It's The Little Things – Francis Brennan's Guide to Life E-Book

Francis Brennan

• Herausgeber: Gill Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The inimitable Francis Brennan shares his philosophy for life: spread a little sparkle dust and make the world a happier place Have you ever wondered which fork to use when dining out? Or how to make the perfect cup of tea? If you've ever wanted to learn the correct etiquette for weddings, funerals and christenings, this is the book for you! Covering everything from gracefully handling office politics to what gifts to bring to a dinner party, this book will advise you on everything you need to lead a well-groomed and well-mannered life. Francis Brennan, the hugely successful proprietor of the Park Hotel Kenmare and presenter of RTÉ's highly rated 'At Your Service' believes it's the little things in life that count the most. And by following his philosophy based on manners, etiquette and respect, he has built an extremely successful business and a very happy life. With his signature charm and wit, Francis shares with you his personal code for living – including the correct way to position a toilet roll, and the direction in which your pillowcase should face! Full of fun and personal memories, Francis will motivate you to pay attention to the small things that make a big difference. 'You get the feeling that if he ever called over to your house you'd have a totally delightful evening drinking tea with him, and although he might rearrange the cushions on your sofa and criticise your choice of hand soap, he'd do it so nicely you'd end up offering him all the fancy biscuits.' Beaut.ie 'Wouldn't it be a great if restaurateurs got hold of Francis' book and doled it out to, ahem, deserving parents?' Sinead Ryan, The Herald It's the Little Things: Table of Contents Preface - Manners Begin At Home - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The People Next Door - The Big Occasions: Births, Marriages and Deaths - Planes, Trains and Automobiles - The World of Work - The Ancient Art of Grooming: How to Look Your Best on Every Occasion - Eating Out - Social MediaEpilogue: It's the Little Things

Leseprobe

It’s the

Little

Things

Francis

Brennan’s

Guide to

Life

GILL & MACMILLAN

PREFACE

In life, it’s the little things that make us happy. It’s the consideration shown by a child towards their parents, the care a host puts into creating a warm, cosy atmosphere, the sense of community created when neighbours look out for each other. And what these little things come down to can be summed up in one word: manners.

When I set out to write my ‘Guide to Life’, I didn’t expect to write about manners—it sounds so old fashioned. I’ve never wanted to tell people how to behave. And, in this day and age, is there even any need? We’re all modern now, with our texting and our smartphones and our casual suppers; maybe manners and etiquette belong to another time.

But once I thought about it, I realised that it all depends on what you think manners are. For me, they’re about respect and making others happy and comfortable. It’s my belief in life. As luck would have it, working at the Park Hotel Kenmare, I’m in a job where I’m able to do that; my business is making people happy. I keep the staff at the hotel happy, I make people happy and I’m a happy person myself.

‘That’s grand, Francis,’ I hear you say, ‘but we don’t all work in the hospitality industry. Making people happy isn’t my job, so what has it got to do with me?’ ‘Everything,’ is my answer. You don’t have to run a hotel to care about other people, or to know how to address a baronet, or even to know what cutlery to use at a formal dinner. Manners aren’t about class or ‘breeding’, God help us. As far as I’m concerned, manners are about respect for others—respect and consideration. And there’s no reason at all to think that we don’t need respect for others in this day and age.

It’s true that things are a lot more casual than they were when I was growing up. Sometimes I look at family and friends at the dinner table, wandering back and forth to play computer games and the like, and I want to throw my hands up in despair. That’s not the way things were done in my day, but I know also that times change. Writing this book, I’ve come to understand that what really matters has remained the same: putting others first. As that great expert on manners Emily Post put it, ‘Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.’

Emily Post was writing about manners at a time when a man was required to take off his hat when a woman entered a lift and to put it on again only ‘in the corridor’, and when all invitations had to be issued in the third person, preferably engraved. It seems so quaint nowadays, but what really struck me was how much of what she had to say was about simple consideration for other human beings—as relevant today as it was almost a hundred years ago. And yet, at the same time, things have changed: maybe it’s no longer appropriate for a gentleman to stand when a lady comes into the room, or for him on no account to remove his shoes in company—we can relax a little on that score. But now, more than ever, we have to remember others. That’s what I believe. It’s what my mother taught me, and it’s what I’ve learned from years of making other people happy. And I’d like to share some of that with you in this book.

