Fuzzy and the Travelers' Divorce

Who is your archetypal Englishman? Who best represents that icon that is the representative of all things English? I refer to that stereotype of that gentleman's gentleman who is impeccably dressed in pinstripes or suit and is complimented with a bowler hat; who is unflappable, honest to a fault; has that queer sense of fair play; has a dry sarcastic understated sense of humor; is so patriotic that he wears the Union Jack as his undies; speaks the Queen's English better than the Queen; defender of tradition and fine etiquette and stoically holding up the stiff upper lip, eh what! Oh yes, and always has time for a civilized cup of tea.

For many, it is Sir John Steed of the Avengers. Sir John Steed was played by Patrick MacNee for many years on the British television series and more recently by Ralph Fiennes in the 1998 movie version.

For me, the archetypal Englishman is represented best by my friend Fuzzy (name changed to protect the guilty). Apart from all the characteristics mentioned above, he is also smart, charming and chivalrous in the ancient sense of the word. Well, alright, I'll admit that I have never seen him in Union Jack undies but it wouldn't surprise me if he had them. Fuzzy is so English, the big surprise is that he is not Anglo-Saxon. Nor is he Norman, Welsh, Irish, Scot, Celt or any tribe of the British Isles. In fact, although he was born in England, his roots is actually Egyptian Coptic. He does not look English but Egyptian. Nevertheless, Fuzzy could out Steed Steed, if you know what I mean.

To prove this, I shall relate a little tale from our travels backpacking and train tramping through Europe. I call this story "Fuzzy and the Travelers' Divorce".

My big European adventure started out with Fuzzy and I traveling together. I was prepared to rough it out. As we had both bought train passes for the whole month, we planned to save money by traveling and sleeping on the trains as much as possible. We expected most of our meals to consist of bread and cheese or pate and supplemented with an apple or banana . For eating utensils, I had packed one plastic knife in my backpack.

To my surprise, when we arrived in Belgium at the start of our adventure, Fuzzy calmly walked into a train station cafeteria and emerged with a full set of plastic cutlery and I do mean a full set of cutlery. Subsequently, whenever we stopped to have a meal, whether on the train or under the open sky, he would spread a napkin between us where we would place our bread and cheese. He would then ceremoniously lay out his cutlery. There were forks, spoons and knives for both of us. There were even dessert spoons and teaspoons. All were neatly arranged as if in a restaurant. He did this even if all we had was stale bread. "There's no need to eat like savages" he'd say.

Now, we had intended to travel together for the entire trip but we had very opposite goals. I wanted to go to Norway and he wanted to go to Greece. After much discussion, we agreed to go to Norway first and then to go together to Greece. What can I say? I defaulted. After going to Norway, we were traveling through Austria on the way to Greece when I just made up my mind that I did not want to go to Greece. I reasoned that at that point, I had only about 10 days left in my holidays and did not want to spend half of that time just sitting on the train to and from Greece. I broke this news to Fuzzy and he was not happy but reacted in his typical stoic stiff upper lip form.

As we were about to part ways, we took stock of what we had to divvy up. We had been sharing a single travel guide book that I had bought so I took it on myself to tear the book so as to give Fuzzy all the sections on Greece and other places that he needed. Fuzzy received those pages with appreciation.

Fuzzy then ceremoniously took out his cutlery and started to divide the cutlery. I kept telling him that I really only needed a knife and maybe one spoon but he would not have it. He insisted that each of us should have a full set of cutlery and he divided between us what he had and raided the train restaurant car to make up what was missing. And so when we finally parted ways, we were both fully equipped and "There was no need for either of us to eat like savages".

Fuzzy is the ultimate English gentleman, don't you think? I will relate more Fuzzy stories in the future, including why I call him Fuzzy.