Small London Pleasures: The Electric Kettle

  British people, you don't know how lucky you are. Not only do you have electric kettles in Britain but they are fast.  Yes, here on my visit to London, I can switch on a kettle and it will boil in just a few seconds! Imagine that! I spend the whole flight over anticipating the joy.
  Such a thing is, for Western New Yorkers, an impossible dream.  We do have an electric kettle but it wasn't purchased from the local Walmart, where such things are scarce, Americans still preferring the sort that sit on the stovetop and whistle frantically, necessitating a mad scramble to rescue them before it's too late. (Remember those, you elderly Brits?) Our electric kettle had to be brought in from Canada. But, goodness, is it slow! You can safely go out and do the shopping and still come back before it's boiled. Presumably this has something to do with the low voltage in America. But at least, unlike the whistling kind, it does switch itself off.