The Car from 'L: The real dope on driving tests in the UK, redux

Very well-marked learner car on unusually wide UK country road. (Wiki commons)

Well, it is in hand, my official UK driving license. Indeed, it has been in hand since last June. But not without a modicum of sturm und drang, to use the German term for lotsa trouble.

I continued driving lessons with a lovely instructor from Jenny Hayes School of Motoring, a lesson company headquartered in Bude. We had a lot of fun, mainly because he wasn't teaching me to drive; I had been doing that for 46 years without a single moving violation or prang. He was teaching me to pass the test. Period.

In May, my test date arrived, in the nick of time for the year's window I had. There should have been no problems.

THERE WERE BIG, BIG PROBLEMS.

The first problem was the examiner. When he got into the car, he rummaged around on his clipboard as if he couldn't quite figure out what to do next. Then he checked the lesson car's tax stamp, and flipped it onto the dashboard as if it were smelly. Then we began. We began by entering a housing estate with teensy roads and a 20 mph speed limit. Lots of speed humps. Lots of parked cars. Lots of curves and hills. No problem. Not for me, anyway. I did forget to compulsively check all my mirrors every time I shifted up after downshifting for first for the speed humps. But only once or twice.

Then we had to do the first one of the two out of four maneuvers they may require. The maneuvers are parallel parking, backing into parking bay, backing around a corner, or turn in road (formerly 3-point turn, although 5 turns are now allowed).

Reverse around a corner....say what?
I've mentioned it before, but no Yank in his or her right mind would back around a corner. Indeed, in some states, it's a traffic violation that will get you points and a fine. I contend that we are mentally and emotionally incapable of performing that maneuver after being drilled against it for years. So I hoped he would not choose that.

And he didn't. He chose parallel parking. So we went down a side street and he chose a target car. Yippee!  Parallel parking! As a native of New York City, I had NO problems doing that, and in spaces tighter than anyone in Cornwall every dreamed of with more shouting motorists wanting you to hurry up so they could get by.

But NOOOOOOO.  He decided that, as there was a person in the target car, I wouldn't want to parallel park there, as if it would make me nervous. If it had been Godzilla in the car it wouldn't have made me nervous. As I said, it's a maneuver any native New Yorker does as easily as breathing.

I drove on. He decided we would to a reverse around a corner instead.

It was horrible. My reverse was horrible...but not horrible enough to fail me. I was within the guidelines laid out by my instructor. And I compulsively checked all mirrors all the time. Remember this. It is a key point in passing the UK driving test. You'd be best off if your head swiveled like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.

Next was merging onto a motorway. No problem. Then driving down a country lane. No problem. Then negotiating a 16th century bridge that was possibly seven inches wider than the car. No problem; my instructor had drilled me on that one. Then a drive into a small city where, as it happened, a motorbike lurched into my path and I had to do an emergency stop, which saved the examiner from having to ask for it later. And I did it perfectly, as I have been doing it for 46 years...must have, since I have never hit anything.

Then up around a hill where one had to keep the left turn signal on despite enough curve for the car to cancel it, and where, if you had someone poky in front--and I did--you'd also have to downshift once or maybe even twice. I did.  So the signal was briefly cancelled. But I immediately put it back on when the downshift--and NOT stalling--was accomplished.

How many hands does it take to drive a car?



That, however, was apparently the kiss of death. The bugger failed me, said he had felt "endangered" on the hill. What if someone had come up behind me while the signal was off? I said, "What if someone had come up behind me if the car had stalled?" It was a choice. Had to have one hand on the wheel. He didn't like my choice.  But actually, he didn't like me. He seemed to resent having a Yankee woman of some age moving permanently to England. He was reacting like an unsophisticated hick, I decided. And I decided I would NEVER take another driving test in Cornwall. I would go north, to a city where people had seen foreigners before, and didn't penalize them. Or do as the Cornwall examiner had done and instruct me to make an illegal turn, which I wouldn't do. (I wondered, at that point, if all examiners were sadistic cretins.)

