Brown Britain

‘You know what?’ Eva said putting down her knife and fork and watching Wyn add some more Worcester sauce to his lasagne, ‘I’m going to start calling Great Britain brown Britain from now on.’

Wyn looked up from his dinner his interest piqued by this arbitrary decision to change the name of his country.

‘Why?’

‘Well think of all the things you used to bring from there.’

Wyn had made the Czech Republic his home some twenty years ago, back in the days before Tesco and Marks and Spencer had brought the taste of back home to thousands of desperate expats. Wyn fondly remembered a time when a jar of Marmite was carefully rationed and coming to the end of a jar before the next scheduled trip home or visit from a relative would be a fate worse than death.

‘Worcester sauce, Brown sauce, Marmite,’ Eva touched the jars and bottles on the table with her fork as she spoke. ‘Bisto, Oxo cubes’ she said pointing to the cupboard where they were kept, ‘all the same colour, a dark, unappetising brown.’ Wyn nodded, Eva continued   ‘then there’s that awful beer you drink when we are there, Bitter and of course your beloved tea, okay you put a drop of milk in it to ‘brighten’ it, but basically all these things are the same colour.’

Wyn looked at the three products on the table, ‘You’ve got a point but when is food really ever colourful?’ he asked a bit defensively.

‘I don’t know,’ said Eva but all the things that you think of as being home comforts are all brown in colour and bitter in taste, you’re lucky I didn’t call it Bitter Britain.’

Wyn smiled and leaned forward to kiss Eva on the cheek, it was exactly that kind of logic that had made him fall for her in the first place.