It’s all about the three circles of life, as I like to call it: home, community and the wider world. Manners begin at home, I think. It’s where I was taught and where you’re probably going to teach your children. If we don’t teach our children the basics we’ll raise a bunch of savages! So, in the early chapters of the book I’ll look at the kind of things you learn at home. Yes, that includes table manners and whether or not you think elbows on the table matter a lot, or how to use a cheese knife. You’ll still want to make sure your son or daughter knows not to talk while eating; you’ll still want to teach them how to sit around a table and have a chat without needing to get up and consult Facebook every five minutes, and how to help themselves to the veg without stretching across your dinner plate. It’s not about being Victorian: it’s about consideration for others around the table.

This extends to your friends too. Your home is your castle, and you want your guests to feel that they’re honoured invitees and that you’re going to the trouble of looking nice and making a bit of an effort with dinner to show them how much you care. That doesn’t mean that you have to serve twelve courses and snails for starters just to make them feel comfortable and welcome. And you might pick up some handy tips. Have you ever thought about how to make a good, hot cup of tea in a pot or how to whip up a batch of scones for a last-minute visitor? It’s what I like to call that extra sprinkling of sparkle dust, making things that little bit more magical for your company and for you. I truly believe that that’s what it’s all about—the little things that make life run that bit more smoothly.

Then there are the manners we need when we’re going outside the front door: the simple thank you to the man in the shop, the tip to your hairdresser (and, yes, you should tip: they don’t get paid much), the cheery hello to your neighbour, even if you can’t stand their barking dog or the way they leave the bins out in front of your gate. Good manners will make their day and yours. Maybe tipping your postman seems like a notion from another age, but, let me tell you, they will be a friend for life. Nowadays, community matters more than ever. Whether we live with Mother, Father and six kids or live alone, whether we’re on the residents’ committee in our little area or not, ‘community’ is about sharing the world we live in with others. Sometimes, in our virtual world, it’s hard to remember that there’s a real one out there, with real people, just like us.

In the real world, that third circle of life, we’ll need to remember our manners in the office, whether it’s a van, a garden shed or an open-plan space. We’ll need to think of others when we’re eating out and also when travelling, but that doesn’t always mean doing so at our own expense. As Theodore Roosevelt said, politeness is ‘a sign of dignity, not subservience.’ For example, I travel a lot on aeroplanes, and, to be honest, I don’t talk to anybody on a flight—absolutely no way—because if you talk to someone on a five-hour flight you have to talk all the way. And if I do talk I enjoy it, but then I’m exhausted afterwards, because I’m always ‘on stage’. A plane, for me, is an opportunity to read a book or listen to music, to be ‘dilly-dreamy’, as my mother used to say. I say, ‘Good morning,’ and not another word. There’s nothing wrong with that: having good manners doesn’t mean having to be a doormat or to exhaust yourself in the service of others.

What I’d also like to do in this book is help you glide through those potentially awkward social occasions—weddings, funerals, christenings—the kind of formal occasions that can make you into a nervous wreck if you don’t know how to handle them. I’ve attended plenty of formal occasions in my lifetime, and, while protocol is important, the key is to relax and to know that you’re a valued guest. In our casual world, fine dining can often induce a fit of the heebie-jeebies. I aim to take the mystery out of that, so that you can relax and enjoy the magnificent food and the lovely surroundings. I’ll also look at how we present ourselves, as how we look can often influence how we feel.

