Dr. Drang:

The stan­dard Amer­i­can way to heat water is to take a pot of water out to our pickup truck, open the hood (what the Brits call a “span­ner”), and lock the pot onto the engine block using a set of latches read­ily avail­able at any Wal-​Mart. Then we drive around at high speed, recit­ing the Gospels and fir­ing our shot­guns out the win­dow. After read­ing the Gospel of John for three min­utes and six­teen sec­onds, the water is ready. I hope this puts to rest any confusion.