At the moment I'm re-reading a Bill Bryson book, the one about his early days in England; 'Notes From A Small Island'
What a cracker it is, he really gets to know his subject matter.
For example one chapter starts with a group of Englishmen discussing how to get from A to B;
QUOTE;
If you mention in the Pub that you intend driving from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance most Americans would happily go for a Taco, you companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say;
"Well that's a bit of a tall order!" Then they'll launch into a lively and protracted discussion of whether it's better to take the A30 to Stockbridge and then the A303 to Ilchester or the A361 to Glastonbury via Shepton Mallet.
Within minutes the conversation will plunge off into a level of detail that leaves you, as a foreigner, swivelling your head in quiet wonderment.
"You know that layby outside Warminster, the one with the grit-box with the broken handle?", one of them will say, "
You know, just past the the turnoff for the Little Puking but before the B6029 mini-roundabout, by the dead Sycamore?"
At this point you realise that you are the only person in the group not nodding vigourously.
"Well about a quarter of a mile further past there, not the first left turning, but the second one, there's a lane between two Hedgerows - they're mostly hawthorn but with a little hazel mixed in.
Well if you follow that road past the reservoir and under the railway bridge, and then take a sharp right at the 'Drunken Ploughman'-"
"Nice little Pub" -some one will usually interject, "They do a nice pint of Old Toejam"
-"and follow the dirt track through the army firing range and round the back of the cement works, it drops down onto the B3689 Rams Dropping bypass. It saves a good 3 or 4 minutes and cuts out the level crossing at Great Shagging"
"Unless..... you're coming from Crewkerne", someone else will eagerly add; "Now, if you're coming from Crewkerne"
:lol: :lol:
Isn't that brief observation so true, we've all done at some time, be it a local route of in another county entirely at the other end of the country.
And that's just one passage in a great 350page book, you ought to see what he has to say about Australia in his book 'Down Under'
Laugh?, I caused some concern by sitting there rocking backwards & forwards giggling :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
BillBryson Website
