Girl About Globe | ‘El man-spreading’ and ‘ein gin and tonic’

Linda Kennedy

I’m off on holiday to Europe soon, and fearing what I am going to find. Reports suggest everything has changed. The Spanish are feminist and the Russians are sober. The Germans are drinking the terribly British gin and tonic. Has Brexit caused everyone to try something new?

First, the Spanish. Spain is one of the national homes of Latin lovers and whilst there are some jobs which are outdated, like being a nob thatcher or a manufacturer of CDs, I hadn’t expected the Spanish exerciser of his lat muscles to become ‘obseleto’ so quickly. So what’s happened to make Spain feminist? Well, transport. They’ve gone and put up signs against ‘el man-spreading.’

Man-spreading is when men take up more room than they’re entitled to on public transport by letting their knees flop apart, in a physical version of being a Basque separatist. It means they then encroach on the space of the people on either side. It’s infuriating. Most men don’t notice they are doing it, which isn’t an excuse but the manifestation of a subconscious sense of entitlement. New York has ‘dude, no man spreading’ signs on its subway. But Madrid? Who knew it was so edgy as to make rulings on he-knees? Who even thought patella wasn’t a type of tapas?

Meantime, in Germany, ice cocktails are a big trend, to fend off the summer heat. Ice cocktails are liquor ice-lollies. At music festivals in Berlin, the outright favourite has been the frightfully British gin and tonic cocktail. Yes, Germans are ordering ‘ein G&T’ and ignoring the ‘bierkeller’.

To Russia. Once associated with being the hardest drinking nation on the planet but no longer.

In Russia, low alcohol beer sales are on the up, bubbling 12% higher last year, as healthier lifestyles becomes popular. Muscovites are quoted on TV as saying ‘it’s great, if you like the taste of beer, but you don’t want to get drunk and start a fight’. Hang on. What? President Putin pretty much behaves as if he’s been putting away pints of both beer and vodka, picking geopolitical fights on the basis it’s 3am somewhere. Russia is becoming sober? Will peace-loving normal Russians start a cultural revolution from the ground up. ‘Stop picking fights, Mr President, that’s not who we are anymore. Here, here have a beer zero.’

I ponder: what can be done to capitalize on this? How can the traits of a new Europe be used for global good?

President Trump, a famous teetotaler, could stand for president in Russia, shifting him out of the White House in a bit of man-spreading even NYC feminists would endorse. He already seems to have a lot of friends in Russia.

Germans being into G&T? Tell Britain’s Brexit negotiator David Davis. If he were to hold all other requests hostage on the basis that then, and only then, would gin and tonic be given settled status in Germany, he might be onto a winner. ‘Angela, your youth don’t want beer anymore. They want gin and tonic. Give us preferred tariffs on everything, or the gin is off the table.’

And ‘el man-spreading?’ First, I am glad for my Spanish sisters – their commute will be more comfortable. And second, I am yet more glad for the implications. If Spain has these alerts, Euro neighbours will see when they visit. Awareness of man-spreading with spread. Signs against man-spreading will spread. Europe will become a haven of leg-room, a continent without knee oppression, where men and women reach their destinations neatly and in harmony.

Maybe I am looking forward to my holiday, after all.  It sounds like EUtopia.