1. No Horns
I didn't hear a single car horn during my first two weeks in
London. I don't mean the kind of long, irritated, insulting
honks in Israel every time a red light turns green. I mean
not even light honking. Not even a single staccato honk. That
is not to say there are no traffic jams here. There are
plenty. Neither does it mean the British always dash off the
instant the light turns green. The British never dash off
anywhere, nor are they ever in pursuit of anyone. And most of
all they don't honk.
Even if you start to pull into a parking space and you're not
good at parking (especially not on the left side of the
street) and behind you is a young man who in Israel would not
hesitate to honk if you blocked his exit — here he
waits and waits and then smiles graciously as he drives on.
Even if he just missed an important job interview.
But after two weeks I encountered my first long, irritated,
insulting honk. It wasn't even while parking, but while
waiting behind a red double-decker bus stopped at a bus stop
— when suddenly that long honk sounded and the driver
decided to pass in the lane for oncoming traffic, shouting,
"Who are you waiting for?"
It took me exactly one second to realize the shout . . . was
in Hebrew.
2. No Policemen
Perhaps it has something to do with the previous section but
over the course of two weeks we did not see a single
policeman, except for a few at the airport and the chocolate
soldiers at Buckingham Palace and perhaps one in the
Underground. When you arrive from a country where a patrol
car is waiting on every corner and every two minutes police
cars race by with sirens blaring, this is very noticeable. We
were told there really aren't many policemen in England,
although our local source could not say why. One suggested it
was because the wages are poor while another said it was
because there are no Englishmen . . .
No Englishmen
That's right, you read correctly. In London there are many
Pakistanis, blacks, Arabs, Poles, Romanians and even Jews.
From our first days in the city we felt something was missing
from the cityscape: Englishmen.
The pharmacies belong to Pakistanis. In stores you see black
and Arab sales assistants. Building sites are full of Polish
construction workers (who may have come from Israel). In the
Underground you hardly see any Englishmen. Looking at the
benches you will spot Chinese, Japanese, a Pakistani, an
Indian and a Jew (the latter in the reflection of the glass,
i.e. me).
Here and there you may see an Englishman, easy to spot. So
where have England's Englishmen gone?
Our sources assure us they have not vanished. True, London
has been taken over by foreigners. But in the rest of
England, so they assure us, Englishmen can be found—and
plenty of them.
Furthermore, we are told, the Englishmen are too lazy to
work. They work for fifteen minutes and then need half an
hour to rest and relax and drink a cup of tea. We heard this
remark several times from different people. This is why none
of the workers, as a cursory glance reveals, are
Englishmen.
Another explanation: The British do not mingle with the
commoners. They work at more solid jobs (not as salespeople,
etc.) and stick together, not spending time with the folks
from the neighborhood.
4. The Police Have No Guns
Did I write above there are no policemen? Well, it turns out
there are some. Not many but some, our sources say, and there
is no reason not to believe them. And these policemen who our
sources assure us do exist, do not carry firearms.
"So what do they carry?" I ask.
"Nothing."
"Perhaps a club?"
I try to make sense of this using my powers of logic (which
are indeed becoming a bit rusty).
"British policemen walk around in uniforms and that's it!"
"And if something happens? A thief? A burglar? What do they
do?"
Then my source, with typical British humor, recalls the
weapon the policemen are equipped with.
"They say, `Excuse me,' " he chirps, and for some reason
finds this amusing. "Not the gentle `Excuse me' you are used
to hearing in England everywhere you go, but a somewhat
insulting `Excuse me.' "
"An `insulting excuse me?' "
"Yeah, like in Israel when you hear, `Slichah adoni, ata
muchan lehitpanot mikan?' "
"Aha."
"Just like that, but with only the `Slichah adoni'
part. Get it?"
Got it. Perhaps the British are not the fools in this case.
Perhaps the rules of the game are different when the
policemen don't carry guns. Everything is more relaxed, more
British, more gentlemanly—and much less aggressive.
Following some inquiries I find this is indeed the case. Not
that England is free of crime, but everything is much less
aggressive. The peace is kept with a smile much more than
with a handgun.
England's next-door neighbor, France, also proved this to the
whole world, which could not understand how it confronts
rioters so light-handedly, for the riots last year cost the
French only money and not bloodshed. They acted calmly, not
shooting or shelling, and perhaps as a result the rules of
the game remained at the level of rioting rather than
killing.
Perhaps there is something to be learned here as well.
*
The above are a few things not found in England and it would
certainly be nice if they were not found in other places.
