Postcards From Across the Pond

Moving On

2011-06-10T14:15:00.000+01:00

This blog has moved to:

www.PostcardsFromAcrossThePond.com

Please come follow me there.

A Friend Will Help You Move…

2011-06-08T19:47:00.001+01:00

… a good friend will help you move a body. At least that’s what they tell me.

While I consider you all my friends, there are a certain few among you who fit into the ‘help move a body’ category (you know who you are), but you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to call you up in the wee hours of the morning (this time) to ask you to meet me behind the abandoned warehouse with a box of Hefty bags and a shovel, I’m only moving my blog.

Big changes are coming to Postcards: with two books out, I am now an established author (in my mind, at least) so I figured I’d take the opportunity of the book release (now arbitrarily rescheduled for the 4^th of July) to spiff the place up. There is a new author website all about ME, a new Postcards blog and a site dedicated to what I am now calling The Postcards Trilogy. It’s all so exciting.

Right now, however, it’s a bit of a mess. You know how it is when you move, you come across stuff you dragged along with you from your previous move (or moves) vowing to sort it all out when you get the chance only to end up stowing it in the attic and stumbling over it when you undertake your next move. I’m finding boxes labelled ‘Old Posts’ containing updates from ten years ago. And the movers just came up from the basement with a stack of albums from when my kids were still in single digits. Awww, weren’t they adorable? And, look, photos of the family reunion in Maryland. Gosh, how they’ve changed! But not me, understand.

Yeah, better put that all away or I’ll be here all day reminiscing. The new place will be easy to find. For those of you on The List, the URL will be in the e-mail. For those of you with this URL in your favorites (that would be all of you, right?) I’ll post the new URL here with a link that will take you there. I can’t reveal the new URL yet, the painters are still in and the carpets haven’t been laid yet. Soon, though, very soon.

The blog will not only be in a new location with a new look, it will be on a different platform, which means a lot of the familiarity we enjoy here will be replaced with different things—not better, or worse, or newfangled bullocks, just different. No one is more suspicious of change than I am, but trust me, it will be fine: take a deep breath, click the link when you see it, and follow me on my new blog.

It’s strange to think that I never even wanted to come here and now I’m sad to leave it. Back in those days, I thought I could hide in my cave and scratch HTML onto slate tablets for the rest of my life, but Blogger, Twitter, Facebook (and their half-wit cousin, MySpace) kept coming around and bugging me to come out and play. Now HTML is a memory, blogging is a way of life and, if I want to give myself a fighting chance to sell more than seven books, I need to make peace with the new kid on the block, Social Networking.’

So in this way-too-fast-paced-for-my-liking world, I figured it was time for a change, time to focus on the future and where it can take me, and time to leave the past behind. In this brave, new cyberworld, we… Excuse me, the movers are back.

“Guys, can you load up all these boxes? The ones marked ‘Old Posts’ and ‘Reunion Photos’? When we get to the new place, just stow them in the attic; I’ll sort through them later when I get a chance.”

Scotland and Beyond

2011-06-05T15:02:00.001+01:00

We have just returned from a week in South West Scotland, a fetching corner of the country tourists tend to overlook. Accordingly, we have not seen a Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC or Burger King in seven days, and have been living among people who know how to prepare a good haggis, appreciate fine whisky and understand the satisfaction of a well-made cup of tea with a plain scone and butter. It was wonderful.

Kirkcudbright's local castle; every town should have a castle,

don't you think. And Kirkcudbright is pronounced ka coo' bree.

The weather was wonderful, as well, so much so that I begin to wonder about the famously awful Scottish weather; every time I have ever been there the weather has been grand. In fact, the final two days were downright hot, and the Scots didn’t seem to know what to make of it. They told us the previous week had been rainy; it seems we brought the sun with us.

We had many adventures, but I’ll save those for later in the week. For now, suffice it to say it was a good week on many levels but I was very glad to arrive home after an eight and a half hour drive. Trouble was, we didn’t bring any rain back from Scotland in exchange for the sunshine we brought them. When we arrived home, it was positively baking, making the grass look like it should at the end of a New York August instead of the beginning of a Sussex June.

It may have been quiet and out-of-the-way,

but the the traffic could be a nightmare.

We toured the town after dinner last night and noticed that, in our absence, they finally finished fixing the tiles in the Forum. The plaza is not that old and they have been working on it for ages, with large, fenced off areas filled with cement mixers, piles of stone and wet sand. But sometime during the previous week, they finished, cleaned up their mess and left. It was good to see they spread a layer of litter over the newly laid stones so they wouldn’t look out of place; these guys are thorough.

Scots taking advantage of one of the three days of hot weather

they will have this year to swim in the ocean, an activity that
seems to consist of getting wet up to your knees, then running,
squealing and splashing, back to the shore.

But that was yesterday; today, I am pleased to note, has brought some rain. Not the usual sentiment I have toward less than agreeable weather, but it was really getting desperately dry here. We can only hope we get a decent amount. If not, I may have to return to Scotland to bring some more back.

Memorial Day

2011-05-27T21:02:00.003+01:00

It’s Whitsun Bank Holiday here in Britain but, to me, this weekend will forever be Memorial Day:

Even though summer didn’t officially start for another few weeks, Memorial Day always served as the Ceremonial beginning of the season. In my younger years (before Blogger, even) the day was filled with tradition and always seemed—no matter how treacherous the weather had been during the month—to bring blue skies and summer-like sunshine.

It always began with a parade and my dad and I always marched—me with the Boy Scouts and dad with the Stuyvesant Falls Volunteer Fire Company. We would assemble at the Foreign Legion Hall, form up and march through the streets of Kinderhook to the sound of brass bands and cadence calls. Everyone came out to watch (really, this was the most exciting event to happen in town all year), wave flags and cheer their friends. The parade ended in the cemetery, where local politicians pontificated and one lucky student from Ichabod Crane Central School read Flanders Fields.

After breaking up, we would put flowers on my Grandfather Denny’s grave—a soldier of the Great War—and join the crowd back at the Legion Hall for a barbeque. There was beer, burgers, pretzels, corn on the cob, potato salad and watermelon, and if Nat King Cole’s classic “Roll Out Those Haze Lazy Crazy Days of Summer” was not playing on the loudspeakers, it would be running through my head.

We would arrive home in mid-afternoon, at the hottest part of the day, in time for the next and most important ritual: the first swim of summer.

My sister, myself, our neighbours, the Bogarski’s—three girls and one boy around my sister’s age—would meet up, wearing swim suits under our shirts and shorts, and begin the long walk to the swimming hole. The dirt road running past our house would have recently been tarred to keep the dust down and the warm tar would squish under our feet. From there we walked the hot tarmac of County Route 25 and after that the dusty fields sloping down toward Kinderhook Creek. We followed the old wagon road, kicking up low dust clouds in the stagnant air, and followed the edge of the fields to a break in the trees that gave access to a bend in the creek that, for as long as anyone could remember, was known as “Wagners.”

Wagners, where I spent a good number of lazy summer days.

Wagner’s was a deepish pool in an otherwise shallow creek, bordered on one end by The Rocks and the other by The Rapids, their monikers making them sound grander than they were. Along the near side, a path lead to a rope swing which, at this time of year, provided the best way to enter the water—not for ease of access but for the sake of getting it over with quickly. In May, the water would be high and fast and staggeringly cold. Still, once you let go of the rope and got over the initial shock, it wasn’t too bad.

We would swim until our lips turned blue, then pull on our shorts and shirts and set off on the return journey. We rarely bothered with towels; we knew we would be dry by the time we reached home.

Me, in my early thirties, taking a nostalgic dip at Wagners.
And, yes, I am swimming in my underwear—contain yourselves, ladies.

