On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.

GEORGE MIKES

Britain and good food are two things which are not commonly associ­ated. Visitors to Britain have widely varying opinions about all sorts of aspects of the country, but most of them seem to agree that the food is terrible. Why? One reason could simply be that British tastes are different from everybody else's. However, the most common complaint is not so much that British food has a strange, unpleasant taste, but rather that it has very little taste at all. The vegetables, for example, are overcooked. It is all too bland.

Another explanation may be that most visitors to Britain do not get the opportunity to sample home cooking. They either eat the food cooked in an institution, such as a university canteen, or they 'eat out' a lot, usually in rather cheap restaurants and cafes. These places are definitely not where to find good British food. Typical British cooking, which involves a lot of roasting, does not suit the larger scale production or the quick preparation which is required in such places. For one thing, food should, according to British people, be eaten hot, which is difficult to arrange when feeding large numbers of people. In addition, the British have not got into the habit of preparing sauces with grilled food in order to make it tastier.

Attitudes to food

The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British cuisine. Even in fast food restaur­ants and everyday cafes, the quality seems to be lower than it is in equivalent places in other countries. It seems that British people simply don't care enough to bother.

The country has neither a widespread 'restaurant culture' nor a 'cafe society'. In the middle of the day, people just want to eat up quickly and are not interested much in quality (the lunch break is an hour at most). Young people and families with children who eat at fast food places are similarly not interested in quality. Little effort is made to make the hamburgers tasty because nobody expects them to be. The coffee is horrible not because British people prefer it that

way but because they don't go to a cafe for a delicious, slow cup of coffee - they go there because they need the caffeine. Even at home, food and drink is given relatively little attention. The coffee is often just as bad as it is in the cafes. British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what the few people who drink it often call 'real' coffee. Instant coffee is less trouble. Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table cleared. Parties and celebrations are not normally centred around food. For example, if a British person expresses a liking for barbecues, this does not necessarily mean that he or she likes barbecued food - it is understood to mean that he or she enjoys the typical barbecue atmosphere. When the British do pay attention to food, it is most frequently not to appreciate it but to notice what they don't like about it. Food hits the headlines only in the context of its dangers: for example in 1993, when it was discovered that i oo tonnes of six-year-old beef had been allowed to go on sale; or when a government minister announced that the country's eggs were infected with salmonella. In the early 1990s, everybody in the country knew about 'mad cow disease' (a disease affecting the brains of infected cattle). There are quite a large number of vegetarians in Britain and an even larger number who are aware of the implications for their health of what they eat. 'Health food shops' are as abundant in the country's high streets as delicatessens. British people have been mostly urban, having little contact with 'the land', for longer than the people of other countries. Perhaps this is why the range of plants and animals which they will eat is rather narrow. There are plenty of enthusiastic British carnivores who feel quite sick at the thought of eating horsemeat. To most people, the idea of going out to pick wild plants for the table is exotic. It is perhaps significant that when the British want to refer to the people of another country insultingly, they often allude to their eating habits. Because of the strange things they do with cabbage, for example, the Germans are 'krauts'. Because of their outrageous taste for frog's legs, the French are 'frogs'. However, the picture is not entirely negative. While the British are conservative about ingredients, they are no longer conservative about the way they are served. In the 1960s, it was reported that the first British package tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating (traditionally British) fish and chips all the time but also on having them, as was traditional, wrapped up in specially imported British newspaper! By now, however, the British are extremely open to the cuisine of other countries. The country's supermarket shelves are full of the spices and sauces needed for cooking dishes from all over the world (the increasingly multicultural nature of the population has helped in this respect). In addition, there is increasing interest in the pure enjoyment of eating and drinking.

Attiudes to food185 > What British people eat A 'fry-up' is a phrase used informally for several items fried together. The most common items are eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mush­rooms, and even bread. It is not always accompanied by 'chips' (the normal British word for french fried potatoes). The British eat rather a lot of fried food. Although it is sometimes poetic­ally referred to as 'the staff of life', bread is not an accompaniment to every meal. It is not even normally on the table at either lunch or the evening meal. It is most commonly eaten, with butter and almost any­thing else, for a snack, either as a sandwich or as toast (a British house­hold regards toasting facilities as a basic necessity). On the other hand, the British use a lot of flour for making pastry dishes, both savoury and sweet, normally called "pies', and for making cakes. Eggs are a basic part of most people's diet. They are either fried, soft-boiled and eaten out of an 'egg cup', hard-boiled (so that they can be eaten with the fingers or put into sandwiches) or poached (steamed). Cold meats are not very popular. To many British people, preserved meats are typically 'Continental'. It is common in most households for a family meal to finish with a prepared sweet dish. This is called either 'pudding', 'sweet' or 'dessert' (class distinctions are involved here). There is a great variety of well-known dishes for this purpose, many of which are served hot (often a pie of some sort). The British are the world's biggest consumers of sugar - more than five kilograms per person per year. It is present in almost every tinned food item and they also love 'sweets' (which means both all kinds of chocolate and also what the Amer­icans call 'candy').

