5 times as much Lysol and PineSol than it needed and I opened the windows the maximum allowable two-inch crack. Despite the chemicals frying our nose hairs we had a pretty good sleep and woke up ready to experience England! Andy had never been there and it had been over 20 years for me, so we were both excited. I’d told Andy that Great Britain has perhaps the most charming towns and countryside in the whole world. And on this trip Merry England didn’t disappoint. Still, day 1 in Britain didn’t feel very British until we got away from the airport- and unfortunately I had to go back again in the morning to pick up the rental car.
The hotel is built in that classic half-timber, but vertical beams only English country style. From the outside it lives up to its name, the Grand Hollingsworth Manor.
However the inside doesn’t match up. It’s a big dingy and beaten up. There’s not much for decoration. Drapes and curtains need replacing. The restaurant and pub are closed down. And the grounds behind the hotel look worn and unkempt. This would be a great place to stay for a businessman only coming to Stansted for a meeting, or a family needing to stay a night on vacation before their morning flight to Mallorca, with the little lake in back, the lush vegetation and the grand country estate look, but it was just too worn out and decrepit to deserve a decent rating.
This time I would absolutely not pay highway robbery to get 6 minutes down the road. I let Andy hang out at chemical-bomb manor and ventured out into the sun and fresh air, and made my way down the leafy country road, attempting to retrace our route from the night before.
Retracing your journey with Slavjic is fine until you get to a section where no pedestrian has ever ventured. Soon I found myself tromping over weeds and dirt, pressed up against the thick woods, trying to stay off the busy highway. It was no use, the on/off ramps went in circles and there was no provision for walkers. I walked back to the two-lane country road and found a gas station where I’d ask directions. Luckily there was no line at the mini-mart counter.
-Excuse me.
-Jes.
-Um, how might I get to the airport on foot?
Bhagwan stared at me for a second and pointed back to where I’d just been, where the country road met the busy highways.
-Yu go dair, a den, den yu go e-rai-eat, A den, e-lai-eft.
-Uh, yes I know that way for cars, but that takes you to the motorway and I’m asking how do you get to the airport on foot.
Bhagwan just stared.
-Do you understand ‘on foot’?
I honestly don’t think he did. Bhagwan had had enough of my nonsense apparently and just blurted out, “GUGGLI.”
-Excuse me?
-Guggli. GUGGLI!
A couple other customers had come in to pay for their gas so I stepped aside. Bhagwan attended to the first guy, giving me a side glance, a nod and once more saying, Guggli!
And then the obvious hit me. He was saying, “Google it!”
Of course, the reason I asked him in the first place is because I don’t have a cell phone connection, I’m trying to avoid constantly looking for Wi-Fi connections with all these terms and conditions and email address requirements, and I was trying to maximize my time talking to people. Thankfully I found a working-class Brit gassing up his utility truck, who was happy to tell me the way in his thick brogue, though he wasn’t 100% sure if it could be done, since nobody walks to the airport. He was humored by the fact I was trying it and gave a good hearted laugh and said, “Good luck, then!”
Then the 2nd thought hit me. Between the era of asking questions to a real, human face that answers in the local language (i.e.- all of history) and the era of your brain chip telling you exactly where you need to go, there is this current era of half-human, half artificial GUGGLI, or Google it!
It allows Baghwan and other clerks like him to exist in Britain. Sorry but they never would have hired such a person in any service industry pre-internet era. Now, any query beyond the difficulty level of “Do you have Twix bars?” can be easily answered by just saying ‘Guggli’. In fact that’s probably what his boss tells him to do. No wonder every dang clerk in the big cities of the Western world and Japan is now a foreigner. They don’t need language or skills, just the ability to press a couple buttons and say ‘google it’.
Anyway, Bobby led me in the general direction of the airport and here are a few sights along the way.
Fly-tipping has nothing to do with fishing. Somehow it means illegally dumping waste or rubbish. I know this because I guggli.
The Brits love to give their houses names. It works here because every house is different. It wouldn’t make any sense to do this in a McMansion suburb of Southern California. Here was a small place called Romany house. Next was a larger, elegant house called Woodfield. Then RAMOR house; REVOAN house; ARDLU house; Ashbury; Ash Grove; Birch house, Gables, Thorncroft, Coppice, Stile Close and Hornbeam Crescent.
This guy said the heck with the fancy names, I’ll just name my house what it is.
I asked a couple more people, including a mailman how to get to the airport and got varying instructions until one old timer came out of his rowhouse and was eager to show a walker how to do it. It was a bit complicated, but his instructions were good and he nailed it. “Along the creek through the field over the bridge into the woods next to the water treatment plant over the berm past the ponds through the gate and up to the stairs and then I would see the road to the airport. Give it a go!”