In the evening there might be another, impromptu backyard barbecue, with beer for the adults and more soda or Kool-Aid for us kids. The evening would be cool and the specter of school still loomed over us, but you could feel summer, hiding behind a thin veil, waiting to come out.

Here, now, it’s just a day off.

For a Short Time Only

2011-05-20T11:18:00.000+01:00

Wouldn’t you just know it! My book is finally out and the world is going to end tomorrow. Typical.

And there is even worse news for you living in the UK; aside from the world ending here first (for some reason, this apocalypse arrives at 6 PM and follows the time zones around the world), but in addition to that, my book is only available on Amzon.com, so you will either have to wait a week or two (but who has time for that; certainly not you) or use international shipping, which can be expensive (but just what are you saving your money for?)

I think the sensible thing to do is obvious: everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to buy my book immediately.

- Buy the book
- Download the ebook for Kindle
- Download the ebook for Kindle in the UK
- Download from Smashwords

Do one, do all but do it now, because tomorrow will be too late.

I realize, if you do buy the book, it won’t arrive before the apocalypse, even if you use priority mail, and I’m sorry about that, but what is important here is that I am able to know that for one, brief, shining moment before we all become dust, that I was a best-selling author.

You want me to have that, don’t you?

You know what to do.

And if you are reading this post-6PM on Saturday, 21 May 2011 then I guess you don’t have to be too concerned about using priority mail.

Old Favorites

2011-05-16T15:04:00.001+01:00

We went out to dinner with friends at Simply Delicious in Bognor Regis the other evening. Simply Delicious is a deli that holds a supper club on a semi-regular basis, and the food they serve is superb.

The menu this time offered a starter of pan-seared scallops and black pudding in a cauliflower velouté (velouté, I discovered when it arrived, is haute cuisine for “sauce”) followed by braised South Downs veal with wild rabbit and chorizo. Accompanying these delicacies were some very fine wines—a Chablis and a Bordeaux.

So, while we dined on these culinary delights, what else would our conversation turn to but our favourite dishes?

The top runner—among both the British contingent and the resident American—was a fish-finger sandwich. This, for the benefit of my American readers, if a sandwich made of fish sticks. I have to admit, while I lived in the States, it never occurred to me to put fish sticks in a sandwich, but this was, I am here to tell you, to my detriment.

Likewise, a chip butty which, if you can believe this, is simply a French fry sandwich. But this, too, is strangely satisfying.

If you, like I did at first, find these delicacies to be a bit, well, weird, consider that the notion of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich had the British shaking their heads in wonder. Once I had them baffled with this colonial delight, I told them that, in America, you can actually buy peanut butter and jelly mixed together in one jar.

The piéce de résistance, however, was the peanut butter and bacon sandwich. This had them thinking I was mad, or making it up, or both, even when I assured them that this, too, is so popular in the States that you can also buy jars of peanut butter mixed with bacon bits; they are right next to the jars of peanut butter mixed with jelly.

After that, mentioning the peanut butter and banana sandwich was a bit of an anti-climax.

But the rest of the meal was not; for the cheese course, we were treated to a wedge of (and I am not making this up) The Best Cheese in the World. Don’t believe me? Check this out – “Cornish blue reigns supreme at World Cheese Awards”

Where cheese is concerned it, literally, does not get any better than this.

Then we had pink spam for dessert. Go figure.

It wasn’t really pick spam, it was “New season Strawberry and Montezuma White Chocolate Parfait with Strawberry Sauce”

Today we’re back to the usual British fare—you know, beans on toast, faggots, spotted dick—but for lunch I made myself a special treat that left me moaning in gastronomic delight and nostalgic for all things American: a peanut butter and bacon sandwich.

Ahhh, a taste of America.

The Wait is Over

2011-05-11T05:57:00.001+01:00

I know you’re been losing sleep over this, but you can rest easy now: More Postcards From Across the Pond is now out on Kindle (paperback to follow soon):

Here's what the people I bribed to write nice things about it are saying:

What a fantastic read! “More Postcards From Across the Pond” is chock full of witty, wry observations that will have any reader—regardless of the place they call home—turning the pages for more. I laughed out loud so many times my husband asked if I was okay.

Marsha Moore, author of the 24 Hours travel series

www.marsha-moore.com

Anyone who's dreamed of or endured life in Britain will love Michael Harling's hilarious and on-the-mark tales in “More Postcards From Across The Pond.”

Leslie Banker and William Mullins
co-authors of Britannia in Brief www.britanniainbrief.com

I paid some other people to say nice things, too, but that’s enough for now. This book covers the second half of my first decade in Britain, and is coming out as a special, tenth anniversary event. I hope you enjoy it.

If you have joined the ebook revolution, you can download More Postcards From Across the Pond from:

Amazon US Amazon UK

(the above are both subject to tax/VAT--wouldn’t you just know it)

Smashwords

(cheaper, tax-free and has multiple download formats)

Optionally, if you are a troglodyte like me and do not yet own a Kindle, you can download a free Kindle app for your PC here:

KINDLE for PC

Or you can wait a couple of weeks for the book; don’t worry, I’ll let you know.

If I have to say so myself—and at this point, I guess I do—this book is even better than the original. (What? You haven’t read the original yet? Well now’s your chance.)

So download, enjoy, tell your friends, post rave reviews and then go out for a pint—you’ll need one after all that.

Made in America

2011-05-08T16:23:00.000+01:00

We’ve talked about my underwear before, so this does not, in fact, represent a new low for this blog. I didn’t intend to bring it up again, but today, while I was laying out the laundry*, I noticed my few remaining American under garments were starting to show signs of terminal wear.

I never thought I would see the day, but I think it is time to retire them.

These particular tighie whities, in case you haven’t been keeping up with the story arc, were purchased prior to my move to the UK and have been in service every since. For these long years they have provided unfailing support and comfort—a bit of home away from home.

My British underwear? Pha! They were inclined to stretch, wear out, rip and shrink in some truly uncomfortable ways. Many packages of them have come and gone while my American made Haines continued to soldier on.

And I suppose, if their inevitable retirement has arrived, this was an auspicious time. They were purchased in a big bundle from Sam’s Club just about the time Osama Bin Laden made it to the top of the USA’s Most Wanted List, so to put them out to pasture now seems a fitting tribute to them, representing America’s commitment to get the job done, no matter how long it takes. They are the Green Beret of underwear, and I believe they deserver...sorry, I got a bit misty there.

Better days: a photo from 2009 comparing 7 year old
US underwear to 7 month old British underwear.

So now I am consigned to second-rate undergarments. I did consider picking up another bundle on my recent visit to the homeland, but I was told the ones on offer are now made in China, so I declined; it would just have been a disappointment. All I can do is preserve their memory, and draw comfort from the fact that, for a time, I had the best underwear the world has ever produced. I only need to think of a fitting way to honor their passing; they simply cannot be thrown out, that would be a sacrilege on the scale of dumping an old flag in the trash.

I wonder if my wife would mind if I had one framed and hung it on the wall.

*actually, I was getting dressed after taking a shower, but I didn’t want that image seared into your brains at this early hour.

Back To Reality

2011-05-01T13:28:00.000+01:00

We’re coming off a high here in Blighty. First the best Easter holiday weekend on record, followed by a lovely wedding that we had the choice of ignoring and just enjoying the day off, or vicariously celebrating without the hassle of dressing up, splashing out on a gift and sitting through the boring bits of the church service. (I don’t know about you, but I had lunch and smoked a cigar on the balcony while all the singing and readings were going on.)

This was my first Royal Wedding and I thought it was good fun. And it was nice to see that, at the last minute, the country stepped up to the occasion. There had been a good deal of apathy leading up to the event, but a respectable number came out or tuned in for the occasion and I, for one, was glad to see it. It was charming to see the British actually celebrating something; mostly (especially lately) they are so dreary. While there are always a few people standing on the sidelines carping about irrelevancies and generally trying to spoil someone else’s good time, for a great number of people it was a grand spectacle, centered around two young people who are (ostensibly) in love and starting a new life together. Not the sort of life anyone else on the planet enjoys, but that’s hardly the point.

