CONDICIONES DE TRABAJO Y REQUERIMIENTOS ESPECÍFICOS DE LOS PROCESOS CONSTRUCTIVOS 1. Estructura de Protección del Margen

The British spend the leisure time they have in many ways; the most important are as follows.

Pubs

Public houses, "pubs", are drinking establishments. Some are almost respectable; others are dens of iniquity and violence. Thieves, fences and bare- knuckle fighters may throng the cellars of pubs, and sailors and rowdies harass the clientele upstairs. Local laws govern opening hours, but in many parts of London one can find pubs open more or less whenever the landlord (publican) cares to be open. One of London's special attractions are the "gin palaces", pubs specializing in the sale of this spirit, much used by the working classes to anaesthetize themselves. . .

Restaurants and Coffee Shops

London boasts expensive restaurants at hotels, gen- tlemen's clubs (see below), and Gentry establish- ments such as the Cafe Royal and Verry's in Regent Street. Table d'hote here can cost up to £30 or more per head, but a la carte can be had for as little as £4 or so. Bourgeoisie have more restaurants catering for them since this class is growing, and many restaurants spring up close to their main areas of work. A good evening's dining at such places can be had for £2-£4, but wine charges may be high.

Special mention has be made of the legendary "fish dinner", a gigantic blow-out costing £5.50 or so and involving some 10-12 courses of various fish, duck and other fowl, and even lamb, with diverse viands and sweetmeats. Greenwich is the place for this gastronomic self-indulgence; the Trafalgar and Ship public houses are the best at offering this gross feast.

British diners are well aware of the shortcomings of British cuisine. The "joint" (of meat which may be well past its prime) is the staple of dinners; British cooks regard vegetables as the enemy, which must be boiled into submission before being offered at table. Be very wary of eating meat in hot weather.

Music Halls

The music hall is an entertainment form only some 20 years old. Admission is cheap, but the drinks are more expensive (+25%) than in a pub. Music halls are frequented by Working Class and Bourgeoisie, and provide a staggering range of entertainments. Their stock-in-trade are entertainers and singers providing snatches of operatic arias or patriotic songs, lurid melodramas, pantomime, and suchlike. Music halls are noisy and filled with cheap tobacco smoke and laughter, and outright large-scale vio- lence at them is surprisingly rare. Typically, a music hall opens at 7.30 P.M., performances begin at 8, and the place closes around midnight.

However, on the fringes of music halls are the "penny gaffs", dubious establishments (often just one room above a small shop) where thoroughly disreputable "entertainers" regale their drunken clientele with bawdy tales and songs and dancing varying from the suggestive to the outright flagrant. Thieves and dollymops flock here like vultures to a corpse, so be warned!

Theatres

London has as many theatres as it does music halls; Sadler's Wells, the Royal Italian Opera House in Covent Garden, the Haymarket Theatre, Drury Lane, and even good theatres in the East End. Here, one can listen to the operas of Verdi and Donizetti, take in Shakespeare, and so on. Henry Irving is the great Victorian Shakespearian actor, and his perfor- mances are fully attended with the theatres sold out well in advance. For gentry, and aspiring bour- geoisie, the theatre must be attended not just for cultural value but so that one can be seen by one's peers.

The south bank of the Thames has most of the cheaper theatres which have a long suit in Victo- rian melodrama. The Coburg, better known as "The Vie", is famous for plays "with good murders in 'em!". Working class people flock to these cheaper places, and no few bourgeoisie enjoy the half-illicit sensual thrills of the Heaving Bosom and Implausible Villain school of melodramatic theatre.

Pleasures and Pastimes

Gentlemen's Clubs

There are many gentlemen's clubs in London; some are political, some purely social, some specialist (e.g., the Garrick, for theatrical and literary men), and so on. However, even for clubs which claim some restriction or required distinction, there are ways to get round this: the Athanaeum, for exam- ple, demands recognized excellence in science or the arts or patronage of same, opening its doors to nouveau riche whose money it needs. A gentleman must pay an entry fee and annual subscription, and in most cases he must be proposed by one or more existing members to join (his application may be "blackballed" by as few as one or two dissenting members, or Council members of the club). Mem- bers may take a small number of guests to dine on occasion. Membership of such clubs is a major aspect of a gentleman's social life; it helps mark his affinities, political views, and so forth (in gaming, the club is a natural place for the GM to introduce gentry or wealthy bourgeois contacts). Working class individuals may not join any club and those with an annual subscription of over £75 per year will not normally admit bourgeoisie either. Most clubs have exclusively male memberships.

