Скачать или смотреть "Nine to Five" by Roger McGough (poetry reading)

It's a poem about the British way of life, I suppose. It throws up many cultural difference between Britain and America. What the Americans call "biscuits" and even "English muffins" - are nowhere to be found in the British Isles.

The nearest we have to American biscuits are soda scones, perhaps. British biscuits are cookies to the Americans. The British are serious about their biscuits. You can find an in-depth discussion of all types from Jammy Dodgers to Wagon Wheels here and there's also a book which lists and compares them:
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.co...

There are many references that are hard to translate. H.P. means Hire Purchase, of course, but is also means H.P. Sauce, which has a picture of the Houses of Parliament on the bottle. Frequenters of "Greasy Spoons" or Motorway Caffs know it well: no English breakfast or bacon sandwich would be complete without a great dollop of this traditional, thick, brown, sweet and spicy condiment. I once annoyed a chap by saying that it originally came from India and contained spices, dates and tamarind. (He had just finished telling me how much he hated spicy Indian food...My view is that you can be either truthful or tactful in life: I made the unpopular choice.)

What else? A semi is a semi-detached house. To economise on space and cost British houses share walls with their neighbours. At the bottom of the scale are the terraces or two-rooms-up and two-down millhouses of industrial towns on a plot perhaps 20ft wide, conjoined with their neighbours of either side, with a small plot and a shed at the back.

In the posher suburbs there are semis. Each house shares only one wall with a neighbour and there is maybe another 20ft between pairs of houses, which allows a garage and bit more garden, a few feet at the front as well as some at the back. For most people, a 'semi' is the upper limit of their aspirations.

"A bit on the side" is for the purpose of this poem, a mistress.

"Plate of Biscuits" is by Matt Probert Photography, Southampton.

Roger McGough's website is here:
http://www.rogermcgough.org.uk/