The Winter of Our Discontent [FEBRUARY 26, 2006]

A friend of mine spotted his first nipple of the year on the beach a few days ago. One of the young and firm female varieties. Granted, the owner of the nipple in question probably wasn’t Spanish. She was most likely from Sweden, Denmark, or somewhere else in the frozen extremities of this continent, but her actions had a significant impact nonetheless. As they say here in the south of Spain (well, they don’t actually say it but they should, damn it), "When the first Scandinavian doth her buxom breasts bare, ‘tis Winter’s end so gather and stare!"


"Keep a look-out fellas... We're bound to see a nipple sooner or later..."

I know it doesn’t seem right that I’m officially calling an end to winter during the last week of February – especially while my girlfriend’s family in Prague is currently experiencing -1C (30F), mine in Philadelphia is living through 25F (-4C) and New York City is just recovering from the worst snowstorm in its history – but a Scandinavian nipple is a mighty portent indeed and one that is best not ignored. Honestly, though, winter is something we never really experience in full here in Cádiz. It typically only lasts for about two months and during that time the temperature hardly ever drops below freezing anyway. Now I know what you’re thinking: "There are only two months of mild winter in the sunny south of Spain? What am I doing here? Why the hell don’t I sell the house, put all my stuff in storage, send the kids to boarding school, lock Granny up in a retirement home, and move down there to España by the sandy beaches and sunny skies too?" But don’t be too hasty. There are a few things you should consider first before telling Granny and the young ones to start packing their extended-stay suitcases.


Sunbathers? But isn't it winter? They must be Scandinavian

First of all, just because the local Spanish say there isn’t any winter here doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. Like I stated earlier, there are a good two months of cold here. Who cares though, right? Cuddling next to the crackling fireplace in the warm living room for only two months out of the year isn’t that bad. Normally, I would agree with you but there’s one thing not to be overlooked. You see, the southern Spanish are just so damn reluctant to admit that it actually gets cold here, that they choose to ignore it altogether. What’s that you say? How can they ignore the cold? Well, according to the local wisdom all along the coastline of Andalucía, the easiest way to accomplish this is by not installing central heating or radiators, let alone that fireplace you were fantasizing about, in any building – not anywhere and not at any time of day or night – no matter how bitterly cold it gets. "This weather will pass soon enough," the seaside residents throughout the region state with pride. I’ve been living here for the better part of two years now and have yet to see an apartment or office building with central heating. During the month of January, my girlfriend and I were forced to wear three or four layers of clothing (and she would often wear her scarf as well) to school as we stood in front of the frozen classrooms and taught our shivering students. By contrast, each classroom in the school is fully equipped with air conditioning.

Ask any Spaniard from this region about winter and they’ll proudly reply, "Winter?! Ha! We don’t have winter here!" But then again, you’ll only hear that reply for ten out of twelve months. The other two, they’ll rub their hands together in the heating-less cold of the local bar or café and dumbfoundedly reply, "Winter?! Ha! You are unlucky, amigo, because this is the coldest winter I have ever experienced!" I thought last year, when I had asked the same question, was the coldest winter he had ever experienced. Either every year for the past few generations has been miraculously colder than the last, or the locals are suffering from some serious short-term memory loss which has resulted in complete ignorance when it comes to indoor heating.


Those winter sunsets are still just as stunning as the summer ones

Another byproduct of this utter reluctance to acknowledge the existence of winter is what I call the "If it doesn’t exist here, then it doesn’t exist anywhere" mentality. For example, locals are often surprised when I tell them about the wonders of this thing I call central heating and how, often times, I feel colder in Cádiz than I ever felt in the Czech Republic or Pennsylvania. "But it is warm here and cold there, no?" is their only puzzled reply. Yeah, that’s right. But it’s not cold at home. "In Cádiz," I tell them, "your toes are freezing whether you’re waiting at a bus stop or in a bank." "When?" they inevitably hit back. "In winter, of course." "But we don’t have winter! Only this year it is very cold. The coldest I have ever experienced!" Go figure.

