I can't get my head around the British tradition of celebrating birthdays at work. In America, it's customary for colleagues to bring in a cake or goodies to the person celebrating a birthday. In England, it's up to the person having the birthday to bring in the 'cakes' for everyone else! Not only that, but they refer to the treat being brought in, regardless of what it is (a birthday cake, cupcakes, pastries, donuts, cookies, you name it) as 'cakes' even if they aren't really what I would call cakes! Talk about confusing.
And it doesn't stop there. To the British, 'sweets' refer to any type of candy (chocolate, hard, soft, whatever), while cookies are called 'biscuits'. (Except of course if someone takes some biscuits to work on their birthday and then they are called 'cakes'). And dessert in general is referred to as 'pudding'. So if you're in a restaurant and see 'puddings' on the menu, it can mean anything from ice cream to Spotted Dick - which by the way is a sponge-type steamed pudding made with suet (beef fat) and dried fruit (usually currants) and served with cream custard. It's actually quite good.
Anyway, back to the birthdays. Yesterday was Paul's birthday and because he took the day off work, he couldn't take cakes into the office (and wasn't planning to anyway). Several people actually sent him a message asking if he were planning to bring cakes in today instead!
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