I did my part to attempt to cajole my workmates into the mood by making a string of wedding bunting earlier this week and draping it around my desk. I had extra, and offered it to my colleagues but there were no takers. So I took it down on Thursday and strung it around my balcony so we could be the only ones in our block of flats to even remotely acknowledge the wedding.

I admit I was more into this than most people I know, but it’s not my fault, I am saddled with a double whammy: first of all, I am an American—and we all know how doo-lally they are when it comes to the Royal Family—and I am a naturalized citizen—who tend to be more devoted to their adopted country than many of those who are to the manor born. Given that, I think merely stringing up a bit of bunting showed admirable restraint.

But today, it’s back to business as usual. We had to de-string the bunting, take out the recycle and do a bit of shopping before being able to sit, relax and do nothing but look forward to the May Day holiday, which will provide us one final day off before we head back to our respective offices. For now, however, it is a splendid spring day and the flowers are about at their peak, making for an enjoyable day off.

It’s not all sunshine and light, though; the excesses invoked by festivities of the weekend made it impossible to find my preferred balcony beverage while we were at the shops, so I am forced to resort to wine as an accompaniment to my postprandial cigar.

Sometimes I wonder how I stand the hardships.

Monochrome America

2011-04-24T14:23:00.001+01:00

Before we get into the meat of this post, allow me to say I hope all of you are enjoying, or have recently enjoyed, your Easter Holiday. As for us, it is a sunny, summery day here in Sussex – the hottest day in April since 1949 and the warmest April since records began – and we are taking full advantage of it by lounging around the sitting room complaining about the heat.

We did take a walk through town this morning, expecting to see it empty and shut up, but apparently there were a lot of people like us who had nothing else to do and thought a stroll down the high street would be just the ticket. And the number of open shops was scandalous; I thought there were laws against trading on Easter! If I hadn't know it was Easter Sunday, I would never have guessed; it looked just like another weekend, and I find that a bit sad. On the up side, KFC was open, so you could, if you wanted, bring your Easter dinner home in a bucket. And from the look of the queue out the door, a lot of people did.

Anyway, after a pleasant walk around the park I have returned to my ‘office’ – the corner of the dining table – to work on The Cover.

The sequel to Postcard from across the Pond (titled More Postcards from across the Pond because I couldn’t stretch my imagination any farther than that) is well under way, and this weekend I put away my Editor’s hat in order to become head of the Art Department., which means designing a cover for the new book.

This shouldn’t be an onerous job; in order to make the brand easily recognizable, the new cover is the same basic design as the original. The difference is, instead of British icons in the foreground with America over the horizon, I decided to reverse it, with American icons in the fore. And that is where the trouble started.

This is the first cover: nice bold reds with colorful stamps
(or just take a look to your right)

American icons? Simple, the Capitol Building, the Space Shuttle, the White House, Mt Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument… But as I pulled them together I found they had more in common besides being representative of America—they were all white.

This made for a very dull cover, so I tried again: a mailbox, cheerleaders, cup of coffee, a diner…all white-based if not totally white.

So I looked again, and found an off-white mailbox, a red car, the Statue of Liberty, a diner sign with some turquoise in it and a back drop of a collage of US money, which merely replaced the white theme with a green-based one. Now when I look at the new cover, I think of a Caribbean holiday.

So I’m back at the drawing board, trying to find a small group of items that represent the US—and is not registered McTrademarks—that are not all the same muted hue.

I’m tempted to leave it as it is, because a bland and monochrome cover would be a good metaphor for America—where else can you travel three thousand miles and still find the same stores and know exactly what is on the menu in any restaurant you enter—but, unfortunately, it makes an abysmal cover, unless I target those people who remember the Beatles’ classic White album.

Classic, don't you think?

They’re Baaaack

2011-04-18T08:35:00.000+01:00

If I haven’t written about spiders in a while, it’s simply because I haven’t seen any. With the arrival of spring, however, the monsters are on the move once more.

Now I don’t go out of my way to hunt spiders down; in fact, I go out of my way to not have to hunt them down. I even occasionally allow a young spider, who has moved into a vacancy on the balcony railing, to live. I adopt them as a sort of pet and watch them develop from cute little baby spiders that even I am not afraid of, into children spiders who look at the world with wide-eyed wonder (aww, they grow up so fast, don’t they?) and then into moody and insolent teenage spiders with their spider trousers hanging down their eight legs and their web a mess even though I have told them time and time again to clean it up, and finally into young adult spiders, eager to start a family. This is when I kill them.

For the most part, I have no problem with the spiders who keep me company during my nightly cigar on the balcony. They are everything I like a spider to be: somewhere I can keep an eye on them, quietly going about their own business and, most importantly, securely outside. The ones I have a problem with are the ones who bushwhack me while I think I am safe in my flat. This has not, I am happy to say, happened in a while.

Until last week.

We went into the bedroom to go to bed and when I turned on the light, there it was—one of the mutant spiders, the size of a badger, clinging to the wall. Naturally, I panicked. When my hyperventilation eased, I summoned up what courage I could find and decided to act, taking advantage of its spider Achilles Heel (they have eight, so it is a real disadvantage to them): the belief that if they remain still, no one will see them. How they came up with that notion is beyond me—if a komodo dragon was sneaking up on you in your living room, you’d still see it even if it was standing still—but I am glad they did; for the moment, at least, I was safe and the spider was where I could see it.

Thinking fast I went off in search of a cricket bat to bludgeon the creature to death with. Then my wife, who was calmly reading in bed (she suffers from a disturbing lack of spider-phobia) said, “Don’t squish it against the wall, it will make a mark.” I had to admit she had a point, the blood spatter would surely mean a forfeit of our security deposit should we ever decide to move, but how, then, was I to dispatch the beast?

“Brush it on the floor and then kill it,” my wife suggested.

She was, quite obviously, mad. If that spider hit the floor I knew I would be leaping about whacking at random and hitting everything except the spider, which would take refuge in the ironing pile (we have an abnormally large ironing pile, otherwise this would not be possible). Then, of course, I would have to rent a room at the Travel Lodge if I expected to get any sleep.

So I got a piece of plywood and the largest serving dish we had and performed a live capture, which left me with an angry, snarling spider strapped inside a serving bowl, wondering what to do next.

“Flush it down the toilet,” my wife suggested, flipping another page.

But I knew that wouldn’t work, as I would forever after be fearful of sitting on the toilet, in case the spider didn’t die and was, instead, waiting in the depths below for its chance to exact revenge. So I released it into the wild by heaving it over the balcony and letting it abseil to the ground below.

That, I felt certain, would be the end of it, but last night, it returned. My wife says it was a different spider, but I recognized the tattoo on its second to the left bicep. It was in the same place, just waiting.

Another live capture and release was performed, but now I am rethinking the toilet flushing remedy: it took the spider a week to find its way back into my flat the first time, so now that it knows the way, will it only take three days? Or two?

Frightening thoughts to dwell on, so I won’t. For now I am safe, and can relax and enjoy the grand weather, a nice cigar and a beverage on my balcony without having to worry about spiders.

Keeping Britain

2011-04-12T20:52:00.000+01:00

When my wife and I took our evening stroll last night, the town was littered with trash. Crisp bags, soda bottles, empty cans, fast food wrappers, soft drink cups lined the pedestrian areas and covered the Carfax like drifting leaves.

I’m growing used to such sights, so we were halfway through our walk before I remarked that there seemed to be more garbage lying in the streets than usual, to which my wife responded, “The kids are off from school for spring break.”