There are also a large number of clubs devoted to some specialist activity or goal, such as the Alpine Club (promotes exploration of the Alps), the Road Club (promote the revival of horse-drawn trans- port), and there are even moves afoot to found a British Aeronautical Society!! It is fortunate that the British tolerate their eccentrics well. At any rate, player characters may find socializing here more agreeable than the surroundings of conven- tional gentlemen's clubs.

"Fun Palaces" , Parks, and Gardens

Large cities have a surprising number of green out- door areas which offer many diversions- for exam- ple, the Crystal Palace Company at Sydenham

(easily arrived at by local London trains) has gigan- tic pleasure gardens with refreshment rooms, music

played outdoors, sculpture exhibitions (including

the famed life-sized bronze dinosaurs), tropical trees (as at Kew) and much besides. Smaller versions of such gardens, which are only just beginning to sprout the first "fun palaces" (fairs), are dotted around inner cities also. London boasts Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, where feeding time for the lions is a major attraction and visitors can brave the hazards of the Parrot Walk along a tree-lined boulevard where cunning and vicious birds of this infamous breed are chained on branches, waiting for anyone foolish enough to get too close to their razor-sharp beaks and claws. All classes enjoy such recreation; since the Great Exhibition of 1851, such places have become very popular.

Sport

Cricket is the quintessential English game, of course. It is not much played outside of England, but in that land matches between public schools, county sides (W.G. Grace is lionized as the great batsman of his time, playing for Gloucestershire),

and even village teams are faithfully reported in great detail in leading newspapers. Cricket is a

game played between two teams of 11 men or boys, the players wearing white flannel clothing. No indi- vidual outside of Britain, or the colonies which have begun to take up the game, is capable of understanding the rules.

Rowing is a gentry and bourgeoisie sport, with the annual Oxford-Cambridge University Boat Race, along the Thames, a very well-attended event. Regattas at Cowes (Isle of Wight) and Hen- ley are ideal for spotting uniformed public school

males and their over-attired fiancees partaking far too much of the alcoholic refreshments offered there.

Association football (soccer) has a growing popu- larity, though it is very much a working class sport. The first Football Association Cup Final has just been held in London, witnessed by large and appre-

ciative crowds. Golf is likewise popular, and here the Scots are pre-eminent with the Royal and

Ancient Club at St. Andrew's laying down the laws of the game and the British Open having been held

in Scotland since its inception a decade ago. Lawn tennis does not yet exist (court tennis is the version played) and, as yet, polo has not arrived from India. In Ireland, the two major sports are Gaelic foot- ball and hurling. Gaelic football is distantly related

to rugby football. Hurling is not, as the name sug-

gests, the applied science of pinpoint projectile vomiting but rather a game played between two teams of 15 men armed with curved sticks who

attempt to convey an object akin to a hockey puck

into their opponent's goal. The game is fast-paced and violent.

Large crowds may attend these sports, although mass spectator violence isn't common. The major risk are the thieves who prowl the crowds, but only the poorer sorts are to be found here. The best pick- ings for the swell mob are to be had in the thor-

oughly corrupt sport of horse racing.

The major horse races (such as the Derby held at Epsom, and major race meetings at the more gentri- fied Ascot racecourse) are avidly followed by all classes, and Ascot in particular is a place where gentry simply must come to be seen. This makes them open targets for skilled thieves. Illegal gam-

bling on these races is also a national criminal

industry; in pubs, little tobacco shops and the like,

vast sums of money can change hands. If the out- come of a major race goes against the taker of bets, it is not unusual for all the contents of a pub or shop to vanish overnight before bets have to be paid, leaving only the shell of the building behind. Dog (greyhound) racing is also popular, though this not a sport attended by gentry.

Despite laws against them, such horrors as dog fights still flourish in poorer city areas, and one par- ticular "sport" is a commonplace enjoyment of the poor working man — "ratting", competitions in which small dogs compete to kill as many rats as possible in a fixed period of time. Jack Black, "Rat and Mole Destroyer to Her Majesty", is an old, stooped, well-known man about Battersea since his cottage is awash with small dogs, cages of rats, and even ferrets used in this "sport". As ever, the main reason for its survival seems to be the considerable amount of illegal betting on ratting sessions.

One "sport" is lost to the British: that of attend- ing public executions, outlawed a few years past.

Eminent Victorians