The Misconceptions of Oral Hygiene

Today I was sat in the staffroom of my school drinking coffee and having a half English, half Georgian conversation with a colleague. The weather has suddenly become appalling here in Kutaisi so drinking coffee in the staffroom was my only task at school today as bad weather equals no students in Georgia. 

An English Schoolboy in the 21st Century

It was while in the staff room I noticed a Georgian written English language text book lying on the table in front of me.  Now these books are normally very badly written and full of grammatical, factual and spelling mistakes.  So much so that I’ve stopped being the pedant these days and ceased to point out even the most glaring errors.   

The page that caught my eye was entitled ‘The difference between American and British people.’ I read on with intrigue to discover how the Georgian academics who wrote the book perceived both nationalities. 

The first thing that caught my eye was that Americans are loud and boastful while the British are shy and tend not to brag about anything.  Well, you can’t beat a good old stereotype can you?  Makes me wonder how we managed to conquer a third of the Globe with such traits but anyway enough said about that.  

Moving on, apparently Americans like to eat junkfood every day but the British like food so bland that they cook it for such a long time so as to remove the taste. In my mothers’ case when cooking vegetables this is true but I did raise a giggle to myself as I read this section. 

The paragraph that irked me to the point that I came home to do some basic web research went something like this:

 ‘Americans are very proud of their children and often enter them into competitions of varying nature to show them off. The British think it’s rude to show of one’s Children and often neglect even their Children’s teeth because of this.’

What utter nonsense.

I’m not referring to the bit about American Children as I’ve seen ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ so I know what goes on over there. But the fact that this myth about British bad teeth still ruminates even in the 21^st century. 

I’ve been told from three Americans in the past year that we British ‘all’ have bad teeth. When the fact that I don’t and that I was being addressed to my face at the time didn’t register.  One can only assume that people in America and Georgia are reading Charles Dickens and take it as face value of a true reflection of day to day life in Britain. 

I then started to recall times in the past year when I’ve been asked how much tea I drink each day and do you have servants that bring you your tea at 11 o’clock.  Of course I bloody do, I have a mansion in the country were I stop counting my bad teeth around mid-morning, so my butler can wonder through the vast London fog to deliver me tea and cakes.

Next week I’ll write about the time I went out on a crime solving case with Sherlock Holmes after meeting him at a Buckingham Palace garden party.

For the interested amongst you here is what I discovered on the subject of my nations teeth.