For me, manners aren’t a rigid set of rules. They’re not there to trip you up or to embarrass you, or to put you in some kind of a straitjacket; they’re not there to interfere with you living your life. They’re more a set of principles to live by: caring, consideration, community—the three Cs, I like to call them! And I hope that this little book will give you a fourth C—confidence—to go out there and show the world what a great person you are.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Preface

Manners Begin At Home

Deciding on the basics

Sharing space

The smallest room in the house

Privacy

The eggs and the fire brigade

Across the generations

Being the perfect host

The silver teapot

A little extra…

Having someone to stay

Being a dream guest

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

The ostrich

Dinner parties

Must-have invitations

The menu

The French beans

Dinner-party disasters

Bottoms up

A note about punctuality…

Sitting down to dinner

Making the table special

The art of dinner-party conversation

Mind your manners

Social drinking

Clearing up

The party’s over

Saying thank you

The People Next Door

Miss Beggs

Five essentials of being a good neighbour

Making your local area a better place

The wider community

Isabel and the biscuits

Café society

Tipping

Complaining nicely

Queueing

Manners for daily life

The Big Occasions: Births, Marriages and Deaths

The bull in the bed

Begin at the beginning

The perfect presents for a new baby

Christenings and naming ceremonies

A wedding in French

Weddings and civil partnerships

Dress codes for formal occasions

The patent-leather shoes

Funerals

Surviving family occasions

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Driving

Taxis

The ‘Noddy’ bus

Public transport

Planes

The World of Work

The interview

Negotiating office politics

Displaying emotion

The flambé story

Dealing with difficult personalities

The fewer meetings…

Communicating in the office

Top office irritants

The Ancient Art of Grooming: How to Look Your Best on Every Occasion

The basics: Hair, teeth and nails

Personal hygiene

Lovely locks

Bling: Jewellery and watches

Clothing essentials

Ties

Monday in Gieves and Hawkes

A suit is a man’s best friend

A crisp white shirt

Best foot forward

The man bag

Eating Out

Soup, glorious soup

Ground rules

A note on ‘sittings’

Arriving at the restaurant

At the table

Don’t panic: Your guide to table settings

Ordering

A menu primer

Dessert

Wine

Eating awkward food

Don’t forget your table manners!

The head of cabbage

‘Have you enjoyed your meal?’

Paying the bill

Social Media

E-mailing essentials

Texting

Privacy

Comments

Taking photos

Complaining online

Epilogue: It’s the Little Things

Five things to remember every day

Essential extras for life

Copyright

About the Author

About Gill & Macmillan

Manners begin at home

‘It’s all in the house.’

—Bill Cosby, 2004

I KNOW this will probably make me sound a bit old-fashioned, but I firmly believe that manners begin at home. As a colleague of mine said when I told him I was writing a book on etiquette, ‘Oh, that’s all the stuff your mother taught you.’ Brilliant, isn’t it? And it’s true: along with teaching you to tie your shoelaces, comb your hair and brush your teeth properly, mothers—and fathers, these days—also teach children those essential skills that will take them through life.

That’s what manners are, I think: not fussy instructions about how to fold napkins and that kind of thing, but respect, and that works both ways. In my house my mother had respect for us, and we had respect for her. I’m not a parent, but I understand the valuable lessons my mother taught me. To my parents, manners weren’t about being strict or laying down the law, but about being a child’s guide in life. That’s the golden rule, as far as I’m concerned: if you show them how it’s done—being polite to others around you—your children will follow.

My parents expected things of us. My father, a grocer, expected us all to help out on Saturdays and during the summer holidays. He had a van for making deliveries to the estates that were being built around Dublin in the 1960s, and we helped him load it with supplies. At home we cut the grass as soon as we were old enough, and we helped out around the house. We were also expected to be polite to the neighbours and to adults in general. I suppose that many people were in awe of the parish priest or the doctor in those days, but to my parents it was all about respect.

Nowadays we’re all about giving our children confidence: telling them how well they’re doing and how great they are and to express themselves. That’s wonderful, of course, but we also need to teach them how to get along with others. That’s what manners are all about. If little Fergus lets out a big scream every time he wants our attention, he’ll certainly make himself heard, but he won’t learn that he can just say, ‘Excuse me.’ And when he’s twenty-five he can’t scream in a business meeting! The same goes for other kinds of behaviour—the kind of thing we might think is ‘cute’, like monopolising the conversation with a long story about school, or dancing up and down to get our attention. At home we might turn a blind eye to it, but what happens when you’re in the supermarket or trying to talk to a friend?

