I had a discussion with my landlord's agent, about those aforementioned holes. After discovering our gas bill was through the roof, my husband went poking 'round (a very British thing to do) and it turned out the gas really was going through the roof. Seems our fireplace has no damper. On a clear day (well, one day last month), you can see blue sky at the other end of the flue.
Not only that, but there's a deplorable lack of weatherstripping, and as for attic insulation, let's just say I've seen Barbie dolls dressed more warmly.
We remedied as best we could, by afixing cardboard under the flue, and sadly foregoing the pleasure of a roaring gas fire. Then I called to complain (a very American thing to do) and I learned that gaping holes in one's house are perfectly acceptable, in fact, "It's against the law to damper a gas fireplace," the agent told me. "Otherwise people might gas themselves and not even know it."
"Oh, they'd know it all right," I replied, but snark is lost on the Brits. "What about weatherstripping?"
"That's unsightly. None of the posh houses have it." (Posh, for you Americans, is a term meaning "expensive, in an overwrought way." It can also mean "ugly.")
Furthermore, I was told, "Insulation isn't the landlord's responsibility."
Greenhouse gas, apparently, isn't either.
Since Brits are presumed to be too dense to know how to open a damper, or install a heat-activated one, I had an idea I knew the answer to my next question: "And why aren't there electrical outlets in the bathrooms?"
"People might kill themselves."
Us Americans, it seems, are somewhat smarter than the average Brit, or perhaps we are indeed dying in unprecedented numbers, in our bathrooms, blow dryer in hand, one foot in the tub, and a roaring gas fire in the hearth...
"You'll just have to get used to the way we do things here," the agent told me, with a definite ring of glee in her voice.
Foolhardy American that I am, I adopted an equally tart tone and ended the conversation: "Well, until you're willing to talk about weatherstripping, Kyoto is off the table!"
(There are times when it's handy to have a lunatic, warmongering, earth-ravaging President. We've considered ending arguments with recalcitrant servers and parking attendants by snarling "Oh yeah? Well, your Prime Minister's our President's poodle!")
Okay, we might not be smarter than the Brits, but at least we don't have gaping holes in our houses.
We, of course, prefer them in our ozone.
