God save the Queen

To date, I have spent a total of 17 months in London and/or in its suburbia - 11 in Central London and another 6 in Surrey. I obviously do not consider myself to be a Londoner or anything of the sort. To start off with, my Maltese accent, reminiscent of the harsh Semitic one, will never be altered such that it approaches the soft Anglo Saxon one, especially the fancy "th" at the end of words (like bath or teeth), which is said like an "f" with a particular emphasis to shower the listener with saliva (gross, I know). But there is much more than spoken language which defines the British culture and, in my short time here, I believe I have grasped quite a few aspects of it...this is what this post will entail...

To begin with, the Brits are conservatives. Hardcore conservatives. In what sense? Anything you fancy! They chose not to switch to the Euro, they do not insist on having all cars with EU number plates, they refuse to change the driving system, they have their own electricity system, they speak in inches/feet/pounds/yards and what not...I could go on ad nauseam. Mind you, some of these are actually helpful for me: the electrics, for example. All the gadgets I brought over from home are simply plug-and-play, with no adapters needed! And the driving bit avoids me being run over by a car since I know which side I need to look at before crossing the road.

However, for such a country as England, I would expect some things to be quite different - let's say in line with modern European trends.

Say, the Roman Catholic Sunday Mass. Obviously, Protestantism dominates here, but there are quite a few Catholic churches in the capital. The strange thing is that a few of these seem to be frozen in time, precisely in the pre-Vatican Council II era. I do not find ANY valid reason why I should go to Mass and have a priest giving his back to the congregation (commonly accepted as ill-mannered behaviour), speaking with no microphone (as if talking to God by himself as in the Old Testament times) and having to kneel on cold marble steps to receive Communion (in a country where the concept of queue is almost sacred and everyone understands how it functions)! At least, I never went to a Latin Mass (yes, it exists too) which would have been a complete package for a typical pre 1960s service where the congregation was just an audience and full stop. Come on, guys! Wake up and smell the coffee, this is 2009!

Luckily, I found an alternative to this shocking service - a well structured Mass (albeit celebrated by a priest of Hispanic roots, whose English accent is almost as good as mine, but who at least faces the congregation) with live music, a decent audio system and communion rites not requiring that extra bit of effort of kneeling...what a relief to go to Church on the sole weekly "day of rest" knowing that it is not going to be so physically demanding!

I am a structural engineer and consider myself to be abreast of modern advances in the field, including new methods on how one designs buildings. Virtually all EU countries are nowadays talking of adopting European norms for use of concrete and steel in buildings, dubbed 'Eurocodes' (for the non-affiliated reader, these are simply standards which we engineers use when designing buildings). The Brits, like all good EU engineers, are well prepared for the introduction of these standards in 03/10 and I have attended a number of free, well-presented courses which assist the practising engineer in their use. However, in all of these courses, as well as in my M.Sc. days, the English speakers would be anything BUT acknowledging the pros of the Eurocodes. It is a well-known fact that the UK is EU-sceptic, but their constant nagging about how THEIR standards are adequate and there is no justification for withdrawing these and use instead Eurocodes developed by French or German engineers is, well, too much! What an offence to British intellect! In all fairness, the British standards are, indeed, superb, but one has to really move on with the spirit of the age - the zeit geist - and be a member of the global village.

I can draw many more instances where British conservatism rules and astonishes even myself, who comes from a naive, developing country as Malta. These illustrations perhaps provide a hint of how much the Brits tend to preserve their status quo. So, fellow readers, how can you expect these people I am sharing my life with to communicate with metric units instead of their imperial ones, which remind them of their glorious past? Or make them give up their Sterling pound and have instead Euro coins which bear Leonardo's Vitruvius Man instead of the portrait of the beloved Queen? So, may "God save the Queen" and let us sing "Rule, Brittania"!