The Regal Rules for Girls (53 page)

I find the
Financial Times
and the
Guardian
to have the best journalism, but
The Sunday Times
and
The Evening Standard
offer the best fashion and lifestyle magazines.

I could write an entire book on this alone—equal parts fairy tale and horror story.

The British people pay a lot of tax and a huge portion of this tax goes toward providing free health care to every single person living in their country. As an American who has lived in the UK since college, I’ve not had to pay for health insurance even once in my adult life. It’s amazing, really.
⁵

The beauty of the NHS is that it tries to be all things to all people—whether you have a cold, a broken leg, or a brain tumor, have been diagnosed with bulimia, emphysema, or schizophrenia—they are there to help you. (I can’t tell you how many of my fellow American grad students were overjoyed to discover that they were
eligible for
free therapy
on the NHS. Not to mention free birth control.) And because it’s free, no one in England ever has to choose between their health and their house payments—where I’m afraid this is not always the case in the US.

Despite the fact it is the third largest employer on the planet (right behind the Chinese Army and the Indian railroad), the downfall of the NHS is that it does not have the capacity to be all things to all people—and so while all services are provided, the quality of these services is often diluted.

Don’t expect sparkling clean doctor’s offices with plush waiting rooms, marble floors, drinking fountains, and potted plants. Most GP (general practitioner) offices are cramped into old London houses with higgledy-piggledy staircases and interiors that have not been painted since the 1950s, so they are almost always a depressingly chipped mint green. You will probably have to hop over a dot matrix printer and a garbage can to get onto the examining table, your nurse will be wearing sweatpants (and her hair won’t be tied back), and you will no doubt see hundreds of dirty fingerprints and/or smeared blood somewhere on the wall before you leave. But the doctors
are
competent and the service
is
free, so if you want American-style glamour and gloss—you’ll have to go private.

But be warned: Going private means paying a fortune. For example, if you have a baby with the NHS—the entire delivery is free as well as all pre-natal and post-natal care. If you have a baby privately—expect to pay nearly $17,000 per night in the hospital. Many US (and occasionally UK) companies offer private health insurance to their London employees, so make sure to look into what you may be eligible for.

FYI: To say you weren’t at work because you were “sick” literally means that you were vomiting. Instead, say you were “ill.”

To find and register with your nearest GP, go to:
www.myhealth.london.nhs.uk
(don’t wait until you are ill!).

If you are ill, and can’t get a GP appointment, you can find a walk-in center here:
www.nhs.uk

Historically, the one health service that the NHS did
not
cover was dentistry. And this is the number one reason why so many Brits have such terrible teeth. Most British people are so deeply appalled by the very idea of paying for
anything
health-related that they simply opt to neglect their teeth entirely. Nowadays, if you are a severe case, you can become eligible for free dental care on the NHS—but for the most part it remains the one health service in the country that you actually have to pay for.

When I make an appointment for a cleaning in the UK (which generally costs about $50), the dentists usually stare at me blankly.

“But what is the problem?” they ask me.

“No problem,” I say. “
Just
a cleaning.”

They are usually incredibly puzzled by this because most Brits don’t go to the dentist just for a cleaning; they only go if the pain in their mouth has become so severe that they can no longer eat. When UK dentists peer into my mouth and see that I have never had a single cavity, they practically short-circuit.

My British husband and I are both huge fans of the ingenious TV comedy
The Office
—both the UK and US versions. After watching
a few American episodes the other day, my husband said, “You know—despite all the time-wasting that goes on in both offices, I still get the distinct impression that the US employees are doing
more work
.”

(Listen—he said it, not me.)

A few small points:

My husband is always saying to me, “So where should we go next month?”—and my first reaction is, “But we
just
went somewhere!” After fifteen years in the UK, my American brain
still
can’t get used to the idea of going on vacation every eight weeks. (But the beauty of having such a high cost of living in London means you can travel almost anywhere else in the world and it seems cheap.)

Whether it be a high school basketball game or 4th of July fireworks, Americans almost always become teary-eyed as we belt out our national anthem. This type of passionate patriotism is par for the course for Americans—even if we hate our government, we
genuinely
love our country and relish those moments when we can immerse ourselves, however briefly, in the loving arms of our national consciousness. The Brits have nothing of the sort. Only during the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations and the few hours during which Prince William’s wedding to Catherine Middleton was televised—did I witness English people enjoying the same level of joyful, idealistic patriotism that Americans experience on a weekly if not daily basis.

While Americans are a naturally proud bunch of people (we work hard for our achievements and take pleasure in sharing them), the Brits often see displays of pride to be boastful or vain. The same applies to patriotism—they can’t be proud of their country because they see that as being proud of themselves—an entirely foreign concept to a nation that prefers self-deprecation. In my opinion, this is precisely why the monarchy thrives; the English can displace feelings of loyalty and love away from themselves and onto their beloved Queen.

Their national anthem is not about them, it’s about
her
! And they like it that way. Although they don’t exactly sing the rafters down, their solemn mumbling of those ancient, tuneless lyrics is the British way of showing that they are fiercely devoted to their sovereign and the country she represents. If you want to blend in to your adopted country, it can’t hurt to learn the words. You might even show them how it’s done and shed a tear or two.

“God Save the Queen” (or King When Applicable)

The authorship of the song is unknown, and since its first publication, different verses have been added and subtracted. Even today, different publications contain different verses in various orders—but the first and third verses are consistent, and they are usually the only ones that are sung:

R
ECOMMENDED
R
EADING
:

The Anglo Files
by Sarah Lyall

Having lived in England for more than a decade as the London correspondent for the
New York Times
, the author has compiled some hilarious observations about Britain and its eccentric inhabitants—including the politicians who behave like drunken frat boys and the Brits who will happily extract their own teeth yet refuse to rinse soap off their dishes.

Bring Home the Revolution
by Jonathan Freedland

This British author loves America; he loves our contagious can-do spirit; our determination to take control of our lives, shape our communities, and unabashedly assert what we believe to be our god-given right to life, liberty, and happiness. In fact, he argues
that it’s high time Britain became more like America! This book is hugely readable and is a welcome reminder of how much I love the country of my birth—and how no matter how quirky and charming the English can be, no matter how much I feel I can learn from their incredible history and culture, there is also a great deal of wisdom that the Brits can learn from us.