This year’s winter, however, truly epitomized the "If it doesn’t exist here, then it doesn’t exist anywhere" mentality and greatly more so than others gone by. A Czech friend of mine, who is now visiting us here in Cádiz for about a week, flew into Madrid a few days ago. At the time, the Czech Republic, which had outranked both the USA and Canada, had just made it into the final four of the 2006 Olympic Ice Hockey Tournament. The very night he arrived in Madrid, there was a big game on to see who would advance to the finals. He searched the entire Spanish capital city of nearly 4 million people and could not find one pub that was showing the match. In fact, when he asked various bartenders if they could switch over the TV to Ice Hockey, they first said they didn’t understand what this Ice Hockey he spoke of was and then stared at him in wide-eyed wonder as he attempted to describe this mythical sport where people somehow magically glide across ice as they balance a wooden stick in gloved hands. While most of the world was busy watching the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, their Mediterranean neighbors to the west were oblivious to the fact that it was even going on. Had you asked any Spaniard across the country about it, they would have undoubtedly replied, "But I thought that already happened in Athens two years ago?" It’s as if the Winter Olympics had never happened at all here and couldn’t even be fathomed by the 40 million inhabitants of this land. Not one event was broadcast on national Spanish television. Not even the (from what I’ve been told were elaborate) Opening or Closing Ceremonies were shown. The evening news mentioned the city of Turin only once or twice and the written media ignored it completely. In fact, I doubt if a single Spanish team participated in the whole damn sporting event. For God’s sake, even the Jamaicans have a bobsled team! But that doesn’t concern the Spanish. Sure they have snow here (Madrid and many other cities to the north are routinely blanketed with the white stuff) and plenty of ski resorts but, like I said, winter doesn’t happen here. It’s something that happens in other countries and other regions.


Spanish Sportscaster:
"Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me there's a WINTER Olympics too?"

So where am I going with all of this? Well, don’t be so hasty to send off Granny and the kids just yet because of the winter in southern Spain. Although it only last for those two months, I’m sure you’ll eventually grow to miss your indoor heating and the occasional sight of snowflakes slowly melting on the windowpane. Worse yet, if you’re a sports lover, get ready to wipe your viewing repertoire clean of practically everything except for football (the soccer variety) and maybe a game of basketball every now and then. Winter in Andalucía is short, but it can be a brutal two month affair indeed.


Ahh... Winter's finally over! It's time to enjoy the first BBQ of the year

All of that, however, is now behind us. It is no longer the Winter of our discontent but the beginnings of glorious Summer. My Czech friend and I have been enjoying the currently sunny 17C (62F) weather and even had our first barbecue of the year by the Atlantic this past Friday. We took out the beach chairs, lit the charcoal, threw on a few steaks and popped open some beers as we looked through our shades at the few, yet clearly present, sunbathers down the other side of the beach. They weren’t topless, weren’t that young and probably weren’t Scandinavian, but it didn’t discourage us from staring. The message was clear: Another miserable winter in Cádiz – one that, like the lost city of Atlantis, no one is even sure ever existed – has finally come to an end. It’s time to join the locals in their denial of the fact that it ever gets cold here and soak up the warmth... All as I go to the beach more and more frequently in order to keep a look-out for my first bare buxom breast of the season. And don’t you worry, I’m confident it’ll come along soon enough. Scandinavian nipples are like springtime dandelions. Once someone you know spots the first one of the year, countless others are soon to follow in bloom.

What A Bitch! [FEBRUARY 19, 2006]

Well, it’s been a tough one and a half weeks – challenging at times, funny at others – but I think it’s finally over. Our faithful steed and loyal household companion, a.k.a. our blind Labrador Retriever named Ema, is no longer in heat. I can now walk comfortably through the winding streets of Cádiz and loosely hold the leash in my relaxed fingers. She no longer sniffs every puddle of urine and damn street corner or curb, but walks with her head held proudly and elegantly as she once did. She even obeys orders again and doesn’t go running into the middle of the street towards the slightest sound resembling a whimper, bark or growl. One look and you can tell... She’s not that horny anymore. But it wasn’t always like this. No sir!


"Hey there, sailor. Lookin' for a good time?"

For those of you that don’t know, I’m a relatively new dog owner. In fact, I would say I was forced into it as my girlfriend flew in Ema from her native Czech Republic with little or no say on my part. I would have rather seen the mangy mutt dead before living with it but, over the course of a few weeks, I became attached to her. In fact, I eventually began looking forward to her emphatic tail-wagging-greetings at the door upon coming home and our nice little strolls on the beach every morning and evening. A few months after that dreaded four-legged carpet first entered my life, I dare say I couldn’t ponder living without her. So, one can imagine my surprise and anxiety when, about two weeks ago, I saw a tiny puddle of blood under where Ema had been sitting. I was worried and picked her up by the tail for a quick inspection when I saw it and called over my girlfriend, "Come quick! There’s something wrong with Ema! Her asshole is bleeding!" But it wasn’t her asshole. It was her vagina and I was warned... she would soon be in heat.