 

186 20 Food and drink

> When people eat what: meals Again, generalizations are danger­ous. Below is described what everybody knows about — but this is not necessarily what everybody does! Breakfast is usually a packeted 'cereal' (e.g. cornflakes) and/or toast and marmalade. It isn't usually a 'traditional' British breakfast (see chapter 5). 'Elevenses' is, conventionally, a cup of tea or coffee and some bis­cuits at around eleven o'clock. In fact, people drink tea or coffee whenever they feel like it. This is usually quite often. Lunch is typically at one o'clock (any shops which close for lunch dose from one to two). But it is often a bit earlier for schoolchildren and those who start work at eight o'clock. For the urban working class (and a wider section of the population in Scotland and Ireland) tea is the evening meal, eaten as soon as people get home from work (at around six o'clock). For other classes, it means a cup of tea and a snack at around four o'clock. 'Supper' is the usual word for the evening meal among most people who do not call it 'tea'. 'Dinner' is also sometimes used for the evening meal. It suggests something rather grander and eaten comparatively late (at around eight o'clock). It is associated with relative formality (many people talk about 'Christmas dinner', even if they have it in the middle of the day). It is also sometimes used to refer to the midday meal in schools.

Eating out Although it is far less unusual than it used to be, going to a restauran is still a comparatively rare event for most British people. Regular restaurant-going is confined mostly to the richest section of society. Partly for this reason, there is an element of snobbery associated wit! it. Merely being in an expensive restaurant sometimes seems to be more important to people than the food eaten in it. For example, in 1992 a survey by experts found that most of the caviar in top London restaurants was not what it claimed to be (the most prized beluga variety) and was often stale or going bad. The experts commented that restaurants used the mystique of caviar to hide the low quality of what they served because 'the majority of people... don't really know what they're eating.' Another expression of snobbery in the more expensive restaurants is in the menus. In a country where few public notices appear in any language other than English, these are a unique phenomenon — all the dishes have non-English names, most commonly French (reflecting the high regard for French cuisine). It also makes the food sound more exotic and therefore more exciting. Many customers of these restaurants have little idea of what actually goes in to the dish they have chosen. But when, in 1991, the government suggested that menus should give details of ingredients in dishes, all the country's chefs and restaurateurs were outraged. They argued this would take the fun out of eating out. The assumption behind this argument is that going to a restaurant is a time to be adventurous. This 'adventure' concept is undoubtedly widespread. It helps to explain why so few restaurants in Britain are actually British. Because they do it so rarely, when people go out for a meal in the evening, they want to be served something they don't usually eat. Every town in the country has at least one Indian restaurant and probably a Chinese one too. Larger towns and cities have restaurants representing cuisine from all over the world. Eating places which serve British food are used only for more everyday purposes. Apart from pubs, there are two types, both of which are comparatively cheap. One is used during the day, most typically by manual workers, and is therefore sometimes described as a 'workman's cafe' (pronounced 'caff'). But it is also used by anybody else who wants a filling meal, likes the informal atmosphere and is not over-worried about cleanliness. It offers mostly fried food of the 'English breakfast' type (see chapter c-) and for this reason it is also sometimes jokingly called a 'greasy spoon'. Many of them are 'trans­port cafes' at the sides of main roads. In 1991 Prime Minister John Major deliberately and publicly ate at one of these in order to prove that he was 'a man of the people'. The other type is the fish-and-chip shop, used in the evening for 'take-away' meals. Again, the fish is (deep) fried.

