I love a subtle reference. This month’s Monocle has an article about the unlikely (or, to be more precise, unforeseen) affinity of the Swiss for Subaru automobiles… A bit of obscure reportage, to be sure, but it’s the following paragraph that really stands out for me:

…They [Subaru buyers] love the elastic power of the engine, yet thanks to a dual-range gearbox and four-wheel drive, it could also tow an Alp (the fact that the Forester has repeatedly been voted Towcar of the Year by various caravanning types has, miraculously, done nothing to dent its credibility among people who choose life).

To fully understand this, you first have to know what caravanning is, which requires a familiarity with British culture that, for the American reader, could really only be attained by watching Top Gear, the fantastic car-fan show whose editors make no bones about their disdain for what is a uniquely British and uniquely pathetic sort of populist summer recreation — attaching a fiberglass camper (”caravan”) to the rear end of your family (”saloon”) car and towing it along congested secondary (”B”) roads to what is basically a parking lot covered in sod. Where you sit, for a week, and then return home via the same route. Amazing. Point being that, given the fact that the only way that many readers would even know what caravanning is at all would be by way of Top Gear, the mention is itself a reference to the show. Thus a very subtle sort of cultural cross-reference.

Secondly, and all the more subtle, is “…among people who choose life.” This is not, of course, a reference to the misguided propaganda of American political rightists, but a clear citiation of the opening lines of Trainspotting, where life is the first of a range of choices that you might have available, if you don’t choose heroin that is.