Me, the unexperienced dog owner, a few months ago
unsure of what to do at the sight of other mutts

I’m assuming most people are like me and, as I was prior to this experience, have no idea what exactly is going on when a bitch is in heat. Well, here’s a quick biology lesson. The canine menstrual cycle isn’t like the human one. In fact, bitches only menstruate twice a year for about two weeks and, unlike women, can only get pregnant during this period. During the rest of the year, when they aren’t menstruating, they don’t even think about sex and don’t have to worry about those drops of blood dripping down their hind legs every few minutes. My girlfriend swears it would be perfect if the human female reproductive system worked like that of a dog... No concerns about forgetting to take the pill and getting pregnant all the time; No changing tampons or panty-liners in public lavatories for a week out of every month (and worrying about whether you brought one with you when you go out for the evening); And, best of all, the dreaded PMS would only strike twice a year. I, for one and as a male, would NEVER want it to work that way. It would mean having sex only twice a year and I sometimes need it twice a day! Although, come to think of it and from what I’ve been told, by the time we’ve been together for over a decade, having sex once every six months sounds like the right kind of frequency. Hell, I’ve heard of married men who are lucky to get even that.


"DAMN! I smell me some booty... Is that bitch in heat?"

But getting back to our blind blonde, Ema, she was nothing but one headache after another for those two weeks. First of all and most basically, she would leave blood everywhere. It really started getting on my nerves after the first few days and I even suggested tying a diaper around her hind quarters. My girlfriend said it was a bad idea. She had already tried it once in Prague when Ema was in heat a few years ago. When they went for a walk early one morning all those winters ago and my girlfriend, in her half-awake stupor, forgot to take the diaper off, the dog ended up first pissing and then shitting herself. I’m inclined to think it wasn’t a pretty sight.


Well, how can he wear a ball cap if he doesn't have a ball?


Now that's better!

So, we ended up mopping the blood after Ema every few hours or so. But that wasn’t the most distressing of our worries. The real challenge came when we took her for her obligatory two walks a day. Every time a dog approached, she would prepare for sex by curving her tail to the extreme left or right and leaving it there – allowing for "easy access" as my girlfriend has dubbed it. I thought it wouldn’t be that much of a problem seeing as Ema is blind and can’t actually see any other dogs. But that didn’t stop her. At the mere sound of another mutt, or whiff of what might be a mutt, or even when there wasn’t a mutt around but she thought there might be, our blind fur-ball would just stop there in the middle of the street, curve that tail, and wait patiently for penetration. A strong yank on the leash or a smack on the head was the lone thing that would get her moving again... only so that she could repeat the whole damn thing a minute or so later.


"Hey buddy, forget the old lady. Do you see that bitch? She's curving her tail at me!"

Ema, though, wasn’t the worst part of this daily ritual. In general, she’s very well behaved and trained. Only when it comes to sex does she get all worked up and in a frenzy. As for other dogs – the true mutts of Cádiz – they’re not trained at all and you can imagine how they act when it comes to sex. The male dogs were all over Ema during the daily walks. They’d sniff her hole and follow her half way through the city, ignoring my threats and adamant foot stomping. Where were the owners, you ask? Who knows! The only "responsible" dog-owners you see here in Cádiz, well at least those of them that are old ladies, and don’t let their pets roam free are so lazy to walk their dogs, that they reluctantly do it in their bathrobe and slippers. It’s quite a sight seeing old ladies wander the streets in their comfortable domestic eveningwear and being led by lap-dogs! As for the rest of the locals, the irresponsible ones, they’re probably drinking their coffee somewhere or having an early tapas at the local bar while their mangy mutts roamed free. And mutts is what most of the dogs here in Cádiz are.


