The Regal Rules for Girls Read Online Free PDF

with things that you’ve never touched in your life, like hammers and screwdrivers. Instead of using a screwdriver, I tried to use a butter knife, and by the time I had (a) figured out where to buy a hammer and (b) finished hammering that stupid student desk together, I vowed that next time I would pay to have a desk custom made rather than go through the experience ever again. So when shopping at IKEA, take heed: buy only small items (like plants andposters) that you can carry home, or factor in the cost of a taxi, because IKEA charges a fortune to deliver. Also make sure you have a strong British boy at hand to help you construct any furniture that inevitably will emerge from the box in thirty-two pieces. (That said, it’s probably good to have a strong British boy on hand for a variety reasons—not all IKEA-related…)
    www.ikea.com/gb/en/
    Argos
    Argos is like a really bad version of Sears. They have a catalogue and they have a weird “store” that you can go to where you point to things (like clock radios and curling irons) in their catalogue and the employees fetch them for you from some mysterious backroom. No browsing at Argos. But it’s cheap, they have most basic items in stock, you can order online, and best of all—they deliver.
    www.argos.co.uk
    John Lewis
    John Lewis is a British institution. Everyone
loves
to love John Lewis. They are kind of like a JCPenney with an upscale Target in the basement. And weirdly, they are the only store in the UK that offers a wedding registry service. Most Americans find John Lewis (and their sister store, Peter Jones) to be a bit odd to begin with, but eventually they realize it really is the only affordable UK department store that can be counted on for quality. John Lewis recently launched a great new website
and
they deliver—so no expensive taxis required. www.johnlewis.com
    1 Except when it comes to taking your money; you’ll notice that these transactions usually happen at lightning speed.
    2 Prince Harry attended Sandhurst instead of a traditional university. Prince William attended Sandhurst after graduating from St. Andrews—so he essentially has two undergraduate degrees.
    3 This is slang for Oxford or Cambridge.
    4 Do not get overly excited and tell the immigration officials that you hope to look for a permanent job or they might decide to send you right back to America on the next plane.
    5 This is actually disturbingly common. The simple pipe that allows one to mix both hot and cold water so you don’t have to scald yourself every time you wash your hands or face is still very much considered a modern luxury. Double-paned windows are considered equally decadent.

 



TWO
L ANGUAGE , M ANNERS, AND B EHAVIOR
    (Because you don’t have to marry a lord to act like a lady)
Parable #1
    One of my best English friends (let’s call her Hattie) is a girl from a meager yet loving English background. She studied art history at university, landed a job in one of London’s oldest, most respectable auction houses, and now heads up all global marketing for one of the most famous companies in the world. She is good-looking, endearingly kind, incredibly well mannered, and clearly one smart cookie. Over the years, her working-class accent had vanished into something softer and convincingly appropriate for the upper-class clientele she worked with at the auction house, and when I first met her I was convinced she had been educated at one of England’s prestigious girls boarding schools.
    One Friday night, Hattie and I were barhopping on the King’sRoad and we met, as we often did on that road, a lovely group of floppy-haired, rosy-cheeked, upper-class English boys. They all wore pink shirts (with sleeves rolled up just below the elbow,
never
above) and gold signet rings bearing their family’s crest. They bought us round after round of gin and tonics, and before the night commenced, one of the boys (let’s call him Edward) had asked Hattie to accompany him to dinner