DECIDING ON THE BASICS

Every family will have its own standards when it comes to manners. Some families might insist that children wait until everyone has finished eating before getting up from the table; others might not care about that kind of thing at all. Some people are quite happy to leave the television on while they eat; others insist on switching it off. Establish what the ground rules are in your house by deciding what you think is important, whether it’s eating peas with a fork or not interrupting others at the table. It doesn’t have to be rocket science, just a few simple rules, because if you get the basics right the rest will follow. And keep it positive—no don’ts, just dos:

Do:

· Listen to others ·

· Wait for your turn to speak ·

· Tidy your plate into the dishwasher

when you’ve finished eating ·

· Wait at the table after you’ve eaten ·

· Close your mouth when you’re eating ·

· Try to eat as quietly as you can, without crunching,

slurping or burping, for that matter! ·

· Use your knife and fork ·

· Offer to help Mammy and Daddy clear up afterwards ·

· Say ‘Excuse me’ when you want Mammy

or Daddy’s attention ·

· Say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ ·

Not hard, and not a don’t in sight! And there are also simple ways to ensure that your children absorb more easily the lessons you have to teach them. I’m a strong believer in families eating together, because it’s a great training ground for manners. My father would come home for lunch every day, and because lunch was the main meal in those days, my brother and I would even come home from school, getting the bus all the way from Westland Row home to Balally and then back again—a round trip of about eight miles. If the bus was late we’d be late for school. I always remember, if it was apple and custard for dessert, my mother would have it on the back step to cool—that’s the truth—because you had to eat it so quickly!

Of course, these days you can’t be getting your son or daughter home from school for lunch every day, but you can try to make eating as a family a regular occurrence. Who was it who said, ‘The family that eats together stays together’? When a family is eating together they’re talking together, chatting about the day and what’s been happening. You might find out that your son or daughter really likes sport, or hates it, had a disagreement with a teacher or got an A in a science test, and while you’re having your lovely conversation you can be teaching them those essential life skills: wait your turn to speak, close your mouth when you’re eating, say ‘Excuse me’ when you want to get other people’s attention. Eating together also really helps if your children are fussy eaters: seeing you happily tucking into salmon will make them think it’s delicious!

The other great thing about teaching manners is that your children will behave as you’d like them to when you’re in company. I still remember a visit from my mother’s old landlady, who had the great name of Mrs Lemon. My mother had stayed with her in digs and wanted to show her new home off to her. I was five, and my brother Damien was six. Mum had decided to serve a whole chicken, which was a real luxury in those days, and before Mrs Lemon arrived she warned us, ‘Now, be on your best behaviour, and don’t ask for more.’ In my home we called it ‘FHB’—family hold back! When dinner was finished, Mum was clearing the plates, and Damien piped up, ‘Pass the plate, Mrs Lemon. It has bones on it, and Mammy always uses the bones to make soup.’ Needless to say, Mammy was mortified.

On the subject of eating in public, I’m always amazed to see parents not taking responsibility for their children’s behaviour in a restaurant or café. They say, ‘That’s nothing to do with me.’ Well, it is, but the good news is that if you’ve put the groundwork in at home, your outings should run that bit more smoothly. But don’t be afraid to be assertive. One night in America I was out at a restaurant, and there was a family with small children beside me. They were immediately given colouring books and then brown bread and slices of banana, without their parents having to ask. I thought it was a brilliant idea, as the kids were happy and didn’t get hungry or tired. If your local restaurant doesn’t do this, why not ask? It’s common sense for restaurateurs not to want a screaming child on their hands, so they should be only too happy to help.

SHARING SPACE

When we all live in the same house, it makes sense that we should share all the household tasks. I get on great with my friend’s teenager, but he has never in his life opened or closed the dishwasher. He drops everything in the bathroom, and when his mother returns from a day or two away she can’t get into the laundry room, because it’s full of his discarded clothes. It’s not hard to see that when he goes to live on his own he won’t know that he has to pick up his own clothes and wash his own dishes. And it’s not his fault. Sharing household tasks teaches kids to respect life later on, and it makes life run much more smoothly right now, when all of us are so busy.