I booked a week's tuition at Five-Day Intensive Driving in Norwich. I didn't need the intensive lessons...at least, I hadn't until the experience in Cornwall. And indeed, within fifteen minutes in the car, the instructor asked me point blank, Why are you here? I told him the Cornwall story and he told me I had just run into a louse and as far as he was concerned, I could book a test immediately. But the fees were paid, I was happy to be in a city for a break (I shopped mornings, and drove afternoons), and by the end of the week, the instructor and I had become good friends. Still are. But that, as it happens, is another story....for next time.

Meanwhile, my amazing experiences on UK roads seem to have become a novel, finally finished, and published, here. It's a humorous murder mystery, with even more mayhem than US drivers will experience during their first year on UK roads.

Getting a UK driver's license...sure, cinch.....NOT!

Look down the road. Note the foreground is less than two cars wide. Note that in the distance, it is barely more than one compact car wide. Now imagine the same road with twists and turns--lots of them--and lots of steep hills, 14 percent grades and such. Now imagine bicycles, hikers and dogs also using the road. Then imagine a humongous truck coming at you. Ah...driving in Devon and Cornwall!

 

One has a year after becoming a legal resident to get a UK driver's license. I didn't become a legal resident, really, until we bought the house. Conceivably, I would have almost another year to accomplish the deed. However.....

I have started the process and there's no turning back. In November, I decided to get myself into the motor vehicle drivers' system, thus starting the year early. In January, I finally decided to have a look at the official government driving rule book and take the test. Thankfully, I had also bought a second book by a private firm, and that's the one that was most useful. Indeed, the government book is riddled with contradictions. In one place, it says that the reason one stops at a T-junction on a hilly curve is because things might come around the curve, and one is further admonished to look REALLY hard to ensure nothing is coming before joining the roadway. In another place, it says the curve is the reason for looking REALLY hard. What's the difference? To a driver, none. You're going to look REALLY hard either way. AHA!  But on the test, they give both answers (and a couple of ringers) to choose from, and your guess is as good as mine which one they want on any given day.

On the given day I took the test, they wanted the other one, the one I did not choose. So I got one answer wrong, or a 98 percent on the test. One must get an 84 to pass. So I did pretty well, right? No. It pissed me off, not because I got one wrong but because it was so capricious.

And now comes the time I must book the practical test. In the US, these run from about 30 minutes on actual roads (New York State when I took it at 17 and passed) and Maryland, 10 minutes in a big parking lot proving one can go forward, backward and stop and not much more. (I think my dog can do that.)

In the UK, it's far, far different. It's a 40-50 minute test, and it goes like this:

• Prove to the examiner that every last little thing on one's car is working properly.
• Prove one can see a number plate at a distance of 20 0r 20.5 metres, depending on whether the examiner is using an old or new number plate. If you fail this, the test stops here.
• If you pass the eye test, then it continues.
• If one isn't using a car from a driving lesson company (the expected thing), then one must provide a stick-on mirror for the examiner to he can see behind you, too. I assume the lack of dual controls constitutes hazardous conditions and they probably get extra pay for examinees who use their own car.
• Answer questions about the car itself. This may include how to check and top up all fluids, how to test power steering, what various warning lights look like, and more.
• Then, perfectly execute a cockpit check, in the prescribed order. 
• Drive, according to instructions from examiner. The test will include all types of roads, except Motorways (equivalent to interstate highways). It will almost certainly include what I refer to as green tunnels (see above).

The Green Man, or Woman, Redux
When driving in a green tunnel, one must see around bends. And therein is the first difference from all I was taught when I first learned to drive. I was taught, on curves, to hug the shoulder in case oncoming traffic was over the center line. Here, they want drivers to pull slightly away from the shoulder, the sooner to see anything that is coming at you--head on--from the other direction. I wonder if that's so you can say a quick prayer before you die.

So, I have to overcome 45 years of safe driving in the US to deal with green tunnels. Nor is that all. Obviously, where there is only room for one car, something has to give. What gives is the car closest to a pull-off space, which one must look for and note for future reference as one drives through a green tunnel.

I loathe backing under the best of circumstances. But consider this: There may be another car roaring up behind one. There often is, in fact. So then one must halt in one's backing and wait for that car to back. I have seen it involve as many as five cars, all looking for that one-car-long pull-off spot in the hedgerow.