Documented Proof: The lady on the left is wearing a blue bathrobe
and slippers in the town center in the middle of the afternoon

I know I call Ema a mutt, but she is actually a pure-bred Labrador with a pedigree. I have only seen a handful of purebreds here in Cádiz. In fact, even the central pet-shop near the fish market only sells cross-breed mutts, and at practically the same price of what you can get a pedigree pure-bred in Prague. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of them are really cute and adorable and their owners still love them, or even dress them up, as they would an adoring child... Even though most of them are strange cross-breeds with protruding jaws or short-haired bodies with long-haired tails or slobbering mouths that their stubby legs can hardly keep up with. The biggest setback, though, must be that they are impossible to train. And even if they weren’t, the Spanish around here don’t seem to mind. They just let them run around town without a leash or even a collar, and leave the dirty work – of keeping those mongrel phalli away from Ema’s purebred love-cavern – to me.


"Hey, bub. Who you callin' a mutt? My name's Sir Winston."


Sorry about that Sir Winston. These guys are the mutts I was talking about...


...And this litte bastard with an underbite made my life
a living hell each time I stepped foot outside the door

Ema must have realized after about halfway through her cycle that she wasn’t going to get any doggy-lovin’ on our watch. That’s when she resorted to desperate measures. At first, she only did it to my girlfriend... As my lovely Czech sat there on the sofa watching TV with her legs crossed, Ema would slowly sneak up and mount by grabbing onto her knee and commencing the infamous doggy-style. I had a good laugh, "Silly mutt! Only male dogs have sex like that!" until she started doing it to me a few days later. In fact, she even mounted a few visitors we had invited over our place during the weekend. No one was safe while Ema was in heat and if she couldn’t get a male from her own species, then a human leg, regardless of gender, would do just fine thank you very much.


Ema under a severe sniff- and lick- blitzkrieg... and enjoying every minute of it

As I initially stated, thank God though that all of this has finally come to an end. Nowadays, we can walk our lovely Labrador on the beach once again without the fear of having her followed by a pack of male dogs frothing at the mouth over the irresistible odor emanating from her nether-regions. She currently prefers, as she once did, chasing balls and eating salami scraps off the pavement to dry-humping the legs of our house guests. Even the local mutts, which used to follow her without reprieve, now give her and me some breathing space... although they occasionally do sneak by and get a well-sought-after sniff or lick. But, most importantly, no matter how much they lick or sniff, that tail doesn’t get into the "easy-access" position anymore. Now, when I tell Ema to sit, she sits. Lie down and she lies. Stay and she stays. She is once again as loyal and obedient as she ever was. Now that I think about it, it’s amazing what will happen to a living creature when sex is involved. It’s a basic instinct and all creatures, from a bird to mankind, would do whatever it takes to get a few precious moments of pleasure. The one thing I don’t understand about dogs, though, is why do they need it so much when they’re in heat if they can just lick their own genitalia? Hell, if I could pull that one off, I would never leave home. In fact, I doubt I would have ever been able to finish typing up this article...

¡Que Aproveche! [FEBRUARY 12, 2006]

One of the most important things about going to another country and experiencing its culture is having an open mind. It’s a different place and, seeing as you’re only going to be there temporarily, you should try to absorb as much of the local atmosphere as possible. This is especially true when it comes to food. There’s nothing I hate more than seeing a group of Americans here in Spain, who are probably on vacation for less than a week, standing in line to order a Whopper from Burger King. Now I know Whoppers taste delicious – especially with a slice of cheddar cheese and some bacon – but don’t you get enough of that crap at home? You’re in another country for God’s sake... give the local flavor a try.

The two most typical Spanish dishes, ones that are known the world over, are paella and jamón serrano. Actually, paella is the only real dish (rice in a saffron-base with fish and game meat). Jamón is just a leg of cured ham – but it is DAMN good. Now, as a foreigner in Spain, you probably won’t want to try the jamón. I know I didn’t when I first came here. It can appear a bit intimidating under initial impressions seeing as it looks like, well, a leg of ham. And I’m not talking about that butterball processed crap we have back home and call ham. No sir. This one comes in the form of an actual pig’s leg, hoof and all, and dangles from the ceiling for everyone to see. When you first walk by your typical Spanish bar and see those dozens of legs (or even hundreds as I once witnessed in Madrid’s aptly named eatery, El Museo de Jamón) hanging there like something out of Hannibal Lecter’s twisted fantasy, don’t be turned off! Enter bravely, tell the barman to grab that hoof so he can cut you up a few slices and – seeing as they probably won’t have any fava beans or Chianti – get yourself a side dish of olives and a nice glass of Sherry to top it off.