You can start with age-appropriate jobs, such as tidying plates and glasses into the dishwasher or putting the salt and pepper back into the cupboard. Small children want to please Mammy or Daddy, so we can use this to our advantage. When I was growing up we all had small jobs: I used to cut the grass and do the hedge and garden from the age of twelve or thirteen, and my sisters used to vacuum the house on Saturdays. Of course, your five-year-old won’t quite be up to the job of cutting the grass, but there are lots of small jobs they can help with: tidying their room, making their bed, tidying up their books and Lego, and, later on, running the vacuum-cleaner around the house or helping Dad put the bins out. Some of these little jobs might involve persuasion on your part, but it’s worth it, because you’re teaching them skills for life.

For many parents, getting their kids to help out around the house is also about teaching them to take responsibility for themselves, which is why mums and dads get so annoyed when the jobs aren’t done. They despair, because they think their messy teenagers will never take responsibility for the dirty bedrooms, the damp towels left on the bed, and the piles of dirty plates and cereal bowls in the sink for ‘somebody’ to wash up. In that case, it’s time for the rota! Setting aside specific jobs for each family member to do every week might well be the answer if you’re exhausted nagging. It can help to set aside a couple of hours—on a Saturday morning, say—when everyone does their chores at the same time. This has the advantage of sparing you from having to nag more than one child at a time. I have friends who don’t part with pocket money until all the children’s chores are finished, which is one approach. Others make sure that their children take responsibility for any pets: cleaning out rabbit hutches and taking Fido for a walk are great ways for children to learn to be responsible.

I would advise parents not to get too excited about standards, however, at least for smaller children. Your six-year-old isn’t going to be able to vacuum the living room as well as you can: instead, reward them for effort, which really works, I’m told. Yes, it probably is easier and quicker to do things yourself, but children get great satisfaction out of doing little jobs as best they can and earning Mum’s or Dad’s praise.

When your children are teenagers it will be time to work on their practical skills, teaching them basic recipes and making sure they know how to do their laundry, use the iron and clean the bathroom properly. They’re in the departure lounge for adult life, after all, and soon they’ll have to manage without you. You don’t want them being the flatmate from hell either!

THE SMALLEST ROOM IN THE HOUSE

I spend a lot of time in America on business, and nobody there knows about a thing called the ‘immersion’: hot water is always there, and people can have showers whenever they like. Not so in Ireland. Des Bishop has a very funny skit on the immersion—‘You mean I have to heat the water myself?’—imagining himself on a bicycle pedalling to get the shower to work!

It’s true that in this country resources are more expensive, so we have to establish some ground rules about sharing them.

•If you want to use the shower, ask. If it’s not an electric shower, it may well be that someone else has turned on the immersion to have a shower before an important interview or to go out for the night, and they won’t be happy if you’ve used up all the water.

•Try not to spend so long in the shower that all the hot water runs out. There’s nothing more unpleasant than having to rinse out hair in cold water.

•Switch off the immersion afterwards. A kitchen timer—set to five minutes, say—can be a great help in reminding people to get out of the shower.

•Clean up after yourself following your shower. Put your damp towels away and pick your clothes up off the floor.

•Rinse the bath out. Nobody really wants your grubby footprints, and worse, in the bath!

•Always flush the toilet and put the seat down. And if you’ve used up the last of the toilet roll put another one in the holder. The toilet roll should always be pulled from the front, with the sheets coming over the top. A nice touch is to point pleat the first sheet on the roll into a triangle.

•Don’t use up someone else’s expensive shower gel. But if you do, own up—don’t just put the empty bottle in the bin!

When it comes to other shared spaces, it’s important to remember that they are shared, and that you might have to make more of an effort to keep them tidy and not spread stuff all over the place. (This applies to adults as well as children, by the way.) My mother had a rule about never eating in the living room, but if this doesn’t bother you remind everyone to tidy up after themselves and not leave smelly trainers under the sofa and that kind of thing. Decide where your boundaries lie and observe them. If you don’t want the dog on the sofa, put its basket on the floor with something nice in it to encourage it to use it. If you want your son or daughter to tidy up their toys, let them know that the television will be switched on only when the toys are tidied away. My friends tell me that consistency is the best policy here!