 

Fast food outlets are now more common in Britain than they are in most other countries. Cynics might claim this is because the British have no sense of taste. However, their popularity is probably better explained sociologically. Other types of eating place in Britain tend to have class associations. As a result, large sections of society feel unable to relax in them. But a fast food restaurant does not have such strong associations of this kind. Although there is sometimes local middle-class protest when a new one appears in their area, people from almost any class background can feel comfortable in them. Alcohol The attitude to alcohol in Britain is ambivalent. On the one hand, it is accepted and welcomed as an integral part of British culture. The local pub plays an important role in almost every neighbourhood -and pubs, it should be noted, are predominantly for the drinking of beer and spirits. The nearest pub is commonly referred to as 'the local' and people who go there often are known as 'regulars'. The action in both the country's most popular television soaps (see chapter 18) revolves around a pub. Even a certain level ofdrunkenness is acceptable. Provided this does not lead to violence, there is no shame attached to it. On the other hand, the puritan tradition has led to the widespread view that drinking is something potentially dangerous which should therefore be restricted, in terms of both who can do it and where it can be done. Most people, including regular drinkers, consider that it would be wrong to give a child even half a glass of beer. When, in 1993, research was published showing that nearly 70% of fifteen-year-old children in the country drank some alcohol in an average week, it was generally agreed that this was a serious 'social problem'. People cannot be served in pubs until the age of eighteen and they are not even allowed inside one (unless it has a special children's certificate) until they are fourteen. For many people, drinking is

Alcohol 187 > What people drink As well as large amounts of hot drinks such as tea, coffee and cocoa, British people - especially children — drink squash (a sweetened fruit con­centrate that has to be diluted with water) and brand-name 'soft' (non-alcoholic) drinks. They also expect to be able to drink water straight from the tap. Before the 1960s, wine was drunk only by the higher social classes and was associated in most people's minds with expensive restaurants. Since that time, it has increased enormously in popularity. Beer is still the most popular alco­holic drink. The most popular pub beer is 'bitter', which is draught (i.e. from the barrel), has no gas in it and is conventionally, as are all British beers, drunk at room temper­ature. A sweeter, darker version of bitter is'mild'. These beers have a comparatively low alcoholic content. This is one reason why people are able to drink so much of them! In most pubs, several kinds of bottled beer, usually known as 'ales', are also available. Beer which has gas in it and is closer to continental varieties is known as 'lager'. During the 1980s strong lager became popular among some young people. Because these people were used to drinking weaker traditional beer, they some­times drank too much of it and became aggressive and even violent. They therefore became known as 'lager louts'. In some pubs, cider is available on draught, and in some parts of Britain, most typically in the English west country, it is this, and not beer, which is the most common pub drink. Shandy is half beer and half fizzy lemonade. It has the reputation of being very good for quenching the thirst.

 

188 20 Food and drink

>The meanings of'bar' in British English 1 The area in a hotel or other public place where alcoholic drinks can be drunk. 2 The different rooms in a pub. Although pubs have always been used by all social classes, there used to be an informal class division. The "public bar' was used by the working class. This is where a dart board and other pub games could be found. The 'saloon bar', on the other hand, was used by the middle classes. Here there was a carpet on the floor and the drinks were a little more expens­ive. Some pubs also had a 'private bar', which was even more exclus­ive. Of course, nobody had to demonstrate class membership before entering this or that bar. These days, most pubs do not bother with the distinction. In some, the walls between the bars have been knocked down and in others the beer costs the same in any of the bars. 3 The counter in a pub where you go to get your drinks.

confined to pubs. Wine or beer is not as much a part of home life as it is in some other European countries. Most cafes are not allowed to serve even beer. For most of the twentieth century, pubs operated under strict laws which limited their opening hours. These have recently been relaxed. Moreover, many more types of shop now sell alcohol than previously. However, this lessening of the negative attitude to alcohol has been balanced by increasing concerns about its impact on health and safety. There are government-sponsored guidelines which state the maximum amount of alcohol it is advisable for people to drink in a week without endangering their health. Although millions of people pay little attention to these, the general feeling that alcohol can be bad for you has increased. Moreover, the laws against drinking and driving have been strengthened and are fairly strictly observed. Nevertheless, alcohol, especially beer, is an important part of the lives of many people. Notice, for example, the mass rush across the Channel after customs duties were changed in 1992. Beer was much cheaper in France and people were allowed to bring back almost as much as they liked. It was calculated that in that first year the single European market cost the British government about £250 million in lost taxes on alcohol. Pubs The British pub (short for 'public house') is unique. This is not just because it is different in character from bars or cafes in other coun­tries. It is also because it is different from any other public place in Britain itself. Without pubs, Britain would be a less sociable country. The pub is the only indoor place where the average person can com­fortably meet others, even strangers, and get into prolonged conversation with them. In cafes and fast food restaurants, people are expected to drink their coffee and get out. The atmosphere in other eating places is often rather formal. But pubs, like fast food restaur­ants, are classless. A pub with forty customers in it is nearly always much noisier than a cafe or restaurant with the same number of people in it. As with so many other aspects of British life, pubs have become a bit less distinctive in the last few decades. They used to serve almost nothing but beer and spirits. These days, you can get wine, coffee and some hot food at most of them as well. This has helped to widen their appeal. At one time, it was unusual for women to go to pubs. These days, only a few pubs exist where it is surprising for a woman to walk in. Nevertheless, pubs have retained their special character. One of their notable aspects is that there is no waiter service. If you want something, you have to go and ask for it at the bar. This may not seem very welcoming and a strange way of making people feel com­fortable and relaxed. But to British people it is precisely this. To be