Who needs interior design when you have pigs' legs?


Spain is the only country where you can actually see a hoof among
your neighbor's garbage and not worry if he's into Voodoo

When one thinks of jamón and the way it just hangs there with its hoof, you realize the Spanish don’t have this aversion most of us in the States do to eating food that might resemble something that was once alive. Think about it... When was the last time you went to the supermarket and saw a hoof, head, or hide? We get all that stuff chopped off and what remains is either vacuum-sealed or flash-frozen. The end result is that we take home chicken breasts, legs, or even processed nuggets, but never an actual chicken. I know what you’re thinking, "I just got a whole chicken the other day and roasted it in the oven, you dumb bastard GC." But here in Spain, it’s not considered to be a whole chicken unless it’s actually WHOLE. That’s right folks. They sell the chickens here with the head still attached. In fact, there are even a few feathers sticking out every now and then too. Imagine my surprise when I first bought a chicken at the local supermarket, came home, unwrapped the plastic and lifted it from its styrofoam tray only to find those beady little eyes staring back at me and that wattled beak drooping lifelessly. I just couldn’t get it. What’s the point of selling a chicken with the head still attached? Who eats chicken heads? What possible use can they serve? None, I thought, until my girlfriend asked one of her young students what her favorite food was. The twelve year old Spanish girl responded without hesitation, "Chicken Blood!"


Chicken heads: A rare sight for the non-Voodoo practicing American consumer

Barn yard animals aside, one finds the most variety in Spanish cuisine when it comes to seafood. Statistically, the Spanish are the second largest consumers of fish and seafood in the world. Only the Japanese outrank them. This appetite for anything from the salty sea is insatiable. Even in Madrid, the capital and largest city but geographically the furthest point from the sea on the Iberian Peninsula (it takes about 8 hours, for example, to drive there from Cádiz), this never-ending demand for seafood can only be satisfied by having it flown in at all hours of the day. Wherever you maybe in Spain – from the mountain tops to the desert valleys – you can always find a fresh plate of fish.


The local fish market is always one of the most popular places in town

Here in Cádiz though, we’re lucky. We don’t need to have anything flown in. The sea is everywhere. You can’t turn a street corner in this town without seeing a fish restaurant or fish for sale in same shape or form. But the fish isn’t the strange thing. I love eating fish and view it as one of the best things to have ever happened to the art of cooking. My problem with the local flavor is their appetite for that really strange, non-fishy, other seafood. You see, I’m not talking about shrimp, crabs, or lobster. I’m referring to everything else that thrives in the murky depths of the Atlantic – octopus, cuttlefish, slugs, barnacles and sea urchins – and it’s tough to be open-minded when these grotesque critters are staring at you from the dinner plate. They love this stuff down here and most of the time even eat it raw. If the residents of Cádiz were to have a culinary motto, it would probably be, "If it comes from the sea, it’s good enough for me!"


The title on top of this poster found at a local
restaurant reads: "Seafood from the Bay of Cadiz"
Need I say more?

Now granted, it is strange to me that they eat all of this stuff, but like I said at the opening of this article, if you’re in a foreign country you should at least give the local flavor a try. I’ve tried the octopus... not bad. In fact, the pulpo a la Gallega way of preparing the tentacled beast is delicious. But that’s just the thing – they actually cook and prepare the octopus when they make it in that fashion. As for the barnacles and sea urchins, and many times even baby prawns, they serve them raw. In fact, they normally sell these things on the sides of busy streets and in one-serving containers just like we do with nuts and potato chips back home. You can always spot a few happy faces on Sunday walking through the marketplace or doing a bit of window shopping while they expertly munch away at the raw prawns or barnacles they just bought. The only hitch is that they are continuous lyon the look-out after what they’re eating – those baby prawns like being swallowed alive almost as much as they like being out of the sea and they make a jump for it any chance they get! And yes, before you ask, I have had an open mind and given these raw "delicacies" a try... trust me, stick to the Whopper with bacon and cheese on this one.


Anyone want some raw sea urchins, barnacles, or whatever the hell that other stuff is? Makes for a great snack!


Or maybe some baby prawns (cooked variety) are more to your liking?