This isn’t going to turn into one of those cranky rants about litter and/or “these kids today,” so hear me out: this morning, as I walked the same route to the bus stop, it was spotless. All the trash was gone, the bins emptied (as if they needed it) and all I saw were a few council employees with their sweepers, scrubbers and leaf blowers packing up and moving on to their next job.

Now, I get up pretty early and I catch the first bus of the day, so these guys (and gals) are up even before I am, scrubbing, sweeping, cleaning and making the town presentable. As always, I gave them a silent nod of thanks as I walked by; without them, the picturesque market square would look like a Guatemalan shanty town.

What Horsham would look like without the Council workers.

We owe these people—and others like them, those who staff our libraries, work in our leisure centers, maintain our countryside and see to your son’s broken arm—a huge debt of gratitude. And a salary, which is where the government and I part company. They think a great way to save money is to fire all these people—and others like them—and rely on volunteers to do the work. They are calling it, “The Big Society” and, while they dress it up as a “let’s all pull together” initiative, what it amounts to is attempting to rebuild Britain with slave labor.

Volunteerism has its place, but you can’t run a country as a hobby. I am not espousing any particular political belief, just stating a fact: If you want services, you have to pay for them (as we used to say, “Ass, grass or gas, nobody rides for free.”); volunteers, as the name suggests, don’t actually have to show up for work and the proponents of this scheme may find enthusiasm waning once the “workers” discover that “satisfaction of a job well done” is not, in fact, regarded as legal tender.

So as I wandered toward the bus stop, through the pristine town bathed in the glorious dawn of a new tax year, I was at once grateful for the lack of litter and those who made it possible, and a bit fearful that, in the future, I will be making this trek knee-high in garbage.

The Next Level

2011-04-08T13:14:00.002+01:00

I’m afraid you’ll need to file this one in the “Grumpy Old Man” folder; sub-folder, “These Kids Today!” Apologies for that up front.

As you all know, my incredulity has long been rising in direct proportion to the hemlines of the skirts (and inversely proportional to the tops of the trousers) I see the young people wearing around town these days. There’s not a lot to say about that; we looked like idiots when we were young, now it’s their turn. Fair play, and all, except:

Sometimes I see people adopting these fashions who are old enough to know better. A willow-thin seventeen year old can get away with wearing a pair of knee-high leather boots and a skirt that leaves little to the imagination. And her companion is welcome to his droopy jeans showing off his boxers. These are unforgiving fashions and should not be attempted by anyone over the age of twenty-five. If you insist on dressing like this and you are over the age of thirty, the police should be allowed to take you into custody. You know who you are.

But beyond that, I was finally coming to terms with the reality that young fashion is so far out of my particular loop as to make it irrelevant. And at least the girls generally wear a dark, semi-transparent garment that my wife refers to as “leggings” and I call panty-hose without the feet. At any rate, as long as they are wearing them, the length of their skirt really doesn’t matter. Too much.

Lately, however, I am afraid that the next logic step is being tested: wearing no skirt whatsoever. When I first encountered this fashion, I had hopes that it was a fluke. We live in a busy world, and it is entirely possible the young lady in question simply forgot to put her skirt on before she left the house—Lord knows, I’m capable of doing that—but I just returned from town and, as much as I would love to believe otherwise, there simply cannot be that many absent-minded young women wandering around the High Street.

This disturbs me, not simply because it turns me into a voyeur (they’re happy to dress like that, but just try snapping photos of them and posting them to your soft-porn gallery on the Internet and suddenly people start looking at you like you’re the pervert), but because it is so unfair. If I decided I wanted to walk around town in my underwear, I would be arrested (or at least escorted back to the Home), so why should they be allowed to disregard the rules of a polite society. In that direction lies anarchy.

Okay, I'll get off of my soap box now. I suppose, in the long run, it is neither surprising nor a big deal, and I’m sure, sooner or later, I’ll get used to seeing waifs wearing underwear while I'm out shopping. But it does make me wonder what the next step is going to be.

And if you are 38 year old woman who is thinking that this might be the fashion for you, I beg you, think again.

This a photo I took for my collect…I mean, to show you

what I have to put up with. The offending women, for

legal reasons (this is a family blog) have been digitally rendered more modest.

Jubilee Preparations

2011-04-03T16:43:00.001+01:00

With everything else going on in the world, you could be forgiven for not noticing there as some very significant dates coming up, and in the same year, at that.

That’s right, next year, in addition to marking Queen Elizabeth’s 60^th year on the throne, is the 10^th Anniversaries of “Postcards,” my arrival in the UK and subsequent marriage. I decided to kick this off now because, frankly, I don’t have much else to do, and all of the significant 9-year anniversaries are now behind me: trip to Ireland, initial trip to the UK, etc. If I can keep the momentum going (assuming, of course, I get it rolling in the first place) we’ll have a whole year of it. Won’t that be swell? You’ll love it, honest.

Queen when she was inaugurated, or coronated, or whatever.

Granted, the Queen’s “Diamond Jubilee” both sounds a bit more elegant and—by virtue of the legions of serfs already working on it—should be better organized than my “Tin Jubilee,” but even with my dearth of resources I should be able to provide a few surprises, as well as a stroll or two down amnesia lane.

Me, as events are conspiring to bring me to England

Strangely, but fortuitously, enough, I ended up walking The Worth Way this morning without prior intent. It was something that, through a combination of circumstances, simply happened. But as I was already planning to kick off my “Ten Year Jubilee Celebrations” with this post, and the walk took me to the very first bit of real England I saw, the Tin Jubilee seemed meant to be.

The morning was warm and inviting, mirroring the sunny autumn afternoon of a decade ago when—on my first day in England, once I’d had a brief nap after landing and a spot of lunch—my future mum and father-in-law trotted me out for some local sightseeing. I have not been back since, and the walk was filled with nostalgic epiphanies.

The Queen, as she appears now.

The first, and most impressive, was the Worth Church, dating from 900 AD. My mind still fogs over trying to comprehend the history behind that.

I recalled the views of that landscape and how, back then, I marvelled at how unlike America they looked. At the start of the walk, a footbridge crosses the M23 and I remember gazing down at the traffic, surprised that there was so much of it in a country like England where people still wore tweed suits and bowler hats and walked about carrying umbrellas. And they were driving on the wrong side of the road!

Further on, I had my first encounter with a stile, right of way (the path went through a farmyard) and holly, which I had never seen in the wild before.

So I stand poised on a significant point; my tenth year stretches out before me, giving me much to think about and be thankful for. Stay tuned.

Me now, looking a bit better than Liz,
but then she does have a few years on me.

Incidentally, isn’t tin a crap metal for a ten-year celebration? I know it isn’t up to gold or even silver, but what about pewter? At least you can make a beer stein out of that.

A Day In London

2011-03-27T13:23:00.000+01:00

So I went on my first protest march yesterday, and what an introduction: about a quarter million marchers out to let the government know what they think of their draconian cuts. It was really magnificent.

Hey, Look! It's Big Ben!

Now, before I go any further, let me say that, like most people, I do have political opinions and, like most people, I do enjoy spouting them off in the pub when the discussion turns toward the nefarious doings of the current pack of assholes in power (because, face it, whoever they are, whether you voted for them or not, once they get into power, they become, de facto, “those assholes running the country”). However, unlike most people, I freely admit my opinion really isn’t worth considering. I know my limitations; I’m a project manager in a small computer company, it is all I can do to organize a simple project (and beyond my capabilities, if you listen to some of my co-workers) so running a country is outside of my remit and if, god help us, that responsibility ever fell to me, you could be certain I would make a hash of it. So there will be no political opinion spouting here—the soapbox is safely tucked into the closet where it belongs.

All that said, and admitting I do not agree with all of the parties that were marching, I think the protest was a fine idea. After all, the government has undeniably pissed off a large number of people, and we have the good fortune to live in a society where we have the right to let the government know that they have pissed us off and, furthermore, the ability to come together to express discontent without the government bombing us.