When I finally got on the grassy fields next to the busy roads to the airport, it seemed lots of drivers were looking over at me saying to themselves, “What the heck is this guy doing?” This seems to always happen to me on vacation. At some point I’m at odds with the normal, car-using public. But I made it to the rent-a-car place and it was soon back at the Manor hotel to pick up Andy for our trip. Alas, we couldn’t get out of the airport area right away because Andy said he had left his iPhone in the cab the night before. Thus we had to pay 10 pounds to park in a 30 minute lot and deal with Mohammed at the taxi counter. I gave him all the information about the cab and the driver and the destination and the time and even the receipt with all the information on it, and Mohammed couldn’t figure out who our driver was the night before. He told us to call back or come in later. We had to get on the road and wouldn’t be back at Stansted till the end of the week. This issue, though eventually solved, was a bit of a headache due to my refusal to get sim card, and the quality of the customer service trying to help us solve this problem.
Aside from this bump in the road, it was a sunny day and only a 10 minute drive away from the airport got us into some lovley rolling-hills English countryside. We drove into a small town with a beautiful old church and a pub/restaurant called the Angel and Harp.
Andy was sad about the phone but he perked right up when they brought out the fish and chips and meat pie:
After lunch we went down to the church and looked around.
Then we continued driving out on the narrow country roads and passed through one picturesque town after another. We passed an inn called The Stag where some folks were out sitting at picnic tables. One friendly guy named Mike waved at us and I slowed down to get directions to a town I wanted to see. Mike invited us back in the evening to the party. “Free roasted pig- come on out!”
Well we had to be back that way to pick up Lukas, coming in from Frankfurt, at blessed Stansted again. About four hours later Mike spotted us from inside the pub and came running out to invite us in. Indeed tonight was the proprietor’s birthday and he was throwing a party for the whole neighborhood. I ordered a couple pints and we joined Mike and his wife and friends. We went out back and ate pulled pork sandwiches. Mike, whose son is in Connecticut with his American doctor wife and two kids, had nothing but great stuff to say about the States. He was even considering getting US citizenship- then he could really spend a lot of time with his American grandkids.
I looked around me at the inn and noticed everyone looked pretty English with nary a guggli in sight. I mentioned the diversity of the workers at the airport and paucity of cherub-cheeked, English faces. Mike rolled his eyes and shook his head as if to say, Dan, you don’t know the half of it. He said lots of the people in the surrounding neighborhoods didn’t particularly appreciate the vibrancy of the city and just wanted the peace of English country life. Then Mike launched into a long complaint about his workers. He’s a construction contractor and none of his workers are English. The closest is his Eastern European foreman who is there to translate and tell the Bulgarians and Romanians what to do. Mike shook his head and repeated that he just might have to move to the States. When I told them I’d stayed at the Grand Hollingsworth Manor Mike said, “what did you think of it?”
-It was fine but a bit run down.
Then Mike’s friend Steven said, “yeah, you know why?”
Me-Why?
Steven-because that’s one of the places they filled full with those young immigrants over months and months. Those guys trashed the place.
Mike (shaking head, disgusted)- that used to be a very fine inn. They ruined it.
Steven- and they got paid well to ruin it.
Mike- They sold out!
I told them about Guggli and they shook their heads and told me some other stuff about the masses of immigrants flowing into England, and then we dropped the subject to not put a pall on the party.
Our hotel that night was a good 25 minutes from Stansted and the lady at reception was a sweet, Jolly Brit.
Conclusion- There are of course two Englands, one getting smaller and one growing like mad. Is it terrible bigotry if I like being around Brits in Britain? (Cause obviously the ‘legacy’ Brits want to be around Brits too.)
At the Stag I summed up my stance to this genocidal/suicidal mass immigration to Mike and his friends. “Here’s my position: It’s pretty simple. I like most all cultures. I like diversity. Some immigration is OK but mass immigration doesn’t promote diversity. It kills it. It’s nice when each country has its own unique culture. I’ve made a point of learning foreign languages to be able to semi-thrive in a multitude of places. Every race has their good points. At the same time, I don’t think any race should be replaced in the country they built and disappear from the face of the earth, and we know that is happening across the Western world to the European races.”
Nobody disagreed with that, and Mike and Steven nodded in agreement.
There’s a huge sign on the wall as you walk towards immigration and customs at Stansted airport. It celebrates and brags about the 200 or so languages and nationalities that London can boast. That’s a few too many, in my humble opinion.
You make everything an adventure and/or lesson. Well done!
Nice article. I'll likely never see England. This was good enough. Besides, it's all just Monty Python skit these days. I've seen plenty.
Good on ya for striking up a real conversation on the real dilemma the Brits face.