But don’t write off all Spanish seafood just because their cuisine includes a sea creature that you know exists only from old pirate films and Mutiny on the Bounty ("Arghh! I’ll have ye scraping the barnacles off the hull, I will!"). Raw sea urchins and slugs aside, they actually do have some damn good seafood down here. If I had ignored it all because of the jumping baby prawns, I would have never discovered this fried seafood down here, either cazón en adobo (dogfish in spice) or chocos (cuttlefish tentacles), that makes my mouth water at just the mere thought of it. In fact, I would dare say these things have now entered my top ten list of favorite foods. I would have never thought that I’d like fried dogfish or cuttlefish so much but, like I said, you never know if you don’t try. So before you sidestep the entire issue of Spanish seafood, do yourself a favor and visit the local fish market (every town in Spain has one). It’s a Mecca of every underwater creatures imaginable – all waiting to be bought and prepared at home. Take a little stroll through, see what each fishmonger’s stall has to offer, and don’t be afraid to try. Who knows? You may find yourself adding Hermit Crab to your list of favorite foods one day!


"Daddy, why are you playing with your food?"
"I'm not. It's playing with me!"

And even if seafood isn’t your thing, remember that there’s always paella and jamón serrano. The main point though is to not overlook anything just because it looks strange. Who knows when you might be surprised. Be brave! Smile at your Spanish hosts, wish them "¡Que Aproveche!" ("Enjoy Your Meal!"), and dig into the feast they have set out before you. Take a bite out of that pig’s leg, munch on a handful of raw baby prawns, suck those sea slugs out of their shells, and wash the whole lot down with some thirst-quenching chicken blood. After you’ve done all that, had your fill of the local cuisine, and wished your gracious hosts good night, step out the door and head for the nearest Burger King where you can finally scarf down that delicious Whopper with bacon and cheese. Considering what your adventurous taste buds have just been through, they deserve a good ol’ burger...

Aluminium, Fags & Rubbers [FEBRUARY 5, 2006]

Apparently, the a in "wash" and the a in "palms" are pronounced differently. I had no idea. I’ve been speaking English for twenty-seven years now and then something like this comes up and smacks me in the face. As it turns out, I haven’t been speaking English all along... I’ve been speaking American English.

My girlfriend first pointed it out the other day. I had just done a pronunciation lesson with my adult students in class and was telling her all about it, "The way these Spanish pronounce their English is really interesting! I was doing some phonetics drills and none of them could hear the difference between the vowel sounds in ‘He bought the law’ and those in ‘Wash your palms.’"
"Which difference? The one between bought / law and wash or the one between wash and palms?" she replied.
"What do you mean the difference between wash and palm? It’s the same sound... wAAAsh and pAAAlms...."
"No, no, no. It’s wAUsh and it’s pAAAlms. Trust me."
And so an argument ensued. We always get into arguments when it comes to English. She’s convinced she’s right, and I’m convinced that I’m right – especially since I’m the only native speaker in this relationship. But my Czech girlfriend insists it’s because she’s speaking proper British English and I’m spewing out gunslinger Yankee-talk. And this time, the argument was pretty bad – almost as bad as that time I was convinced there was no such word as "aluminium". There’s no i in "aluminum", damn it! Then she took out the dictionary and, low and behold, she was right. There WAS an i in aluminium!

She was right this time too. Palms has the same vowel sound as "arm" and "father" whereas wash has the same vowel sound as "hot" and "rock". She even had an Oxford University dictionary to prove it. Still not convinced? Well, if the vowels in palms, arm, father, wash, hot and rock all sound similar to you too, then you’re in the same boat as me. You must be a Yankee. But don’t worry! I did a little research of my own – just because I think those "linguists" up at Oxford are a bunch of stuck-up bastards – and went to have a look at good ol’ Merriam-Webster who, surprise surprise, listed all of those vowel sounds as being pronounced the same way. In the end, it turns out, North American speakers are simply unable to reproduce the a in "wash" and distinguish it from the a in "palms". British English has an extra sound we never even heard about. And just imagine, I needed a Czech to tell me about it!

But it’s not only pronunciation that poses a problem. There are differences in everything from grammar to spelling when it comes to which side of the Atlantic you’re on. Slang terms are the worst. I remember once when I was living in Madrid (this was when I used to smoke) and I had also recently learned that the British slang term for cigarette was "fag". Well, I was at a bar and saw that I had run out of cigarettes and went to a table of Brits sitting by the corner. I kindly asked, "Hey guys, can I bum a fag?" Little did I realize "to bum" means to sodomize someone in British slang. They were obviously aware of the American slang usage of "fag" when they replied, "I don’t know, mate. Depends on how you like it, dunnit?!" and had a good laugh at my expense. I never bummed a fag again.