Look at me, will you, marching with the Communists.

So what it amounted to, for me, was a lovely walk through London. And it was. The day was cool and mostly pleasant, and we had the opportunity to view a host of London landmarks on our winding way to Hyde Park without the hassle of traffic or those pesky tourists being in the way. We actually ran into a few people we knew (in a crowd that size—what are the odds), had a nice, and welcomed, early dinner, took a train home and arrived in time to catch ourselves on the evening news.

All in all, a perfectly fine day.

Granted, it won’t make a blind bit of difference; the government will continue to do what it is doing but at least now there are about 250,000 people who can feel just a bit better because they made an effort and did something.

That is democracy in action, and why I think the march was, not only a fine idea, but something that needed to be done, if only to preserve our right to do it.

100 Things

2011-03-25T06:36:00.000Z

We’ve all seen those lists, the (pick a number) Things You Should Do Before You (pick a euphemism—attain room temperature, take the dirt nap, buy the farm). Now commonly called The Bucket List, they tend to contain things like Visit the Taj Mahal, Swim the English Channel, Climb the Matterhorn, Take a balloon ride over the Serengeti or similar non-accessible feats designed, it would seem, not to inspire, but to lower your self-esteem.

I’m on your side, really I am; I know you have your hands full just trying to keep up with all the CSI franchises, when would you possibly find the time, money and physical endurance to do something like “Take a boat trip the entire length of the Nile” or, “Stay up all night and watch the sun rise over the Rockies”?

So I’ve put together a list with you (and me) in mind. It will make you feel better about yourself because you can probably tick all of them off right now and just get on with your day.

My List of 100 Things To Do In This Lifetime

for People Who Are Too Busy Earning A Living To Run Off To Timbuktu:

1. Fold a piece of paper in half
2. Visit the mall
3. Eat in a restaurant (McDonald’s will do)
4. Make a cup of coffee (or tea)
5. Buy a newspaper
6. Stay up and watch the late news
7. Take a nap
8. Buy a head of lettuce
9. Watch a movie
10. Smell the flowers
11. Have your hair cut
12. Take a bath (a shower will do if you’re in a rush)
13. Sleep in
14. Make a list
15. Yawn
16. Listen to the radio
17. Complain about the weather
18. Walk across the street
19. Sing (or try to; no one has to be listening)
20. Make another cup of coffee
21. Just sit
22. Open a door
23. Try on a new pair of shoes
24. Look in the cupboard
25. Say “Hell-o” to someone
26. Complain about your heating bill
27. Answer the phone
28. Swear (if you are a sensitive soul, a euphemism will suffice)
29. Clip your toenails
30. Ask a question
31. Check the time
32. Browse
33. Look at the moon
34. Sniff the milk to see if it’s gone sour
35. Wear shorts
36. Pick your nose (really, there’s no use denying if)
37. Admit you’re bored
38. Make another cup of coffee
39. Compliment someone
40. Tell a joke
41. Sit in a folding chair
42. Weigh yourself
43. Make toast
44. Break something
45. Fix something
46. Go upstairs
47. Wear a hat
48. Dither
49. Peel a banana
50. Speak in a funny voice
51. Scratch yourself surreptitiously in public when you think no one is looking
52. Talk loudly and slowly to a foreigner
53. Stand a coin on edge
54. Seal an envelope
55. Ask a rhetorical question
56. Cross your eyes
57. Wait in a queue (for those of you playing the US version – wait in line)
58. Forget someone’s name
59. Lock the door
60. Check to make sure it really is locked
61. Check it again
62. Make another cup of coffee
63. Step on the cracks
64. Chortle
65. Complain about the government
66. Over eat
67. Light a candle
68. Wince
69. On the day after the clocks change, note that, “It’s really 11 o’clock” when someone tells you it’s 10 o’clock.
70. Stand on one foot
71. Nod in agreement with someone who is clearly talking ballocks just to keep from getting into an argument
72. Check the mail (for those of you under 25, e-mail will count)
73. Wonder why
74. Recite a limerick*
75. Open a window
76. Stretch
77. Change your mind
78. Hold your breath
79. Look at yourself in a mirror
80. Give in
81. Curl your tongue (or try to)
82. Walk barefoot
83. Talk to a child
84. Feel the rain
85. Whistle
86. Admire a sunset
87. Ask a silly question
88. Take a drink of something and say, “Ahhh” afterward
89. Equivocate
90. Have dirty thoughts
91. Skin your knee
92. Celebrate someone else’s success
93. Mine your belly button for lint
94. Do the “I’m a Little Teapot” song. With the motions.
95. Take part
96. Give money to a stranger
97. Be brave
98. Be kind
99. Leave something unfinished

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

* If you don’t know any, you can use this one. It was the winner of a contest to see who could use “Lewinsky” and “Kaczynski” (Ted Kaczynski of uni-bomber fame) in a limerick in the most creative way. I admire the author for avoiding the obvious rhyme:

   Lewinsky and Clinton have shown
   What Kaczynski must surely have known
   That an intern is better
   Than a bomb in a letter
   When deciding which way to be blown

A Bad Day For Britain

2011-03-20T11:54:00.004Z

We just returned from town after what should have been a relaxing walk in the warm sunshine.

However, as we entered the pedestrian area of the Bishopric, we ended up behind a group of young people, probably in their early teens. The girls were wearing leggings and shirts and nothing else. (One of them was also wearing leopard print panties on beneath her leggings, not that this has anything to do with what happened, but since she went through the trouble to show them off to the world I thought I would help her out.)

What this young lady did was unwrap a lollypop and blithely drop the paper on the pavement. My wife picked it up and deposited it in a nearby receptacle with the appropriate tisk-tisking and we continued on. Shortly after, one of the young boys did the same thing. This time, my wife picked up the paper and gave it back to him (they were young enough that, if they pulled knives, we might have been able to hold our own—we would never have been so foolish with someone 16 or 17). She asked him to put it in the bin as littering was giving them a bad reputation. No shouting, no chastising, just cause, effect and a request to do the right thing.

This is the area they were walking in, so they
were not the only one's being assholes.

So we all set off, with them looking back every few seconds to see if we were following. We were. So the boy went out of his way to walk past two bins where he made a point of not putting the trash in them, then veered into a gaming shop where, no doubt, he dropped it on the floor.

The little bastard.

I have written about this before, but it is one of the saddest things about living among the British: they live in an astoundingly beautiful country, yet the treat it as their own, personal rubbish pit. The cities in America and, especially, Canada, are not filled with litter the way they are here. Don’t the British have any sense of pride in their country? And if they do, why don’t they teach it to their kids?

Typical condition of the Bishopric

It really annoys me, almost as much as what happened to my friend, NFAH, who was sent out of her own meeting to make photocopies for some guy just because she was the only woman in the room. Now, I’m not saying this wouldn’t happen in America—sadly, it would—but at least there you are not required to address the offending dipstick as “Sir” just because he was knighted.

So I am afraid that, on this glorious “first day of spring”/”last day of winter” (depending on your calendar), I am not feeling particularly charitable toward my adopted country.

Please, please, please people, this is a lovely place, and there are plenty of appropriate places for your garbage, and cluttering up my view is not one of them.

And teach your kids some better manners.

America the Sweet

2011-03-13T16:43:00.002Z

On our recent trip to the US, my wife and I found America very sweet. By that, I don’t mean to say the people were friendly and helpful, which they were, almost to a fault, but that many things were, literally, sweet. The beer, the bread, the baked beans and even the candy were all tinged with a sweetness that made them cloying.

