Blame Canada

I've finally decided that Canadians, contrary to what I first thought, do appreciate my sense of humour. They just laugh at different stuff. Like my tendency to put on different voices when I'm making fun of myself or other people. We made friends the other day with a couple who'd visited England, and we bonded over jokes about Chavs. My Chav impression goes something like this:

“So I said to Trice, ahm not ‘avin it, y’know wha’ I mean? Cos like, she’s a complete cah, an a filfy slaig, so like, ahm not pu’n’ up wiv it, know wha’ I mean?”

We also had a laugh about inner-city schoolboys:

“Imk omk um mfcm im ump oom immk emp mb ump, innit?”

Whenever I catch myself sounding old-fashioned, I put on my mock old person's voice (which comes out Bristolian because that's where my grandparents are from), which also has everyone in stitches. So now I know what makes them laugh, I can make the right jokes! Everyone's happy!

We met the aforementioned couple last Saturday night, at a party thrown by a used-car dealer Joe works with. You would have thought a party thrown by a used-car dealer would have fake beer and two cakes iced together to look like one (not to mention the clock wound back so everyone thinks it’s earlier!), but this was actually a really good bash.

It started off with lots of curry (the dealer's from India), then a prize draw (in which we won a faux Greek urn…what’s a Greek urn? Ooh, about 10,000 drachmas a year… *canned laughter*), then they stuck on the Bhangra and we hit the dancefloor. It was great! Everyone just danced in their own bizarre way and didn't care what anyone else thought. And in fact dancing to Bhangra is easy. I used a combination of four moves:

1. A variation of ‘Walk like an Egyptian’
2. A variation of the hula dance
3. Hanging up the laundry
4. Screwing in a lightbulb

The next day we went to see an incredibly distant relative who my uncle had found by researching the family tree. Okay, this is how friendly Canadians are: I was the great great-granddaughter of her great-grandfather, and she hugged us both as soon as we walked in the door! I felt like her niece rather than her fourth cousin several times removed.

It turned out her husband was a champion barbecuer so dinner was pretty good. Then later he regaled us with all his hog roast exploits. He'd actually been to Lynchburg, Tennessee for the Jack Daniels World Barbecue Championships (yee-haa!), and his stories involved suspicious amounts of beer considering Lynchburg is a dry county. With his love of simple pleasures and his bizarre pride in schoolboy pranks like nicking a Jack Daniels figurine (‘we stoled it’), he reminded me of where I grew up in Bournemouth. I think that's a good thing.

One thing that struck me about their house was their bathroom. Bathrooms in England sometimes have a hand towel (if you're lucky) with a little scrappy bar of soap to wash your hands with, and they often need a good clean. Canadian bathrooms are immaculate. The towels match, they’re all hung neatly, and you never have to dry your hands on someone's manky bath towel. The soap is in liquid form in beautiful bottles that smell of jasmine and aloe vera. Sometimes there's even moisturiser. There’s candles, baskets of pot pourri, and everything’s shiny. It's like I’ve died and gone to the loo. I love Canadian bathrooms.

Talking of dying (stay with me, readers), I had to interview a funeral director on Friday (for Grimsby/Niagara, not the Hamilton Spectator). I got a tour round the funeral home and everything. It was fun in a creepy kind of way. I even got to pick my casket (I chose the maple one – what a patriot!), and if I really wanted to go the Canadian way I could have chosen a maple-leaf adorned box for my ashes. I suppose you could even be embalmed in maple syrup if you wanted. Sorry for sounding flippant – but I find it hard to talk about death without either joking about it or getting sad. And who wants a tear-stained blog?

Finally, this afternoon I’m off to my third Canadian driving lesson. The ridiculous thing is I already have a licence, but I have to get lessons in Canada to bring my outrageous insurance costs down. Anyway, it’s all pretty fun. There are only about three of us in the theory class, including one girl who lives in the same apartment block as me, and I keep everyone entertained with tales of English driving. Like thick London bus drivers who block the intersection so traffic coming the other way can’t move. Or taxi drivers who do U-turns in Zone 1 at rush hour (in Canada you’re supposed to wait until no traffic is coming in either direction. In London you’d be waiting till the next Ice Age!).

The thing that really makes me laugh is when they start going on about the cost of stuff. The instructor said we should take the bus into downtown Hamilton because parking is “very expensive”. Let’s get things into perspective here. Downtown London: 1 pound for 20 minutes = 3 pounds an hour. Downtown Hamilton: 50 cents an hour = 20p!!!! And fuel (or gas)? UK: 90p a litre (if you’re lucky). Canada: 80 cents a litre = 30p!

I love telling people all this because it makes them more appreciative of where they live. Everyone thinks their place is a hole until someone tells them of somewhere worse. And heck, even in England, at least we don’t have to walk a day to the nearest well and we’re not about to get hacked to death with machetes. Unlike in Rwanda or Sudan. But does the UN do anything about it? No! (Sorry, I watched Hotel Rwanda last night). Beats me why everyone thinks the UN is the solution to everyone’s problems. If by ‘solution’ you mean ‘stand by and watch’, then yes, I suppose they are. Anyway, I’m starting to rant now, and I have to go anyway. We’re off to look at some amazingly cheap houses : )