At One Question we’re delighted to have some lovely American friends and when we get together we can’t avoid spending ages challenging and laughing at our differences. It’s sobering to realise that little old Britain is just that, little, and old.
Accents take a lot of battering during these sessions – we just love to hear them say dawwwwg, and also what we consider to be a long way and how it’s but a hop skip and a jump to them.
This weekend we’ve been invited to join them at a Thanks Giving party and we didn’t want to appear stupid and have to ask what they are giving thanks for, so we each did a bit of digging and quickly ascertained that rather sensibly the Americans celebrate their harvest festival as a nation, rather than each little parish doing it on their own terms.
Apparently it started from the European settlers which makes sense. I guess they were pretty grateful when they’d travelled all that way to actually manage to feed themselves. No burger joints on every corner back then. In fact, no corners and no burgers either.
So we’re off to talk turkey with the Yanks this weekend. What we forgot to research was what our contribution should be. Do we take a turkey? A cheese? Or just a good old bottle of Marble Stout?