Free How to be a Brit by George Mikes Page A

snobbery.
    ‘I no longer travel at
all,’ he told me. ‘I stay here because I want to meet my friends from all over
the world.’
    ‘What exactly do you mean?’
I asked.
    ‘It is simple,’ he
explained. ‘Whenever I go to London, my friend Smith is sure to be in Tokyo and
Brown in Sicily. If I go to Paris, Dupont is sure to be in London and Lebrun in
Madagascar or Lyons. And so on. But if I stay in Rome, all my friends are
absolutely sure to turn up at one time or another. The world means people for me. I stay here because I want to see the world.’
    And he added after a short
pause:
    ‘Besides, staying at home
broadens the mind.’
     
     

ON WINE SNOBBERY
     
    A significant development of the last decade is that
wine-snobbery has definitely arrived in England. Before the war only a few
retired scientists of University level were aware of the fact that other wines
existed besides sherry and port. If you had asked (of course you never did) for
wine in a pub, the publican would have taken you for a dangerous lunatic and
dialled 999; today most of the pubs in Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the
Channel Islands are proud to serve you ‘wine per glass’.
    The trouble, however, is
with the wine served in restaurants. Should you, when taking a lady out to
lunch, show yourself ignorant in the matter of wine, she will regard you as an
unsophisticated rustic boor. It is indeed fortunate that you can get away with
the most abysmally ignorant observation as long as it sounds right, because
your lady-friend will know nothing about wine either. Any man who is aware that
Graves is white Bordeaux, Chablis is white Burgundy, and Claret is red Bordeaux
can qualify for the first Chair of Wine Snobbery to be established at a British
university. Most people know no more than that a Hock is a white Rhine wine,
and are constantly astonished at the ignorance of the Germans themselves who
have never heard of Hock.
    Genuine expertise comes in,
of course, when you begin to be able to recognize the type and the vintage of
the wine served. There are two — and only two — ways of doing this: (1) Have a
quick glance at the label when no one is watching. (2) Bluff.
    There is no other way. I
was once the guest of one of the most famous Alsatian wine-growers whose
ancestors as far as he can trace were all vine-growers. I asked him if he could
recognize a wine by tasting it. He said that while he would not take a Madeira
for a Macon or his own wine for Spanish sherry, he could not be sure. Would he
be able to recognize his own wine? Not necessarily, he replied. Would he be
able to tell the vintage year? Well, he said, there were certain very
characteristic years and he would not mix up, say, a 1952 wine with a 1948 —
but, apart from typical cases, he could not be sure. Wine of the same vintage
may differ according to what side of the hill it comes from; and even bottles
coming from the same barrel may taste different to the expert. What can the
poor amateur wine-snob do then? You cannot possibly nod all the time when the
waiter pours out wine for you and asks you to taste it. A low constant murmur
of approval merely gives the impression that you are no connoisseur of wine,
and that is more than any self-respecting Englishman can bear nowadays. I can
give you three important tips in this field. But whichever you may choose (and
all three may be tried on successive occasions) you must first practise at
home. You must, first of all, learn the names of a few famous wines (Traminer,
Ribeauville, Pouilly-Fuissé, etc.) and you must also learn what goes with what
when ordering. There was one school which tried to be terribly broadminded by
ordering, say, red Burgundy with fish, accompanied by the exclamation: ‘I am
broad-minded, I just take what I like’ — but this is on the decline and not recommended.
Your lady-companion may be worried lest people at the next table, unaware that
you are being broad-minded, may regard you as an ignorant