ENGLISH English

These are the final exams at the end of regular schooling usually age 18. They determine your chances of a university place. Back in the 70s when Zed and Charlie were preparing for A Levels, universities in England only represented about 5% of the population. Other tertiary education included polytechnics or apprenticeships. Needless to say, Zed and Charlie weren't just destined for university in general, but for the top universities. Neither of them went for Oxford or Cambridge but they were both at top London colleges.

The Black Country is an area in England just north of Birmingham, which is famous for industrial output. Some would say it was the place where the industrial revolution began. The exact origin of the name is lost in history, but it is believed to be named after the soot emanating from so many factories. There was also a lot of coal in the region, which might have contributed to the name. This is where Charlie's family came from and where Zed started his hitchhiking gap year.

A bloke is a male person. It often goes with "ordinary" or "unremarkable", but it doesn't have to be. It's a bit like "guy" in American English, but guy seems to be more cross gender, at least in its plural form. Guy more describes a person, whereas bloke sometimes has the implication of a type of person. "Blokishness" would be perceived as rough, uncultured, or lacking refinement. 

However don't read too much implication into it when Zed or Charlie says "bloke". All they mean usually is a person or a male person.

"Brilliant" is a term so widely and naturally used that you have to have an American friend taking the micky before you even realise you're using it. It covers a wide range of positive emotion, anything from simply agreeing to the time to meet for a coffee to expressing the most amazing rock concert you ever attended. The difference is simply in the intonation. I guess that is pretty much the same as "awesome" from the lands to the west of the Atlantic Ocean.

If you go back to 1970s England, coffee was not what an Italian, French or German person might call coffee. Coffee was usually instant. You would take a spoonful of brown powder out of a jar into a mug and add a random temperature of hot water. Then typically you would add milk and a fair amount of sugar. This was kind of a sweet coffee flavoured drink. It improved a little with Nescafe Gold Blend and Blend 37 - but it  was still instant. The thing is that in England the real drink was Tea. Tea had specific rules to make it. Not everyone followed the same rules but everyone had rules. There was the milk in first rule or the milk in last rule. Then there was the temperature of the water, pre-heating the pot, how long to brew for, shape of Tea cups. All that sort of thing mattered, because Tea was important. Coffee? Who cares? It's a quick student drink to provide the caffeine needed to keep studying through the night.

So that is coffee in British English. 

But please understand, that is NOT the coffee of Zed, Charlie, Charlie and Sonya. No, they drank Coffee, not coffee. They cherished it, loved it, connected with it. Theirs was not a quick caffeine fix, but an entire coffee experience. In Sagrada you can read about the five emotions of Espresso. They also drank Coffee from a cafetiere or filter, but never instant out of a jar. 

Abbreviation of dormitory. The room you sleep in at boarding school. Could easily be ten to fifteen kids all in one room. Probably with old metal beds a bit too close together.

Boot - Trunk / Bonnet - Hood / BHP - HP / Roof - Top / Coupé - Coupe / Saloon - Sedan / Petrol - Gas / Number plate - License plate / Windscreen - Windshield /  Indicators - Blinkers / V8 - V8 (ah yeah! That's the same).

The list just goes on and on!

A flat is an apartment.

Hence flatmates are people who share the flat. A roommate would be somebody sharing your actual room, not a different room in the same flat, that would be a flatmate.

Back then it was really the only time you could get a year out of the forced flow of life. After university you needed to get a job, because otherwise you'd be competing with the following year of graduates. Once you started work there was no way you could take a break until retirement. But universities would hold your place for a year after A levels. You could take a year out and still have a guaranteed place at university when you got back. I've heard that universities even positively liked the gap year thing, because it gave the students a more rounded character or something. Some people would take the year to do something specific, like live abroad, learn a language, work in industry, work on a farm or ranch. Others would take the year to not do study, couldn't care less what else they did as long as they got a break from education. Zed took his year to find himself, to make sense of the contradictions of his life. Is this what we call a quarter life crisis? No too young for that. Maybe a fifth life crisis?