NOTE: A hedgerow isn't made of hedges. It's made of rocks thinly coated (if at all) with hedges. Not a soft landing for the side of one's car if on misjudges.

This can take a while, with one car replacing the other in the pull-off, even providing more cars aren't arriving from the other direction to complicate the issue.

And this can be on the test. It makes driving through small towns look like a piece of cake.

In-town driving: Exercise in dash and wait
Small towns: A collection of houses separated by a thoroughfare that is two cars wide, often has a center line, but also has cars parked higgledy-piggledy along its length.

So, if you are in the clear lane, you can proceed and oncoming cars must wait and then pull out and use your lane to go forward. If you are in the lane with the obstruction, you can pull out around it as long as nothing is coming the other way, and you can also proceed if you see that both cars are narrow and can, in fact, fit the roadway each going in its own direction without too much risk of a sideswipe one way or another. Needless to say, one doesn't play chicken on such roads with large trucks. Or old folks. Or grackles/emmits, that is, people visiting from northern counties that have roads built in recent memory to accommodate cars rather than ones built in 1360 to accommodate cows and the odd peripatetic saint going to find a holy well.


Backing into parking spots rather than out
But back to the test. One must also demonstrate an ability to back into a defined parking space, such as those in front of supermarkets. The British have the quaint idea that backing in is less dangerous than pulling in headfirst and backing out. I can't fathom this for the life of me. One is much more likely to spend more time getting into the spot--making sure of sufficient room for all passengers to exit, etc.--than pulling out backward when all one wants to do is exit without grazing the neighboring cars and get into the roadway. It's generally a faster operation to back out of a space than in. Faster, when entering a roadway other cars might be using, is safer than slower.

The other truly weird required maneuver is backing around a corner. WHAAAAT?  If one backs around a corner in most states in the US, and a cop sees you, he or she will probably take your license and rip it up on the spot. I'm wondering if, having driven for 45 years with no accidents and no tickets--despite driving for my job often enough--I can actually do this insane thing. WHY would I do this insane thing? Why would I not, as my driver's ed teacher--one Mr. Fitzgerald who was, yes, related to the Kennedys--drive on and find a place for a legal u-turn where the sight lines in all directions were good, something certainly not true with BACKING AROUND A FREAKING CORNER! I suspect I shall do this insane thing exactly enough times to learn how, once on the test, and never, ever again. I think it would rattle my brain and destroy my soul, so much a part of me is NOT BACKING AROUND A FREAKING CORNER.

I've got to do all this before the second week in May. I have booked driving lessons with AA (Automobile Association, no need for American....same outfit). All I want them to do is drill me on the insanities: backing into a supermarket parking space and backing around corners.

Green tunnels? Got that whipped.  Well, almost. Or at least I will have as soon as I get them to teach me how to tell where the hedges end and rocks begin 100 percent of the time. So far, I'm not quite batting 1000 on that.

St. Just--in-Penwith, Cornwall, and holy ground

Clock Tower, St. Just-in-Penwith Parish Church

I smelled Ireland last Friday….

The first time I visited Ireland, I bought a sweater made of very fine lamb’s wool. I wore it sitting in front of a turf fire, and it picked up the scent. I didn’t dry clean that sweater for years, as one whiff of it took me back to a very excellent time in a very beautiful place, what poet W.B. Yeats called, "the holy land of Ireland."

It wasn’t that smell.

What I smelled, standing in front of the fragmentary secco wall painting, “Christ of the Trades,”at St. Just-in-Penwith Parish Church, Cornwall, was the scent that reminds me of old buildings and fine furnishings, and also of the etheric remnants of lives lived, loves quickened, lives lost. A scent like no other, a scent heavy with meaning, and yet evanescent, grasped only a few times each decade, but prized, drawn into the nose like a heavenly perfume. And yet, I think that’s the first time I have come across it in a church.

My husband couldn’t smell it; by the time he responded to my silent beckoning, it was gone. He looked at the stone wall exposed below the secco (see below)  painting and pointed out the mold growing there. But it was not that.

