A Brit Abroad
05/09/06 01:55 PM
Since returning from my hols I’ve been thrust head first into a ridiculous amount of work for just one person. I’m currently working on four separate websites (plus Peminoz v2) AND, bizarrely, have found myself also having to design some business cards, flyers, brochures, comp slips etc etc.
I did plan on jotting down a few words about my hols – I actually took a book with me and wrote when I was there as it was a chill-out hol where all there was to do was lie by a pool… sigh… The moment seems to have gone now unfortunately so I guess I’ll never get to tell the crazy tale of… um… doing nothing…
I have been absent-mindedly thumbing through some photos though (okay, clicking through) and have noticed some startling coincidences with people in the background of the pics, namely the blokes. They all look the same. Short of popping a white tied handkerchief on their heads, you can just tell they’re British.
So without further ado, I give you:
You all know what I’m on about. And this is when they’re just on the beach. I’m not even gonna go into the similarities when they’re all at the bar of an evening. It’s like there’s a uniform for the twenty-something male.
Obviously on the beach they aren’t (all) naked – that was to emphasise the point – and obviously there’s usually a red England away shirt somewhere, but everyone does have those markings. I’m so white I’m transparent (which, I’ve worked out, is why I get bitten so much: midges can see my veins) so I’m particularly susceptible to this, but never realised I had so many ‘brothers’.
Who wants a stupid tan, who wants skin cancer, etc etc, not me that’s for sure.
Hmph.
Commenting is closed for this article.
On Wednesday September 6, 2006,
kitsimons said:
I used to tan well, but I haven’t been anywhere in the last 7 years where I could hope to get even the slightest tan (bloody Scandinavia).
Totally agree about the British male abroad “uniform”. It’s funny and depressing at the same time. Quite a feat really.
But then other nations seem to have their own stereotypes – the European 20-something traveller with an over-size backpack permanantly attached to their back is a fave of mine.
On Wednesday September 6, 2006,
Stu said:
European 20-something traveller… Australian 20-something traveller… all the same. My particular faves are the ‘Trustafarians’ who spend their gap years travelling the world being funded by Daddy. More often than not they're white with dreadlocks, ha ha.
Anyway I’m just off to get a tattoo on my lower back…
On Saturday September 9, 2006,
Steve Tucker said:
I hate the stereotype of English people as tea drinking toffs saying “chocs away, tally ho!” and all that shit.
Still though, we stereotype everyone else. The french all wear black and white striped shirts with garlic around their neck. The Japanise all have long-lensed cameras and are obsessed with tourism, whilst the American stereotype is of southern inbread hillbillies carrying blunderbuss shotguns.
Gotta love it.