Scribbling #14: Five things I miss about the Motherland

Due to the UK election kerfuffle going on, with the Lib Dems (translation for Canadians and other exotic creatures: Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives are 'Tories' and the Labour Party is known as 'The party formerly known as New Labour, until the 'new' shininess was found to be just gold leaf, which eventually peeled to unveil the cold, black hearts of people who like shaking hands with, say, Robert Mugabe') taking centre stage in many a news story, I became vaguely wistful of what great things I left behind in the country of my birth. So, here's a list in no particular order of what I sort of miss, but don't really all that much:

1. TV programmes.

Such feats as Top Gear, the Antiques Roadshow, Christmas re-runs of Only Fools and Horses, great F1 coverage and the fact that everything is basically not dubbed. Instead of flopping on the sofa and letting my brain and my facial expression drift away in front of the telly, I instead have to choose if I want to do something creative with my time, or try and watch a DVD, like a film or something. Sometimes I opt for creativity. Sometimes the film. Sometimes it's just staring at the TV, without it being switched on. When Mrs C. then asks me what I'm thinking about, I have to say 'nothing', because I really am. I'm just waiting for the next neuron to fire in order to connect the fact that for me, there really is nothing on since I now live in a Slovak-speaking culture. Good thing, then, that English DVDs with Slovak subtitles are readily available. I just bought the Full Monty today for ten cents of a Euro. Bargain. But I still miss Top Gear.

2. The local pub's pig roast and pub lunches.

I've never been, it sounds disgusting, it looks disgusting, but I miss it because it was always there, every Easter, if I wanted to go to it. The motorbikes outside the place and the heavy metal Gandalf-lookalikes hanging around just added that extra appeal of 'what if?'. What if I did go and end up having food poisoning? Would it still be fun the day before my bowels turned to water? Eternal questions such as these should be given due consideration. And of course, there were always the great pub lunch - being able to sit outside in the pub garden on a slightly sunny Saturday, enjoying the pub view and all things pubby.

3. Indian restaurants.

There is only one that I really know of, and that's in Bratislava. Basically, the Slovaks' aversion to spicy food means that there is not much chance of 'going out for an Indian' (translation to all Canadians etc, etc.: Yes, that's how we say it. It's a phrase in itself. Get over yourselves.). The kebab and the chicken tandoori passed the traditional chippy as first choice for the discerning Brit on a night out. This might be due to legal regulations about not wrapping up the fish and chips in newspaper, and the UK as a nation decided not to be interested due to the imposed health and safety regulations on a takeaway meal. Either that or we've had enough of that amount of grease, one of the two.

4. Decent roads. Mostly.

Apart from the old tracks and the pot-holed monstrosities that plague Britain, they have one redeeming feature - decent road markings and cat's eyes. These little reflective bits of plastic embedded in the road make it so, so nice to drive at night to. In Slovakia, the markings here don't use the same type of bright/reflective paint, so they are hard to make out at night - especially so as the roads also don't drain water very effectively and the surface reflects oncoming headlights like nobody's business. Slovakia is definitely not the greatest place to drive at night, but then Britain spends millions on its roads, with that nice paint right up there as a priority to have. At least I know which side of the road I have to be on...

5. The Big Smoke.

London is the best capital city in the world. Get over it, people.

So, five things. It was going to be ten, but this is a blog. I'll save it for the book.