Read How to be a Brit for Free Online Page B

nap lying on a carpet of nails to
remain fit. The English plan their towns in such a way that these replace the
discomfort of steel breast-plates, hair-shirts and nail-carpets.
    On the Continent doctors,
lawyers, booksellers — just to mention a few examples — are sprinkled all over
the city, so you can call on a good or at least expensive doctor in any district.
In England the idea is that it is the address that makes the man. Doctors in
London are crowded in Harley Street, solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn Fields,
second-hand-bookshops in Charing Cross Road, newspaper offices in Fleet Street,
tailors in Saville Row, car-merchants in Great Portland Street, theatres around
Piccadilly Circus, cinemas in Leicester Square, etc. If you have a chance of
replanning London you can greatly improve on this idea. All greengrocers should
be placed in Hornsey Lane (N6), all butchers in Mile End (E1), and all
gentlemen’s conveniences in Bloomsbury (WC).
     

     
    Now I should like to give
you a little practical advice on how to build an English town.
    You must understand that an
English town is a vast conspiracy to mislead foreigners. You have to use
century-old little practices and tricks.
     
    1. First of all, never
build a street straight. The English love privacy and do not want to see one
end of the street from the other end. Make sudden curves in the streets and
build them S-shaped too; the letters L, T, V, Y, W and O are also becoming
increasingly popular. It would be a fine tribute to the Greeks to build a few φ and θ -shaped streets; it would be an ingenious compliment to the
Russians to favour the shape Я , and I am sure the Chinese would be more
than flattered to see some 樽 -shaped thoroughfares.
    2. Never build the houses
of the same street in a straight line. The British have always been a
freedom-loving race and the ‘freedom to build a muddle’ is one of their most
ancient civic rights.
    3. Now there are further
camouflage possibilities in the numbering of houses. Primitive continental
races put even numbers on one side, odd numbers on the other, and you always
know that small numbers start from the north or west. In England you have this
system, too; but you may start numbering your houses at one end, go up to a
certain number on the same side, then continue on the other side, going back in
the opposite direction.
    You may leave out some
numbers if you are superstitious; and you may continue the numbering in a side
street; you may also give the same number to two or three houses.
    But this is far from the
end. Many people refuse to have numbers altogether, and they choose names. It
is very pleasant, for instance, to find a street with three hundred and fifty
totally similar bungalows and look for ‘The Bungalow’. Or to arrive in a street
where all the houses have a charming view of a hill and try to find ‘Hill
View’. Or search for ‘Seven Oaks’ and find a house with three apple-trees.
    4. Give a different name to
the street whenever it bends; but if the curve is so sharp that it really makes
two different streets, you may keep the same name. On the other hand, if, owing
to neglect, a street has been built in a straight line it must be called by
many different names (High Holbom, New Oxford Street, Oxford Street, Bayswater
Road, Notting Hill Gate, Holland Park and so on).
    5. As some cute foreigners
would be able to learn their way about even under such circumstances, some
further precautions are necessary. Call streets by various names: street, road,
place, mews, crescent, avenue, rise, lane, way, grove, park, gardens, alley,
arch, path, walk, broadway, promenade, gate, terrace, vale, view, hill, etc. 3
     
    Now two further
possibilities arise:
     
    (a) Gather all sorts of
streets and squares of the same name in one neighbourhood: Belsize Park,
Belsize Street, Belsize Road, Belsize Gardens, Belsize Green, Belsize Circus,
Belsize Yard, Belsize Viaduct, Belsize Arcade, Belsize Heath, etc.
    (b) Place a number