British Expat Newsletter

10 May 2006

Hello, and welcome to those who have joined up since our last newsletter.

In this issue

This week: Irish pubs
On the website
Virtual Snacks
Sponsor
Bizarre Searches
Quotation and joke

This week

Sorry we missed the last couple of newsletters as we were off to Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat) in Cambodia - watch out for a travel feature about the trip on BE soon. Being the intrepid travellers we are, we stayed in an Irish pub/guesthouse there. This led somone to ask me, "Have you ever been anywhere where there isn't an Irish pub?" Well, yes, actually. Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province for starters. But Irish pubs do seem to be almost everywhere. Unlike the globalisation of the fast food chains - which we very rarely frequent - we feel more positive about having these Irish havens around the world.

Perhaps it's odd that such a homely institution should have become so wildly popular. After all, in many rural areas of Ireland the pub was (and sometimes still is) little more than a shop, with a bar and a few tables and chairs tacked on as an afterthought. I suppose you could try to account for it by the popularity of the beer. Over ten million glasses of Guinness are consumed daily in more than 150 countries worldwide. (That's not as much as it sounds - if you go into a pub in Ireland and ask for a "glass", you'll get a half-pint. Still, it's an impressive amount all the same.)

And it's not likely to be the music either. Despite the popular image, there aren't all that many Irish pubs where you'll find the regulars are ready to pick up their oillean pipes, fiddle, bodhrán and penny whistle at the drop of a hat for an impromptu session. You're more likely to get recorded music. And it's the same overseas, although they'll make a point of playing music by Irish performers - U2, the Pogues and the Dubliners if you're lucky, Daniel O'Donnell, Ronan Keating and Pondlife if you're not.

It could be the food, perhaps. You can find all sorts of Irish gastropubs - both in Ireland and around the world - serving a wide variety of hearty but tasty meals, often traditional Irish dishes with a modern twist. But then again that's not exactly traditional. Originally most pubs started in the "wet trade" - serving drinks only - and the easiest way for them to branch out was into sandwiches and, perhaps, soups. Many of them stopped at sandwiches. Having said that, there's a lot to be said for a glass of Guinness and a ham sandwich for lunch.

So perhaps it's playing to a cultural stereotype. Your typical Irish pub has loads of old-fashioned rustic memorabilia lying around, wood and brass (preferably tarnished) rather than neon and chrome. It's intended to be a comfortable place where the emphasis is on easy-going familiarity and quiet, good-humoured fun.

In that light I suppose it's quite ironic that the "Irish Pub" has become the object of careful design. Take one company, the Irish Pub Company, which set up in business to design, build and help others implement Irish pubs all over the world - at the latest count, over 400 pubs in over 40 countries worldwide (including Ireland!). They've got five different basic styles (the "Country Cottage", the "Victorian Dublin", the "Traditional Pub", the "Gaelic" and the "Brewery"), and will help the would-be publican source bric-à-brac for the walls, train staff (although they recommend that you have at least one Irish member of staff), and draw up suitably Irish menus.

All this attention to detail sounds great - and no doubt brings in a lot of revenue for Irish producers. But I can't help feeling that these "I-can't-believe-it's-not-Irish" theme pubs are all a little bit Disney. Thankfully, the place where we stayed in Siem Reap was nothing like that!

Of course, there's one very important respect in which Irish pubs overseas are more traditional than the genuine product; since 2004 smoking has been banned in Irish pubs. Perhaps I'll stick to the export version!

Do you have anything to say about this topic, or do you have some suggestions for other issues we might discuss in our weekly email? Why not tell us about it on the forum?
British Expat Forum: BE Newsletter discussion

On the Website

Well, after we've missed a couple of newsletters – and spent a week away – you might expect that there wouldn't be much new on the site. You'd be wrong! Here's what's been added.

Going to live overseas is stressful enough in itself. Going overseas with children is even more of a worry – for child and parent alike! British Expat is glad to offer help, through the kind co-operation of child psychologist Ruth Coppard of HelpMeHelpMyChild.com. You can get in touch with Ruth about your problems through our pages:
Help Me Help My Child

We've been asked many times before now whether it's possible to insure your unoccupied UK home even while you're living overseas. Despite asking several financial experts, we'd always drawn a blank – until we found Intasure's new product, underwritten by Lloyds of London, for people who live overseas but also have homes in the UK. Get your free no-obligation quotation here!
Expat UK Home Insurance
Intasure also insure holiday homes in seven EU member states:
EU Holiday Home Insurance
And if you happen to live in Spain, France or Portugal for more than six months a year, they can insure your home there too:
Home Insurance in Spain
Home Insurance in France
Home Insurance in Portugal

And on a lighter note, you can now play Sudoku online with British Expat too! Watch out, though – it's addictive (as Dave could testify if he wasn't too busy playing it...)
BE Sudoku

As if that wasn't enough, we've got the usual range of new articles too! Our pal Trevor Dykes in Germany has written in about the joys of the German spring, including football, beer, May Day riots and, um, folk music... Ian Williamson of Bethel Adventure has written a guide to climbing Kilimanjaro – Africa's highest peak – and has also shared with us his recipe for the spicy Zanzibar meat dish, sorpotel. If you're thinking of having a simple wedding in California, Louise Muzio has some handy advice on how to avoid it all getting blown out of control. And you can also read Elaine Ablett's article about how two British bar-owners in Spain managed to make a go of a bar/restaurant in the middle of nowhere... Finally, two beautiful Pics of the Week – Maasai tribesmen at sunset taken by Claire Young, and Alan Hearnshaw's "Rainy Day in Georgia".

All the new articles and features are listed on our What's New page:
What's New on BE?

If you're looking for travel features on the site, a good place to start is our Expat World page.
Expat World

Virtual Snacks

See for yourself what the Irish Pub Company is all about:
The Irish Pub Company

With the massive outbreak of "Oirishness" worldwide, I suppose it was inevitable there would be some kind of a backlash. Here's an entertaining counter-blast from (British-born) Brendan O'Neill:
We're All Irish Now

Plus we have a couple of related articles already on the BE website, which you might've missed first time around, but are still well worth a read even if you didn't!

Tony Mason's list of Dublin's top ten pubs:
Dublin's Top Ten Pubs

Rowland Jack's expat pubs:
An Incompetent Continental!: The Expat Pub

Bizarre Searches

Some strange search terms which have led people to visit British Expat recently:

trannies in the sea
blush forum
used beer barrels malaysia
old fashion train
british earwigs
what is tantra way to enlarg dick
cheesy lyrics
rabbi golfing sabbath perfect god
dog in car in spain
alarm clark dildo
english spaking
waitresses wearing body paint

Till next time...
Happy surfing!

Kay
Editor
British Expat Magazine

Quotation

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

– "A Coat" by W B Yeats (1865-1939)

Joke

Brenda O'Malley is home as usual, making dinner, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

"Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell yeh."

"Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?"

"That's what I'm here to be tellin' yeh, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery..."

"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me..."

"Sure and I must, Brenda. Your husband Seamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry."

Brenda reaches a hand out to her side, finds the arm of the rocking chair by the fireplace, pulls the chair to her and collapses into it. After weeping for many minutes, finally she looks up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"

"It was terrible, Brenda. He fell into a vat of Guinness and drowned."

"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim. Did he at least go quickly?"

"Well, no, Brenda...no."

"No?"

"Fact is, he got out three times to pee."