So, I caught up thru chapter 4 late last night, but I’m bringing up my ch3 commentary here in the appropriate thread–seems more proper.
I wanted to talk about Rick, Pris’ new boyfriend, because I wanted the UK-dwellers to help me understand some things. Kit didn’t/couldn’t make it too obvious, but it seemed like the subtext was that Rick was from a whole different scene. The first paragraph says he’s bulky, shaved head, leather bomber, and something called a “farmer’s shirt” in yellow. Bulky/shaved head makes me think that while Guy’s crowd were young, creative humanities majors, Rick was a skinhead/soccer hooligan type of guy. the later dialog infers that he’s not well-educated (the porter/stout thing, the newspaper he reads–which I kind of got since I read BoingBoing-- and he says the gang sounds like Monty Python,) although he is a telephone engineer. Is “telephone engineer” blue-collar, laying cable and installing machines, or white-collar, at a desk doing networking/IT? Kit also says that “He sounds like he’s from Essex but in fact he’s from Kent,” which means absolutely fuck all to this Yank, except that he’s adopted the accent of a scene he identifies with? Kit later mentions that Rick seems like the kind of person who would say “fink” rater than “think” but that he never actually did so, which implies that he’s respectable and can blend into “normal” society despite appearances/background. So, this is the Jocks-vs-Geeks trope, except they’re all middle-aged now and respectable? UK folks, am I interpreting this right?
another confusing thing: when Rick bows out of the group to meet his friend, he says the friend has a “rod” for him, but I think Paul or Rob mentions fishing and Rick says it isn’t that kind of rod. Well, in the US, “rod” can be your cock or old-school slang for a gun, but neither of those fit the context. I’m missing something here. Probably not important, but it irks me.