But the Americans, being a resourceful lot, didn’t stop there; if a food item wasn’t sugar-based, it was cover in salt or swirling with cinnamon, or a combination thereof. And there was a lot of it: in a supermarket with 12 aisles, four were devoted to snack food and those devoted to “real” food contained items like toaster pastries and microwave pizza. My wife, who just wanted something plain, unflavored and not containing 80,000 calories, searched in vain for rice cakes among the four aisles of offerings. She did find rice cakes, but they were either infused with cinnamon or coated with a cheese-flavored dust of a color not found in nature.

One of the four snack aisles--one third of the entire store.

Another shock was going to the drugs aisle for some aspirin and finding, readily available on the shelves, drugs that can only be obtained by prescription in the UK—anxiety medications, fat blockers, diet pills, high-strength pain relievers, etc. This, coupled with the endless TV ads urging patients to demand specific prescription drugs from their doctors, led us to believe that the average American feels more adept at deciding what is good for them, medically, than is, perhaps, good for them. Maybe my years in the UK have tainted my perception, but I like to leave decisions concerning serious medications up to my doctor.

At one point during the holiday, we bought a pack of Whoppers, just to see how they compare to Malteasers, the UK version of Whoopers. They were, in word, awful. The coating was, apparently, some sort of substance grown in a petri dish from industrial waste products that, I assume, was supposed to resemble chocolate in look, texture and taste. They managed one out of three: the color was brownish, but it had the texture of an inner tube and a taste not far away. And the center was so sickeningly sweet—not the malty flavor I have grown used to—that after three I considered going back to the drug aisle to get some Kaopectate.

Who thought this was a good idea? Candy in the shape of Legos!

We also managed to confuse the check out team (really, three people on a register?) by trying to pack our own groceries and caused the staff at a Dunkin Donuts to retreat into a befuddled huddle by asking for coffee without sugar in it.

On the plus side, the service was refreshingly prompt and cordial. At a diner we visited, a lone waitress was taking orders, bringing food, checking on coffee levels and fetching the check for all the customers. Even so, the food was well-prepared, hot and on time and she always managed to linger for a few friendly words at each table. In the UK, where they have eight teenagers behind the counter filling orders, it still takes half an hour to get a cup of coffee.

This is SALAD! Isn't this supposed to be healthy and low in calories?

So America gets mixed marks this trip: too much sugar, too many drugs but great service and really good coffee. Overall, my years in England have made me unable to cope with the high condiment content of American food; I won’t say I was glad to return to Sussex, but my stomach certainly was.

Hey, look what I found at the local bookshop!

The Cold, Cold Snow of Home

2011-03-09T06:36:00.000Z

It had never been my intention to ever go back home during the winter, but a sudden surfeit of holiday leave coupled with the need to see my new grandson saw me and my wife in Upstate New York during the worst winter in thirty years.

We managed to land between snowstorms and arrived with little difficulty. The only bump on the trip over was, as usual, the security interview, which had been beefed up—for your protection—with a few new questions:

When we presented our passports to the security officer, she eyed the pair of us and asked, “How do you know each other?” To which I replied, “And just how is that any of your f*%king business?” Or, at least I might have, if my wife hadn’t chimed in with, “We’re married.” That satisfied the guard, despite the fact that my wife could have been lying; I might have just met her in a pole-dancing club the night before and decided to take her to America with me. Does a couple travelling together suddenly become more secure when one of them claims they are married? The mind boggles.

Then the guard asked my wife something. My wife answered, “No,” then leaned to me and whispered, “Just tell her ‘No’!” When I heard the question, I understood my wife’s concern:

“Is there anything in your suitcase that could be used as a weapon?”

I won’t even bother; think up your own scenarios—smothered with a jumper, eye poked out with a Q-tip. The absurdity of the question screamed at me, but with thoughts of a small back room, rubber hoses and a big man pulling on surgical gloves held firmly in my mind, I simply smiled, said, “No,” and passed through the barrier, wondering if MacGyver would ever be allowed to fly again.

And then we were in New York. It was bleak.

In a way, this was a good thing: it gave my wife a taste of what I had to put up with for the first four decades of my life, and reaffirmed for me that the decision to move to Britain was the right one.

We endured a snowstorm, enjoyed the thrill of driving on treacherous roads, shovelled snow, chopped wood and, along with our hosts, went slowly stir-crazy.

The experience reacquainted me with the joys of constant cold: dry skin, nosebleeds and nothing to do. We couldn’t even go for a walk because the snow banks meant you had to walk in the road. During the second week, my wife had me drive her to the mall just so we could walk around. We watched a lot of television.

The most shocking—literally—thing I was reminded of was the amazing amounts of static electricity generated by dry air and slippers shuffling on carpet. Every time I touched something metal I heard a sharp crack and then found myself slumped against the far wall, in a haze of ozone, with my hair standing on end. Before I moved, I used to carry a large paper clip with me so I could ground myself anytime I got within striking range of metal.

But it was, naturally, all worthwhile. We got to meet the new grandson, bounce him around and hand him back to his mom and dad when he got cranky. He’s a loveable little guy and we’re already making plans to introduce him to Britain when he is old enough. I think I’m going to like being a granddad.

And the day after we left, they had another snowstorm.

Brush With Glory

2011-02-20T15:40:00.000Z

Something incredible just happened. We watched a local team (Crawley Town) lose and we couldn’t be happier.

This is an oddity on many levels, not least of which is that we willingly watched a soccer match. Outside of the World Cup US v UK I don’t think we’ve ever turned on the telly to watch 90 minutes of men in baggy shorts chasing after a ball. Add to that the fact that we were satisfied with the final score (Crawley lost 1:nil) and you have to agree it was a fairly unusual day.

Unusual also for Crawley town football club, who found themselves playing, on national television, against Manchester United.

The fans, just a little excited

Now, I can’t claim to know much about soccer—other than the point is to kick the ball into your opponent’s net more than they kick it into yours—and I know even less about the league structure, but somehow, through the strange workings of the playoff structure, a local team was matched up with a world-class soccer club.

This could never happen in America. Imagine the Albany Diamond dogs (What? They folded eight years ago? Never mind, stay with me.) suddenly being tagged to play the New York Yankees. How exciting would that be for the players, the fans, the club management and, well, everyone except maybe the Yankees.

This is how it was over here: the Crawley team got to travel to Manchester’s Old Trafford Stadium; the club gets half the gate, so they made millions in the deal; the players got to show their stuff on national TV and maybe catch the eye of a big time scout, Manchester, knowing they couldn’t be beat, had the opportunity to rest their A team for (let’s face it) more challenging opponents and let their B (or C or D) team have a go; ten thousand Crawley fans travelled to Manchester to watch and I am certain many of them will declare that to be the best day of their lives; Sussex was able to feel, for a day, just a bit more special.

They lost, but they still won.

That, in my book, is a win, win, win, win situation, and you don’t get many of those. Additionally, Crawley held their own and allowed only a single goal. Zero to one is a perfectly respectable score under those circumstances, as opposed to the very real possibility of 7 nil or some other, equally embarrassing number.

It’s over now, but I think the event gave, at least this part of Britain, a better boost than the Royal Wedding will.

Kate and Prince Bill, sorry, not interested.

The Naked Truth

2011-02-13T16:29:00.000Z

Imagine this:

You and you wife are driving through a foreign country. You approach a border crossing. You have your passports and travel documents in order so you are not worried. But at the check-point, an armed guard orders you to a secluded lot. There, another armed guard confiscates your car keys, passports and travel documents. You are then ordered to a building, near a wooded area some distance away, where other armed guard are on patrol.

Shitting yourself yet? I was. And I wasn’t crossing the frontier in some backwater banana republic; I was on the I-87 travelling from Canada to the United States.

American Border Crossing

Now maybe I’m more sensitive to this because, as an American, I expect my country to welcome me with open arms when I return to visit instead of treating me like an enemy combatant, but I think they are going just a bit overboard.

All of this is coming up again because of a planned trek back to the land of my birth, where I am, if the TSA is any guide, decidedly not welcome.

