As NP staff spreads, like the current financial crises, to increasingly distant locales, look for tips gleaned from a downwardly mobile communities the world over.
The current installment comes from across the pond, where NP staff recently enjoyed the downward spiral of the Pound Sterling. Indeed, the once roaring London financial sector is taking a beating, leaving formerly bustling restaurants and markets barren, encouraging massive sales at posh high street shops, and allowing foreign visitors the brief sensation that they are not, for once, carrying confederate money.
In addition to providing downsized Americans and Europeans with a tempting alternative to the newly voguish staycation, the recent readjustment in global finance allows the British to return to the vocation at which they are best...being broke. That's right: before the boom years of the late 1990s, the UK was a veritable economic backwater, boasting unwieldy regulation, a rusting manufacturing economy, and punishing tax rates of up to 90% (remember the Beatles song?). Below, some helpful hints culled from our north Atlantic cousins.
1. The Dole
While many Americans from across the professional spectrum are newly discovering the sweet relief of state unemployment insurance, they are doing so with a typically American sense of guilt and dissatisfaction. The Brits remind us, however, that one can sap governmental coffers with alacrity. A half century of experience proves there's no shame in that game. Quite the opposite: for decades after the second world war, the British government was functionally a machine for transferring wealth to scores of underemployed who transformed studied idleness into a national pastime. With little prospect of recovery in the housing, finance, or leisure industries any time soon, it looks like they had the blueprint all along. So take a cue from our former colonial overseers, by retaining a stiff upper lip while shamelessly doing the things you always wanted to do during the work week, from drinking heavy beer before noon and watching televised sport, to imbibing a steady stream of celebrity gossip and spending entire monthly stipends on Burberry hats and hoop earrings.
2. Pye
There has been in recent years a resurgence in medieval cooking throughout the UK. This means a return to pairings of mead and dark ales with shortbreads, roasted game, and a variety of casseroles and pies. Not that the new-found British interest in all things culinary was strictly necessary for the diffusion of the latter. As one observer put it, "while Americans seem to think only fruits and sweet creams are suitable for pies, over here we'll put bloody anything into a crust." That they will. From steak and kidneys to potatoes and chutney, pastry encased food is ubiquitous throughout the UK. While the commuter's favorite may remain the successful (and delicious) line of train station Cornish pie stands, the more rough-hewn 13th century variety may be more suitable for the NP budget. Simply purchase frozen pie crust from the corner deli and fill with whatever stray food is lingering in the fridge, say cabbage, scraps of gristle, shredded kraft cheese, dumpster lettuce, or, in a nod to Young Einstein, anything too slow to escape its doughy fate. Cover with additional layer of crust, slather with egg, and bake at 400. Poverty never tasted so anachronistic.
3. Beanz
The musical fruit. If rudimentary pye-making is beyond your ken, try the Heinz. NP has long advocated the preparation of dried beans as a cheap, all purpose gut-bomb with Latin American cachet. Nevertheless, a quick survey of southern England suggests that for economy and versatility the pull-tab turquoise tin of Beanz makes an excellent garnish or meal unto itself. Try on eggs, ham, on white toast, or straight from the can. By adapting this favourite of starving SOAS students and Fleet Street financiers alike, you'll painlessly add a dash of transatlantic panache to those dreary 11AM breakfasts.
4. Filter
It's well established that the rolled cigarette is the most pecunious and stylish choice for the downwardly mobile, yet many readers have noted that they simply cannot cowboy up and enjoy the taste of a mouthful of loose tobacco. Fear not: at corner shoppes throughout the UK one can find Swan brand filters. For a scant 50p for a box of 120, these slim-fit bits of fibreglass practically sell themselves.
5. Coat of Arms
What would the British men be without their dashing school-boy aesthetics (all college stripe ties, v-neck sweaters, and blazers)? Nothing, that's what. And with hedge funds drying up, downwardly mobile professionals will be, in our estimation, less willing to shell for crisp Turnbull and Asser shirts, heavy pinstripes, and opulant, thick-knotted ties; those power suits already in the rotation may well be sullied by the remnants of post layoff benders, Ramen soup, and spilled malt liquor. Nevertheless, as recent recon overseas reminds us, the Etonian style is not just for kids or Harry Potter lookalikes. A well-fitted blazer over jeans gets the job done, and if lack of funds rules out a trip to Spitalfields or Camden market in London, used jackets abound in American cities, from local charity shops to the Salvation Army, where gems frequently turn up from septuagenarian closets or the "back of a truck." Dress up with folded kerchief or table napkin for continental flair, but do avoid the temptation to don anything with epaulets or military insignia. The neo-field marshal look is for art students and perverts.
6. Fieldwalking
Need to walk off that calorically-obscene diet of ale and pie? Turns out the British have just the ticket. Centuries after systematically deforesting, enclosing, and paving over all available wilderness areas on the island, the English are left with little alternative but to walk across another person's sodden hayfield, radish crop, or horse pasture. While the UK original elevates neither the heartrate nor the spirits, NP predicts that American variants (incursions into exurban backyards, for instance, or a jaunt across the central court of low-rise projects) might add an element of risk and reward to this perennial favourite.