 

served at a table is discomforting for many people. It makes them feel they have to be on their best behaviour. But because in pubs you have to go and fetch your drinks yourself, it is more informal. You can get up and walk around whenever you want - it is like being in your own house. This 'home from home' atmosphere is enhanced by the relationship between customers and those who work in pubs. Unlike in any other eating or drinking place in Britain, the staff are expected to know the regular customers personally, to know what their usual drink is and to chat with them when they are not serving someone. It is also helped by the availability of pub games (most typically darts) and, frequently, a television. Another notable aspect of pubs is their appeal to the idea of tradi­tion. For example, each has its own name, proclaimed on a sign hanging outside, always with old-fashioned associations. Many are called by the name of an aristocrat (for example, 'The Duke of Cambridge') or after a monarch; others take their names from some traditional occupation (such as 'The Bricklayer's Arms'); they often have rural associations (for example, 'The Sheep Shearers' or 'The Bull'). It would certainly be surprising to see a pub called 'The Computer Programmers' or 'The Ford Escort'. For the same reason, the person who runs a pub is referred to as the 'landlord* (he is nearly always a man) - even though he is, in reality, the exact oppos­ite. He is a tenant. Nearly all pubs are owned by a brewery. The 'landlord' is simply employed by the brewery as its manager. But the word is used because it evokes earlier times when all pubs were privately owned 'inns' where travellers could find a bed for the night. The few pubs that really are privately owned proudly advertise them­selves as 'free houses'. The practical significance of this for the customer is that a much wider variety of beers can usually be found inside.

Pubs 189     > The pub This photograph of a pub shows several typical features. First, notice that it looks old. Most pubs are like this. It is part of their appeal to tradi­tion. Even a newly built pub is often designed to look, inside and out, as if it were several hundred years old. Second, notice the windows. They are small because, unlike the large plate-glass windows of cafes, they help to make the pub feel homely. But notice also that it is difficult to see inside the pub from the outside. The Victorians thought that it was somehow not proper for people to be seen drinking. That is why very few pubs have tables outside. Instead, many have a garden at the back. Because children are only allowed inside a pub if the pub has a children's certificate, a garden can be an important feature for some customers. > How to shut the pub Although pubs can now stay open longer than they were allowed to previously, they still have to close at their advertised closing time. There­fore, the traditions of 'closing time' have remained in place. Several phrases are connected with this process which are well-known to everybody in the country. A few minutes before the official closing time, the landlord or barman shouts 'last orders, please', which means that anybody who wants to buy another drink should do so at once. When closing time arrives, the barman shouts 'Time, ladies and gentlemen, please', and, as with his first shout, possibly accompanies this with the ringing of a bell. However, customers do not have to leave immediately. They still have 'drinking-up time'. This is a concept which is recognized in law and is assumed to last about ten minutes.

 

190 20 Food and drink > Nostalgia A 'ploughman's lunch' (consisting of crusty bread, butter, cheese and pickle) is a well-known pub snack. Like other traditional food in pubs (such as 'shepherd's pie'), its name evokes traditional rural life. Pubs never use symbols of modernity. But modern agriculture is, of course, not at all traditional. This is the point of the cartoon. A cattle inseminator is a person who makes cows preg­nant by injecting them with sperm! Notice his white laboratory coat (very non-traditional and non-rural).

 

QUESTIONS

1 In what kind of place (s) are you most likely to find good British cooking?

2 Why are Indian restaurants popular in Britain? Think of as many reasons as you can why British people prefer to eat food from other countries when they go out to eat.

3 What are the differences (if any) between laws relating to the consumption of alcohol in Britain and those in your country? What possible reasons are there for these differences?