And that’s a shame, because America is an affable country. Once inside, you are surrounded by ease, comfort and people who will go out of their way to lend you a hand should you need one, and that’s what most Americans see, because they never step outside. Well, let me tell you what it looks like from out here: you are living in a prison. It’s a nice prison, a big prison—so large you can’t see the walls when you are inside—but surrounded, as it is, by (sometime virtual, sometimes real) barbed wire, armed guards and towers bristling with machine guns, it is a prison, nonetheless.

I use to mitigate the stress of returning home by flying into Canada and driving across the border—a traditionally short and pleasant ceremony—but, as demonstrated above, the TSA have sewn up that loop hole but good. Now, the only choice I have is whether I want to be treated like a prisoner or an enemy. So I’ll choose prisoner, which is how they treat you when you fly into a US airport. There, the TSA goons strut about in their uniforms, looking thuggish, glaring at you, just waiting for you to step out of line, but as long as you keep your mouth shut and don’t draw their attention, you can usually get through with only minor discomfort. I’ll take my chances with them before I step into the interrogation hut again, thank you very much.

And, this trip, they’ve added yet a new wrinkle—the ESTA. My wife had to fill out invasive and nonsensical (“Are you planning to subvert the US government?” Are you really going to answer “Yes” to that?) on-line form and pay $14 to be granted, by the US Government, the privilege of being allowed to travel to their border. That’s all, just to travel there. Once you show up (and they tell you this in no uncertain terms) they can still turn you away if they don’t like the look of you. That’s like charging your friends a fiver just for showing up at your door, whether or not you let them in. I find that objectionable.

Oddly, what I do not find objectionable are the new airport scanners that peek beneath your knickers. In fact, I don’t think they go far enough; if this is what it is going to take to stop the “confiscate granny’s knitting needles because she might use them to take the plane down” nonsense then we ought to just fly naked.

Seriously, once you slide your carry-on into the x-ray machine, instead of going through the scanner, you should be directed into a cubicle. There, you would remove all your clothes, put them in the clear plastic bag provided and step through the other side of the cubicle, into the departure lounge, where the policy will be, “No Clothes, No Exceptions.”

I am so chagrined; I found this on fly Naked Airlines--someone beat me to it.

Having everyone naked—the guy handing you your x-rayed carry-on, the woman tagging your clothing bag and putting in on the trolley, the girls staffing the Starbucks coffee kiosk, the old man working the bar—would keep the passengers from feeling self-conscious.

And think of the savings. The wand guy: no longer necessary. The guy who pats you down: no need. Now, there may still be a need to check certain people who might be hiding something in a place that will keep the item hidden even with all your clothes off, but that would be handled by a specialist in that booth over there in the corner and I just don’t want to know what is going on in there.

I suppose I’d allow the waitresses at Garfunkel’s to wear aprons to carry their pencil and order pads in, and the cooks, so long as the public can’t see them, would be free to cover up in order to avoid splattering hot grease in places you might prefer not to have it splattered, but no other exception, not even for the airline staff.

Amazing what comes up when you enter "Fly Naked" into Google
courtesy of FlyNaked.com

I think it’s a smashing idea. Simple, cost effective, practically fool-proof and not much more ignominious than what they are already putting us through.

Olympic Dreams

2011-02-01T21:25:00.000Z

I might have titled this post “2012 Olympics-Bound” or something similar, but I didn’t want to be sued. Seems the UK Olympic committee has copyrighted the term “2012 Olympics” (darn, now I owe them another fiver).

This came to my attention some time ago in an article about a guy who wrote a book with the words “2012 Olympics” (oops, ka-ching) in the title (“The Incredible Lightness of Being at the 2012 Olympics,” “Winnie the Pooh and The 2012 Olympics,” or “Debbie Does the 2012 Olympics” or some such thing) and the UK Olympic Committee sued him, with predictable results, namely: he sold a lot of books, and the UK Olympic Committee looked like a bunch of muppets, especially when it came to light they had also tried to copyright “Olympic” and “2012” as well. (I would put the link to the article here but I read it in an actual magazine, you know, those things made out of paper that you can fold up and stuff in your briefcase or leave on the train so you don’t have it handy when you finally get around to writing about something you read in it.)

It’s a good job they failed in their attempt to copyright the individual parts. Imagine having to go all next year writing 2012© on your checks (sorry, cheques), or having to pony up a royalty every time you needed to describe something of Olympic proportions; it’s bad enough we can’t use “2012 Olympics” without committing a copyright infringement (dear UK Olympic Committee, Want my money? Call my lawyer!). I suppose we might have found a way around it: referring to 2012 as “not quite 2013” and Olympic as “really big, you know,” with a sly wink to let the other person know what you really mean.

But exclusive rights and violations thereof aside, I’m looking forward to The Games. Over the years, the bar has been raised higher and higher, to the point where an average country like, say, Greece, for instance, would go bankrupt holding The Games, and to raise the spectacle to new levels would require a country that is unconcerned about spending vast sums of money it doesn’t have just to impress its neighbors and is in possession of a huge reserve of people willing to work for next to nothing. But the US has hosted The Games recently so they let us take a shot at it. (And, truth be told, we didn’t really want it, we just wanted to beat the French.) So it is up to Britain to host the games in such a manner that the next country won’t have to try so hard to go one better.

I believe we are up to the task.

So when you’re watching the outdoor athletic events finals at three in the morning (while I’m watching at a more civilized time) and you notice that the landing pit for the broad jump looks an awful lot like a sandbox, and there appears to be a swing set and a jungle gym in the background and you realize they are holding the event in the playground of the Upper Beeding Primary School, just remember, the next country to get the games could be yours.

Less Miserable

2011-01-16T07:57:00.002Z

I spent over a hundred quid to take my wife to the Queen's Theatre in London to see Les Misérables.

This is what it looked like:

They also sang the words, like an opera, which made understanding them a bit of a challenge. So, between not seeing and not hearing, this is what I think the plot was about:

Some woman named Fountain got up the duff and had a child called Courgette. Fountain sang a cover version of Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” then died. Some guy named Marcus fell in love with Courgette. Meanwhile, Courgette’s childhood acquaintance, Epitome, is secretly in love with Marcus (Epitome’s dad, Thaddeus, kept Courgette as an indentured servant for a time—don’t ask, it’s complicated). Before the love triangle can get fully underway, Epitome is killed by a sub-plot. This allows Marcus and Courgette to get married without having Epitome moping around the reception making goo-goo eyes at Marcus. So they are happy. Everyone else dies, though. The clue is in the title.

I understand that, in the sequel, Marcus and Courgette have a daughter, named Aubergine.

Maintaining Balance

2011-01-04T19:54:00.000Z

Some weeks back, we had a pre-holiday clear out. This focused mainly on clothing and books, as we have a surfeit of each in our flat. I confess to being an equal partner where book hoarding is concerned, but clothing…well, let’s just say our flat holds two wardrobes, numerous drawers and various cupboards, and my entire clothing collection is folded over the back of a chair.

My wife will say I am exaggerating, but who are you going to believe?

At any rate, we purged the clothes racks and the book cases and came away with an impressive collection of “used, but still perfectly good for someone, just not us” items to be taken to the collection point. We meant to do it right away, honest, but before we knew it the festive frenzy was upon us, so we bunged the jettisoned junk into bags and tossed them into the guest bedroom—along with the broken heater, my guitar, bagpipes, cigar humidors and associated paraphernalia, an antique sewing machine that my wife still uses, two clothes drying racks, an old computer, several industrial-sized tackle boxes filled with art gear, a large roll of material that we acquired somewhere or other, stacks of my unsold books (come on people), a paper shredder, a tub brimming with accumulated bills awaiting shredding and eight…no, seven…make that six…bottles of wine.