These are colleges of London university. That definition didn't really help much did it? Well, personally I went to a red brick university (you'll have to google that one), so I don't really understand the whole college thing. Oxford and Cambridge have colleges. You apply to the specific college, not to the university as a whole, but you still end up being at Oxford or Cambridge. But somehow London has its own special unique thing going on. These colleges are technically all part of London University, but as far as I can see for all practical purposes they might as well be separate universities. You apply to them separately, you tell everyone that you went to Imperial or LSE, never that you went to London University. World rankings always spell them out separately, and by the way Imperial, LSE and UCL all typically rank high up in the listings. So to my thinking they are just separate universities that happen to be in London.  Imperial is particularly known for engineering and sciences and LSE is particularly good for economics. 

Student accommodation, often abbreviated to hall  - for example - "I was in hall for the first year, then I moved out into digs."  I believe Americans would call it a dormitory or dorm?

For many students, hall is the best way to start. This is where you are most likely to meet other new students who are also a bit lost and looking for friendship or companionship. Digs, by comparison, can be a bit isolated. On the other hand, coming from a boarding school background, Zed would possibly have been tired of institutional living and hence preferred going straight into a flat, bypassing both hall and digs.

Doesn't matter what version of English you speak, you know the word. It just means to move around. Typically the nuance of careful moving in difficult spaces. The problem is the spelling. In England it is manoeuvre, with manoeuvring as the present participle. In USA it is maneuver. I haven't researched this one but I expect the English spelling relates to the origin of the word from Latin, Greek or wherever else, while the American is a more modern attempt to bring the spelling closer to pronunciation. I wonder why they didn't decide on manoover.

Prep School (preparatory school) is the younger age piece of the Public School system. They usually begin around age 7 or 8. Before that, the posh young kids go to pre-prep school. Zed's Prep School started at age 6 which I think is a little unusual, but it meant when he arrived in the second year at age 7 a lot of the friendship cliques had already been established, making it quite daunting, quite apart from him not being posh enough for the Public School system  ... at least not yet!

An English public school is a type of private school. In England we differentiate private vs state. State schools are free, you have to pay for private schools. The name public comes from way back. Winchester was the first of these to be opened in 1382 if I am not mistaken, with Eton, St Paul's and Westminster following in the next centuries. They began as schools intended to educate poor and deserving people, intended for the public as opposed to the elite. Of course it didn't take a long time before they were hijacked by the wealthy. I guess they needed income or something and so benefactors got the upper hand. Whatever it was, the name Public School stuck. Usually they start at 3rd form (age 13) and run through to 6th form or A Levels or age 18. Usually they are boarding schools.

Short for sanitarium. It's the sickbay at a public or prep school. The person in charge is probably matron or might be sister. Likely had some nursing training, but no guarantee. I'm sure things have changed today, but we're talking late 1960s and 1970s here.

Secondary school starts at age 11 with first form. We also have the word "year" that begins at the start of primary school and runs through continuously to the end of high school. However I don't think we ever used the word "year" back in the '70s at public school. 

We moved from prep school to public school at typically 13 not 11, so public school began at third form. You took O Levels (now GCSEs) in fifth form, so that's after three years. Unless you were on fast track in which case you jumped from third form to fifth form, missing out fourth. Each form lasted one year up till then. After that you went into sixth form, which consisted of two years, lower sixth and upper sixth or sometimes known as lower sixth and sixth.

This period of education is very different, and has a more collegy feel about it. You typically specialise in only three subjects compared to maybe eight or ten at O level. And you are more inclined to self study. You're sort of mini adults at this stage. So sixth former not only describes a stage in education but also comes with a connotation of the big boys at school. 

"Zed" is the final letter of the alphabet. My American friends seem to think we have confused the alphabet. Why not Zee? Like Cee, Dee and Tee? 

You guys (or should I say blokes) have lost touch with your roots. Look at the rest of the world:

German - zett. French - zède. Italian - zeta. Spanish - zeta.

Need I go on? Oh and by the way, it's football ... everywhere! Not soccer!

In Sagrada, Zed is the name of the leading character. Most of his friends use his nick name "Zed"  (meaning the letter "Z") as an abbreviation for Zawadi. His girlfriend/wife prefers to call him Zadi though because she finds it cuter.