 

4 The text mentions the rush across the channel to buy cheap alcohol in 1992. What effect do you think this started to have on traditional British drinking habits (with respect to both what people drink and -where they drink)? Why were some people (even some of the people rushing across the Channel!) worried about this trend?

5 In what ways are British pubs different from typical cafes and bars in your country?

 

SUGGESTIONS

• Delia Smith is probably the most popular and well-known cookery

writer and broadcaster in Britain. Her Complete Cookery Course for example, published by BBC Books, gives a good idea of the kind offood British people cook (or would like to cook) at home.

• There are lots of hotel, restaurant and pub guides which are published annually and which describe the kind of food and other facilities available at British eating and drinking places. For example, The Good Food Guide published by Which Books and the Good Pub Guide published by Vermilion.

Sport and competition

 

Think of your favourite sport. Whatever it is, there is a good chance that it was first played in Britain, and an even better chance that its modern rules were first codified in Britain. The public schools (see chapter 14) of the Victorian era believed that organized competitive games had many psychological benefits. These games appealed to, and developed, the British sense of' fair play'. This concept went far beyond abiding by the written rules of a game. It also meant observing its unwritten rules, which governed behaviour before, during and after the game. You had to be a 'good loser'. To be a cheat was shameful, but to lose was just 'part of the game'. Team games were best, because they developed 'team spirit'. Modern sport in Britain is very different. 'Winning isn't every­thing' and 'it's only a game' are still well-known sayings which reflect the amateur approach of the past. But to modern professionals, sport is clearly not just a game. These days, top players in any sport talk about having a 'professional attitude' and doing their 'job' well, even if, officially, their sport is still an amateur one. Nevertheless, the public-school enthusiasm for sport and the importance placed on simply taking part has had a lasting influence on the nature and role of sport in Britain today. A national passion Sport probably plays a more important part in people's lives in Britain than it does in most other countries. For a very large number, and this is especially true for men, it is their main form of entertainment. Millions take part in some kind of sport at least once a week. Many millions more are regular spectators and follow one or more sports. There are hours of televised sport each week. Every newspaper, national or local, quality or popular, devotes several pages entirely to sport. The British are only rarely the best in the world at particular sports in modern times. However, they are one of the best in the "world in a much larger number of different sports than any other country (British individualism at work again). This chapter looks at the most publicized sports with the largest followings. But it should be noted that hundreds of other sports are played in Britain, each with its own small but enthusiastic following. Some of these may not be seen as a

> Gentlemen and players The middle-class origins of much British sport means that it began as an amateur pastime - a leisure-time activity which nobody was paid for taking part in. Even in football, which has been played on a profes­sional basis since i88j, one of the first teams to win the FA (Football Association) Cup was a team of amateur players (the Corinthians). In many other sports there has been resistance to professionalism. People thought it would spoil the sporting spirit. Not until 1968 were tennis professionals allowed to compete at Wimbledon. In cricket there was, until 1962, a rigid dis­tinction between 'gentlemen' (amateurs) and "players' (professionals), even when the two played together in the same team. These days, all 'first class' cricketers are professionals.

 

192 21 Sport and competition

> Trophies; real and imaginary Quite often, sporting contests in Britain have a prize attached to them which gives them a special signific­ance. The Calcutta Cup The annual rugby union match between England and Scotland is only rarely the decisive one in the Five Nations Championship (> The sporting calendar). But it is important because it is played for the Calcutta Cup, an ornate silver trophy made in India in the 1807s. The Ashes When England and Australia play a series of cricket matches, they are said to be competing for the Ashes. In 1882, after a heavy defeat by Aus­tralia, the 'ashes' of English cricket (actually a burnt piece of cricketing equipment) were placed inside an urn as a symbol of the 'death' of English cricket. In fact, the urn never leaves Lord's cricket ground. The Triple Crown In rugby union, if one of the four nations of the British Isles beats all the other three nations in the same year, they are recorded as having won the Triple Crown, even though a physical object called 'the Triple Crown' does not exist!