The evanescent scent arises from the interplay, I think, of old stone (moldy, or washed clean), old wood, old plaster, old dust, old fibers…old being. The information of the universe, rendered close and personal, the hologram of all that has gone before in that place. And in such places, on occasion, such perfumes arise.

I couldn’t get enough of it, and yet, I knew it would not linger long. Or perhaps it is just that I would become used to it and would cease to note it as a scent separate from the environment. So I moved along. The church was quite beautiful, in a very rough-hewn way. And of course, it had an enormous number of historic features. It was, in its own way, emblematic of all that has happened to England in the Christian era.

The secco painting―one of six, at least, that covered the gray stone walls of the parish church in St. Just-in-Penwith, making the medieval church vibrant and the Bible intelligible to an uneducated congregation―dates to the 15th century. In the next century, when the Reformation and the spread of Protestantism arrived in Cornwall, all the beautiful and colorful decoration was removed or hidden; no one in those puritanical times wanted to be thought of as Popish. During some decades, it was worth one’s life to appear to be allied with Rome.

The secco paintings remained hidden until the restoration of religious freedom beginning in 1865. And, although six paintings were discovered then, only two remain, with no record of what happened to the others. Those two are the one I stood before, “Christ of the Trades,” and “Saint George and the Dragon.” St. George is the patron saint of England, making it perhaps somewhat unusual that he was painted in St. Just-in-Penwith, Cornwall, where even now many Cornish people would like to separate from England. Indeed, Celtic Christianity still abounds in this part of Cornwall.

But for now, I’m just appreciating the arrival of that scent, a scent like no other, and instantly evocative of all the good in the world, and all its ancient history, still proceeding day by day.

Next time: Celtic Christianity

Secco paintings are done on moistened dry plaster, unlike frescoes, painted on wet plaster. Colors on secco paintings are less durable, and paint may flake off. That has happened at St. Just-in-Penwith; restoration of the paintings has been undertaken from time to time.

Cape Cornwall Arts & Crafts Exhibit

While Cornwall is a feast for beachgoers in the spring and summer, it’s also delightful for art lovers. Now through Friday, August 20, 2010, the Cape Cornwall Arts & Crafts Exhibition will offer a glimpse at both tradition and new arts and crafts being worked all over Cornwall. Two of my favourite artists, Mim and John Nash of the Old Well Studio, are involved. 

Recently sold Celtic Ceremonial Chalice by Mim Nash, Old Well Studio

Moon over the Cove by John Nash

  (The cove is Larmorna Cove, made famous by author Martha Grimes in her novel, The Lamorna Wink.)

The exhibit is held at the Cape Cornwall School, St. Just in Penwith, Penzance, Cornwall. It’s easy enough to find; the school is near a golf course (and in England, those are ALWAYS signposted) and Google maps does a grand job. Load your start point and then Saint Just, Penzance, Cornwall TR19 7JX, UK, and you’ll get all sorts of maps.

The admission charge is £1.00 for adults and 50p for children; fees are in aid of Cancer Research (reg charity 1089464).

There is wheelchair access to most areas at the exhibition, and you’ll find all sorts of things for sale.

Because of its location, you can make a day of it and visit any of several nearby sites, the Geevor Tin Mine Museum. Cornwall has been a source of tin since before Biblical times, with some reason to believe that Joseph of Arimathea visited, perhaps with a young man called Jesse, from Nazareth, in tow.

Exhibit at Geevor Tin Mine Museum (Wiki commons)

Like the Mythical "Nessie," JK Rowling Lives in Scotland: Hurrah!

J.K. Rowling lives in Scotland. She was born near Bristol, England, however. One can only be thankful that she moved to, as one of her bios on the Internet says, "another country." This proves two things: Firstly, Scotland is not England, and is, furthermore, prepared to accept England's damaged goods. And, secondly, it might be wise for England to just let Scotland go.

It is true that Cornwall would like to become a duchy, and that is as likely to actually happen as Scotland becoming independent. In the case of Scotland, however, perhaps England ought to give it some serious consideration. I predicate this suggestion on Rowling's recent lawsuits. In one, the world's first publishing billionaire decided it would irreparably harm her reputation and ability to make further income from her Harry Potter books if a fansite operator were allowed to publish his own concordance to her books. A judge in New York agreed with her, leaving the door open, however, because he had made himself the arbiter of how much is too much quotation. It is almost certain additional suits will be needed to develop case law to ultimately decide this issue.