Don’t worry though. I’ve mocked countless Brits in my day too. My girlfriend and I were watching an English detective series known as Midsomer Murders once. The detective was interviewing a sweet little old lady who was cooking and asked him, "May I tempt you to a sausage, Inspector?" "No thank you, ma’am," he replied. "Well then, what about a bit of Spotted Dick and Custard?" she insisted. Eventually the Inspector gave in and accepted. Spotted Dick and Custard?! What the hell is that? Nowadays, whenever I meet someone and I’m not sure whether they’re a Brit or not, the first thing I usually say is, "I got four words for you – ‘Spotted Dick and Custard.’" If they reply and tell me it sounds like some disease you get from a Thai whore, I know they’re not British. On the other hand, if they say it’s a delicious pudding, then I leave the subject be and snicker under my breath.

Granted, these minor discrepancies in different versions of the language don’t usually hamper communication between the two types of speakers. If anything, as in my case, they make for a good laugh every now and then. But when you make a living out of teaching the most popular language in the world, it’s nothing but a headache. I’ve had a number of advanced students question me about dubious statements made while standing in front of class. When I once stated that a student had "finished his test quicker" and also done better than the rest of the students, that very student asked me why I had said "..finished his test quicker" and not "...finished his test more quickly." Grammatically, I should have used an adverb and not an adjective but American English tends to opt for the adjective instead of the adverb. How many times has President Bush said, "Our troops are doing real good" instead of "really well" and no one makes fun of him for that little faux pas. It sounds natural to us... The "Department of Strategery", on the other hand, doesn’t. Come to think of it, I guess Bush isn’t the right kind of an example when it comes to proper grammatical usage, but he does make for a good showpiece in this instance.

On the flip side, it must be even more of a headache for students of the English language. How do they know which version to use? My girlfriend, for example, always used to tell me to put the dog on the lead when I took her for walks. After a few strange looks and a confused scratch on the noggin, she realized I had no idea what a lead was and started using leash. Now when she says it, I smile and thank her for reminding me. She also once asked me, "Shall we go for a walk?" and I asked her what the formality was all about. "Shall we do this or Shall we do that – Woe is me!" She got fed up with my mockery and, again, proved me wrong by pointing to her grammar books which indicated "Shall we..." is a perfectly normal way of indicating a suggestion in Britain. But screw the books and the Queen’s English. I still teach it and say it the way nearly 400 million people back on the other side of the Atlantic do. What’s wrong with "You wanna go for a walk?" It may not be proper, but at least no one will make fun of my student when he goes on holiday to the United States and hits on that hot girl he just met. He won’t say, "Oh dear, whatever shall we do once we have finished our drinks?" but rather, "Hey baby, wanna go back to my place and catch a ride on the love train?" She may slap him either way... but at least he’ll have done it in style.

The thing is, I’ve got a lot of work to do if I want little Carlos and Juan to grow up and be able to throw out that kind of American smooth-speak to the ladies. Nowadays, they start the kids off young here in these language schools. The newest generation have all been learning English since they were five or even four years old. Don’t get me wrong – that’s great. The younger the student, the better his or her aptitude for learning a new language. The only problem is that they’ve started them off on British English so I have a lot of damage to undo. My first day of class, for example, one of the kids asked me if I had a "rubber" on me and winked. I almost sent him to the principal – with a mouth on him like that – until, that is, I realized that a "rubber" is actually an "eraser" in the UK. I told him to use "eraser" with me and none of the students have said "rubber" ever since. But hey, they’re kids. They adapt easily and listen with awe to whatever the teacher says. Not only do none of them say "rubber" anymore, but they also use "pants" and "sneakers." Screw "trousers" and "trainers." By the time the school year is done, I’ll have them saying "cool" and "awesome" too.

The only problem with all of this re-education is that I won’t be able to teach my students – young and old alike – the different vocal sounds in the phrase "Wash your palms." But then again, does anyone really care? There are ways to work around it. Besides, I’m American and I’ll teach them the English I know... "Dude, clean your hands."