PRIVACY

I think it works both ways in a shared home, whether you’re sharing a student flat or living with your family. If your teenage son or daughter is in their room, always knock before you go in: it’s their private space. In a family home you shouldn’t need locks on the doors, because everybody should respect each other’s privacy. The same goes for other people’s possessions: if your son or daughter has a diary I think it’s best to resist the urge to snoop, unless they’re in some kind of danger. If you’d rather your children didn’t rummage through your old love letters or peek at that mortgage application, tuck them away somewhere private. And you can respectfully ask them not to rummage.

Of course, in many family homes and shared flats the fridge can become a bit of a battleground. If you don’t want to get to the stage of leaving rude notes on your cheese or waving an empty carton of milk angrily at your teenage child, set some ground rules: whoever empties the carton has to go and get more; keep your stuff in a Tupperware box or allocate shelving on which to keep your food; and agree that all unused food will be thrown out on a Friday, to avoid the spectacle of three-week-old food with mould on it.

The eggs and the fire brigade

This last comment—and the one before it, about being just too nosy for your own good—reminds me of the story of the eggs and the fire brigade. I used to work in Jury’s Hotel, as the night manager of the Coffee Dock. You had to be on your toes, because there was always a huge queue, it being one of the few late-night places in the city. I used to work with the Mothers of Ireland, grand country girls who’d worked there for years because the money and tips were good; but sometimes they’d get up to mischief. In the kitchen was a double door to the deep freeze, on top of which was a brown box. It had been there for about five months, but I’d done nothing about it apart from, on the odd occasion, wonder what was in it.

On one particular night I was working away at the door, showing people to their table, when I heard a huge scream, followed shortly after by an unearthly smell. ‘What on earth is that?’ I thought, as the customers all jumped up and ran out, fearing that it might be some kind of gas leak. I charged into the kitchen, and here were two of the Mothers of Ireland, looking terrified and covered in a sticky, translucent substance.

In a fit of nosiness, one had hooshed the other up to examine the contents of the box and had pulled it over, breaking the seal in the process. It turned out that it had contained liquid egg white—often used in the restaurant business—but it had long gone off, and now they were covered in it from head to toe. We had to evacuate the restaurant and get the fire brigade to clear the smell of sulphur. ‘Leave well enough alone’ is the moral of the story!

ACROSS THE GENERATIONS

It’s not uncommon nowadays, with so many people living into their eighties and even nineties, and with the younger generation finding it harder to afford their own homes, to have more than one generation living under your roof. I think consideration becomes even more important if you’re one big multi-generational family. Perhaps Granny or Granddad has an illness and needs to take medicine or can’t drive any more. The older members of the household will also need their own space, including their own bathroom, in all likelihood. They will probably also have a different routine and different interests from their teenage grandchildren. And while many grandparents are happy to help out with babysitting, they won’t like to be taken for granted or feel that they provide babysitting on tap, so it’s good to be aware of this. On the other hand, many people don’t like to have the benefit of their parents’ ‘old-fashioned’ views, so, Granny and Granddad: be restrained and try not to interfere in the way your son or daughter does things.

But so many people talk about the great benefits of living with other generations. For children, there’s always someone to talk to and share stories with—and to let off steam with, if Mum or Dad is being unreasonable—and they love hearing Granny’s and Granddad’s stories of the old days. Also, many grandparents find that living with the younger generation gives them a real boost and helps them to look at the world in a new way.

BEING THE PERFECT HOST

If we’ve got the basics right, and the house isn’t some kind of war zone, we should be able to invite people in for a meal or a cup of tea and to show off our beautifully behaved children! But because we’re so busy nowadays and so pressed for time, inviting guests into our home—whether for ten minutes or a weekend—can seem a bit daunting. But with a few basics, and that all-important bit of planning, you’ll sail smoothly through the whole thing.

First of all, those basics. Make sure your house is warm. Now, this may seem fairly obvious, but with our damp climate it’s not always a given. We all know how unpleasant it can be to go into a friend’s freezing-cold house with that horrible draught at the back of our neck. It doesn’t exactly encourage us to stay! So, a warm welcome, with heat, is very important.

If you’re making tea or coffee, make it fresh: try not to stew the tea or offer your guest something reheated. I’m a great believer in a proper, hot cup of tea, served from a teapot, because I think it looks so much nicer than a tea bag dunked up and down in a mug of hot water for a few minutes.