sport at all by many people. For most people with large gardens, for example, croquet is just an agreeable social pastime for a sunny after­noon. But to a few, it is a deadly serious competition. The same is true of other games such as indoor bowling, darts or snooker. Even board games, the kind you buy in a toy shop, have their national champions. Think of any pastime, however trivial, which involves some element of competition and, somewhere in Britain, there is probably a 'national association' for it which organizes contests. The British are so fond of competition that they even introduce it into gardening. Many people indulge in an informal rivalry with their neighbours as to who can grow the better flowers or vegetables. But the rivalry is sometimes formalized. Through the country, there are competitions in which gardeners enter their cabbages, leeks, onions, carrots or whatever in the hope that they will be judged 'the best'. There is a similar situation with animals. There are hundreds of dog and cat shows throughout the country at which owners hope that their pet will win a prize. The social importance of sport The importance of participation in sport has legal recognition in Britain. Every local authority has a duty to provide and maintain playing fields and other facilities, which are usually very cheap to use and sometimes even free. Spectator sport is also a matter of official public concern. For example, there is a law which prevents the televi­sion rights to the most famous annual sporting occasions, such as the Cup Final and the Derby (> The sporting calendar), being sold exclusively to satellite channels, which most people cannot receive. In these cases it seems to be the event, rather than the sport itself, which is important. Every year the Boat Race and the Grand National are watched on television by millions of people who have no great inter­est in rowing or horse-racing. Over time, some events have developed a mystique which gives them a higher status than the standard at which they are played deserves. In modern times, for example, the standard of rugby at the annual Varsity Match has been rather low — and yet it is always shown live on television. Sometimes the traditions which accompany an event can seem as important as the actual sporting contest. Wimbledon, for instance, is not just a tennis tournament. It means summer fashions, strawber­ries and cream, garden parties and long, warm English summer evenings. This reputation created a problem for the event's organizers in 1993, when it was felt that security for players had to be tightened. Because Wimbledon is essentially a middle-class event, British tennis fans would never allow themselves to be treated like football fans. Wimbledon with security fences, policemen on horses and other measures to keep fans off the court? It just wouldn't be Wimbledon! The long history of such events has meant that many of them, and

 

Their venues, have become world-famous. Therefore, it is not only the British who tune in to watch. The Grand National, for example, attracts a television audience of 300 million. This worldwide enthu­siasm has little to do with the standard of British sport. The cup finals at other countries often have better quality and more entertaining football on view - but more Europeans watch the English Cup Final than any other. The standard of British tennis is poor, and Wimble­don is only one of the world's major tournaments. But if you ask any Lop tennis player, you find that Wimbledon is the one they really want to win. Every footballer in the world dreams of playing at Wembley, every cricketer in the world of playing at Lord's. Wimble­don, Wembley and Lord's (> Famous sporting venues) are the 'spiritual homes' of their respective sports. Sport is a British export! Cricket Judging by the numbers of people who play it and watch it (> Spectator attendance at major sports), cricket is definitely not the national sport of Britain. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, interest in it is largely confined to the middle classes. Only in England and a small part of Wales is it played at top level. And even in England, where its enthusiasts come from all classes, the majority of the population do not understand its rules. Moreover, it is rare for the English national team to be the best in the world. When people refer to cricket as the English national game, they are not thinking so much of its level of popularity or of the standard of

Cricket 193 > Famous sporting venues in Britain Football Wembley (London) Hampden Park (Glasgow) Rugby union Twickenham (London) Millennium Stadium (Wales) Murrayfield (Edinburgh) Lonsdowne Rood (Dublin) Horse-racing Flat: Ascot, Epsom, Newmarket National hunt: Aintree, Cheltenham Cricket Lord's (London) The Oval (London) Old Trafford (Manchester) Headingley (Leeds) Trent Bridge (Nottingham) Edgboston (Birmingham) Golf St Andrew's (Scotland) Motor racing Silverstone (Northampton) Brands Hatch (Rochester)

 

>. Sporting language

 

 

The central place of sport in Britain is indicated by the very large number of sporting expressions and metaphors which have entered the everyday language. Here are some of them.

From cricket

on a sticky wicket: in a difficult situation

on an easy wicket: in a fortunate situ­ation

stumped: at a loss for an answer to a question or solution to a problem

hit something for six: dismiss some­thing emphatically

play with a straight bat:do something in an honest and straightforwardway

it's not cricket: it is not the proper or fair way of doing something (cricket is supposed to be the perfect example of the concept of 'fair play')

 

 

have a good innings: have a large or adequate amount of time in a certain post; have a long life

off one's own bat: without help from anyone else

From boxing

saved by the bell: saved from a bad or

dangerous situation by a sudden

event on the ropes: in a weak position; dose

to defeat or failure floored: defeated or confused in an

argument or discussion throw in the towel: admit defeat