Second, a judge in Scotland decided that for paparazzi to take photographs of Rowling's children was a violation of the children's right to privacy. An English judge had thrown the same case out. The English judge was right; when one has purposely sought fame and fortune to the extent Ms. Rowling has, there can be no expectation of privacy for one's self, and frankly, one's heirs and assigns had better be apprised of this, too. Certainly, one cannot tell this to a toddler and expect him to shove off to Buffalo to live incognito. But one can expect the parent to either protect him as best he or she can, or live with it, and teach the kids how to live with it. Hollywood brats do. The Royals do. I guess, then, that Ms. Rowling's spawn is better than that.

This woman needs to fade into oblivion, fast. She is singlehandedly undermining society, British and otherwise. Her work is derivative at best, plagiarism in its own right at worst. (Please see http://www.linearpublishing.com/rhinostory.html) Her public actions are despicable, her posturing reprehensible. American college students, according to a recent headline, think she's a "flash in the pan."

I hope they are right. This may be the beginning of a sea change for me: I am not known for my acceptance of the opinions of today's Generation Z college students. But I can learn. I hope the rest of the world can. I hope it can develop a good doody detection system, and begin to know when something really stinks.

Meanwhile, Rowling may think she smells like a rose (and you can use your own platitude here, about what stinks and what doesn't, if you like), but, in fact, the scent has rather eroded and might better be characterized these days as a nose-wrinkling, gorge-raising "Eeeew."

Knowing Where You Live

I got an email this morning from Len, a lovely gentleman who writes a column for my website, www.Englandsouthwest.com. In it, he included a photo of the block of flats where he lives, and where I, also, have a holiday residence. It's really a very uninspired looking block (see photo, by Len Chester, left), despite Len having gotten a very good angle on it and a good photo, to boot.
But the truth, of course, is often hidden in a plain wrapper. The Methodist Chapel had once stood on the site, and the great preacher John Wesley had visited it at least five times, the last in 1789. At the time, of course, the United States had just recently become a nation in its own right, something portions of England's West Country, in which the block of flats stands, have done from time to time.
Indeed, Cornwall has not yet given up the fight. On a recent visit to Polperro, I noted a commercial van bearing the company name and the location: "Cornwall, near England."
Those who would have Cornwall be granted greater autonomy note that the county has never been formally annexed to England via an Act of Union. They claim it is a duchy, a distinctive nation. To that end, the Cornish nationalists want the Crown to recognize Cornwall as one of the constituent nations of the UK, not unlike Northern Ireland.
One advantage of gaining that independence might be a certain distancing from the current Duchess of Cornwall, whom many non-Cornish see as a usurper of various sorts. The former Camilla Parker-Bowles is almost certainly more popular in England than in the U.S., of course. Yanks cannot seem to forget the beautiful young princess, Diana, whose trials and tribulations are at least partly due to Camilla's influence over Prince Charles. Perhaps Camilla herself will want to dump Cornwall when Prince Charles becomes King Charles and she, as is planned, becomes HRH The Queen Consort. Queen trumps duchess any day, I should think.
Still, regardless of the high doings of the royals, many Cornish want autonomy. Cornwall is, like Sicily, at the far southern corner of its parent nation. Like Sicily, it has a cultural life somewhat different from that of the mother country, although, unlike Sicily, as far as I know, it has not contributed crime families along with Cornish pasties, as Sicily has contributed Mafia lineages along with veal marsala.
Some locals, even those from Devon (where the apartment block is), think official England is trying to turn the southwest into a sort of chilly Disneyland. If this is so, it is because of the relative lack of industry in the region now that the tin mines are played out. The beaches, though, are magnificent. And, despite the pallor caused by rising damp most of the year, the British do love their seaside sojourns.
As an outsider hoping to become an insider, it is only talking through my hat I am, to put things into a sort of Celtic cadence, Cornish being a Celtic tongue close to Irish and Welsh. Still, knowing a few things about one's home, or even one's habitual vacation spot, seems the least one can do not to become just another tourist, but rather a resident, if only an intermittent one, of the area.

Is there such a thing as transcultural surgery?

I have never felt like a man trapped in a woman's body. Nor have I ever felt attracted to anything except men.

When it comes to cultures, however, it is a whole different story. I should have been born in Europe. It is written on my face, quite literally. I am not, however, monolithic in that regard. In times past, some have taken me for Irish, others for French. One or two people have taken me for Italian, and one for a Sephardic Jew. It all amuses me, but also indicates that my angst at living where I do is very probably genetic.

Moving malaise

Some guru or another said that the level of one's discomfort equals the size of the lie one is living.

I have spent my entire adult life moving in a futile attempt to escape the lie of my birth in the New World. I moved from New York (eastern Long Island and Binghamton, where I went to university) to Big Pine Key, Florida, back to New York (Binghamton), then to Denver, then to Sapelo Island, Georgia (a very odd move, that one) to Athens, Georgia, to New York City, to Stamford, Connecticut, to New York City again....and then to Newburgh, New York and then Lighthouse Point, Florida and then Delray Beach, Florida...and then New York City again. And then to Boca Raton, Florida, to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, to Arnold, Maryland, to Bristol, Tennessee, to Bristol, Virginia (I made that trek back and forth a few times in ten years, with a year's hiatus in Richmond, Virginia), to Sykesville, Maryland, to Baltimore, Maryland, to New Windsor, Maryland. Which is where I am now. And where my discontent has assumed major proportions.

All the other venues of my life had something European to offer. New York is obvious; it is cosmopolitan, a melting pot, and there are abundant French restaurants, and also--for a time--there were English restaurants. Perhaps there are still, but I have decided to find my British food in Britain. Every spare moment and dime is spent on a trip to Devon and Cornwall; I must begin exploring Dorset, Wiltshire and other points west soon, however. No funds available for relatively unsatisfying trips to Manhattan to eat ersatz bangers and mash.

Devoid, devoid, devoid

South Florida boasted quite a few foreign restaurants, even if it boasted less the Anglican lifestyle flavor of Manhattan's East Side and coastal Connecticut. Of course, some places--notably Athens, Georgia and Denver--are virtually devoid of any sort of meaningful transoceanic enticements, British or otherwise. Some of the other places I've lived in my continual quest to feed the inner Brit (and I forgot a six-month sojourn in Brooklyn!) were too minor in the timeline to matter; my transcultural angst had no time to build in those places, what with moving in and moving out.

But I've been in New Windsor for three years now. Three LONG years. The closest it comes to a transcultural enticement of any sort is K&B Family Restaurant. Note the word Family. In Maryland, this means no booze. I don't think there are any booze-less restaurants in Europe, and certainly not in the England I've seen. It's ludicrous, this shielding of children from the mere sight of alcohol. Frankly, the kids in families that frequent "Family" restaurants in the U.S. usually exhibit behavior that would make the rest of the diners virtually require booze to get by. Needless to say, the proximity of K&B (while its owners are very pleasant people and I'm sure do a fine job on fried chicken and bourbonless sweet potatoes) does nothing to assuage my transcultural desires. Indeed, it simply makes them all the more stringent.

Calcutta on the Chesapeake Bay

They must be fed, these desires. The odd trip to Baltimore to shop (there are no food stores in New Windsor, and none worth frequenting in nearby Westminster) is hardly enough to satisfy my suddenly rapacious appetite for European-ness in general, and Britishness in particular.

Baltimore is, for the uninitiated, an odd combination of Parisian charm (the Mount Vernon section of the city) and the dregs of Calcutta (the rest). It is, oddly enough, a foodie town, and has abundant foreign restaurants, with the Ambassador Dining Room near Johns Hopkins University offering world-class Indian cuisine in an upscale and very European setting. It is on a par with Thariks, the Indian restaurant across the street from my digs in Devon, England.

Aha! And there's the answer to my discontent. I must drive for an hour to get to the Ambassador Dining Room; I merely go out the front door and cross a tiny, 700-year-old street to get to Thariks. Living in the suburban (not to say rural, although it would be more accurate) United States, when one is inhabited by a European consciousness, is all but intolerable.