(If you’re planning to visit, give us plenty of notice; it will take at least two weeks to find the guest bed in all that clutter.)

Guest room storage aside, everything remained happily out of sight and mind during the holidays, but yesterday we de-decorated (undecorated? disdecorated?) and, after all the festive bric-a-brac was securely stowed in the loft for another year, we found the bags, still waiting to be taken to the goodwill, having ignored our obvious hint that we would have preferred them to make their own way there without our intervention.

So we bundled up, loaded the bags onto the pack mule and headed for Sainsbury’s car park, where the drop-off bins live. The operation went smoothly which, from a comedy standpoint is somewhat disappointing. The irony is, after dropping off our excess books and clothing, we went into town to wander through the shops and bought—you guessed it—more clothing and books.

Odd as it seems, there is really nothing surprising in that—how do you suppose we ended up with so much stuff in the first place? And I like to think, that aside from maintaining balance in our life, our frequent hunting and gathering expeditions are giving Britain a much-needed shot in the economic arm.

If Britain, once again, becomes Great Britain, it will be because people like us continue to seek balance.

A Place For My Stuff

2010-12-23T20:31:00.000Z

Now, I may be a modern man (you know, the sensitive kind, in touch with his feminine side and all that) but I still cannot bring myself to carry a “man bag.” I’m sorry, I know it makes perfect sense, but if I did that, I’d have to grow breasts and change my name to Natalie.

I don't care who you are or how cool
you think you are, if you carry a purse, you look gay.

And don’t try telling me my briefcase is just a man’s handbag in disguise: a briefcase is a briefcase, it contains stuff I need for work. Besides, I don’t carry it all the time, so if I did put anything handbaggish in there—like wadded up tissues, half a roll of Life Savers, eight ball point pens that don’t work and £4.87 in loose change jangling about in the bottom—I would not always have ready access to it. So that’s why I sort of like the cold weather (“sort of” being the operative phrase; but at least give me credit for trying to tease a silver-lining out of this miserable weather).

When it’s cold, I wear a jacket. That jacket has pockets—lots of them—and I can carry around all of life’s essentials which, during the warmer months I have to go without.

Right now, for instance, I am wearing a jacket that is no puffier than anyone else’s on the bus (we’re all looking a bit like Kenny from South Park here days) and stashed in the various pockets are:

- One pair of gloves
- One hat
- A London tube map
- A pack of tissues
- A camera
- A notebook
- A scarf
- Three Santa hats
- Half a box of Strepsils
- A paperback novel

All of these items are, for this time of year, indispensable. In other months I might trade the Santa hats for my cigar holder, lighter and cutter, or the scarf/hat/glove combo for an ordinance survey map of the Ashdown forest and a micro-bralla. But the upshot is, as long as it is cool enough for a coat, I have a place for all my stuff.

During warmer weather, I am forced to rely on my wife. Though this isn’t a tremendous hardship, it is 1) inconvenient, because, like my briefcase, I don’t always have my wife with me (but unlike my briefcase, she makes for better company on long bus rides), and 2) I fear the items I consign to my wife’s handbag may become lost among the seemingly endless items she keeps in there.

Somehow, my wife has acquired the handbag Hermione Granger used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the one she kept a tent, camping furniture and a portable shower in. I’m serious: one time, while we were out to dinner, a need arose for her (we’re talking about my wife now, not Hermione Granger) to record a date in her diary. She plopped the bag on the table, dug through it and extracted an appointment diary thick as a Michener novel, bulging with receipts, sticky-notes and several wadded up tissues. She declared it was her work diary, not her personal diary, so she laid it down, rummaged again and pulled out another novel-sized book. This time, it was just a plain note book, so she laid that aside and dug in again. On the third dip, she came up with the correct, and equally bulging, diary. She then pulled out half a dozen ball point pens, none of which worked, so I loaned her the pen I carry in my coat pocket.

In short, copious as my coat capacity is, her handbag puts it to shame, which makes me miss, even more, all the pockets, folds and secret compartments I have to go without during the warmer weeks. Sadly, I won’t have to worry about that for the foreseeable future.

And don’t entertain any ideas about getting me a “man bag” as a belated Christmas (or early birthday) present. I wouldn’t use it—I’d never be able to fit all my stuff in it.

That Holiday Again

2010-11-29T21:01:00.000Z

It’s Thanksgiving Day as I write this, and I am away from home. Not simply away from my homeland, but away from my adopted home in Sussex. We’re on holiday this week in Kirkcudbright (pronounced ca-COO-bree if you can believe it) a small town in south-west Scotland. But at least I have Thanksgiving Day off.

Even though we are in a very rural area—-the landlord told us it is like stepping back into the 1950’s, and he was not far wrong—-we managed to cobble together a respectable Thanksgiving dinner. I have a turkey breast, stuffing, roast potatoes, cranberry sauce, several types of veggies and Bisto gravy. All in all a good effort for very little work.

I mention this because it is significant that having a Thanksgiving dinner over here is not as disappointing as it used to be. Back in Sussex, I could have had creamed corn, yams with marshmallows, rolls, French-cut green beans with almond slivers, corn bread, pumpkin pie and even hot chocolate with a dollop of Marshmallow Fluff in it. (The only thing I still cannot find is that really cheap cranberry sauce in a can that tastes like the inside of a drainpipe—-somehow, the posh and very tasty cranberries in port sauce we picked up in Marks and Spencer’s just don’t say, “Happy Thanksgiving” like a slab of tin-infused purple jelly.)

Years ago, when I tried to pull together a Thanksgiving dinner, I always ended up with a hybrid meal containing dubious substitutions that tasted of disappointment, whereas now it’s fairly easy to create a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all (well, most) of the trimmings. It’s hardly any fun any more. I blame the Americans.

No, really, you can’t swing a ferret without hitting an American. And where Americans go, they bring America with them—-not that anyone should have anything to say about that, it’s exactly what the British did back when it was their turn to rule the world. But it has taken the challenge out a Thanksgiving. Time was, no one of my acquaintance over here had even heard of the concept of creamed corn (nor could they believe it when I explained it to them) but now you can buy it at Sainsbury’s.

So here I am, 3,000 miles away from America and another 300 miles away from my home and I can still have a nice turkey with stuffing and potatoes and cranberry sauce meal. But that’s where the Thanksgiving similarity ends. All that gets you is a Sunday dinner in the middle of the week. And even if you manage to convince a group of family and friends to come share the day, you’ll merely find yourself sitting around a table, having a Sunday dinner in the middle of the week with a bunch of people who just don’t get it.

Thanksgiving is about food, yes, but it is so much deeper than that, and without having grown up with it, a person cannot grasp the tradition, the meaning, the true spirit of Thanksgiving. Christmas over here is a joy, New Year’s is just about the same and Easter is a bonus. But Thanksgiving—-along with the 4th of July—-remains one of the few times during the year when being an expat really hits home.

Country Comforts

2010-11-09T17:56:00.000Z

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
Robert Louis Stevenson - The Land of Counterpane

That has been one of my favorite poems since I was a child, especially when I was sick and in bed, as I am now. (And, no, it is not The Man Flue, I have an ear infection and a fever, thank you very much, but I’ll soldier on despite the pain.) Appropriately enough, I do have three pillows at my head, but unfortunately, my toys these days consist of a BlackBerry, a WiFi enabled laptop and a box of tissues. Useful, to be sure, but not as much fun as leaden soldiers.

As a rule, I attempt to avoid illness, especially now when I know that, in my misery, I will not be able to surround myself with the familiar comforts of home.

As a sick-bed must-have, Campbell’s Chicken Rice Soup is number one with a bullet. Dress it up with extra rice, some garlic salt and there is no better cure-all this side of a Jewish Grandmother’s kitchen. Tragically, it is unavailable here. I look for it all the time (always nice to have a few cans in the larder, just in case) but have never found it. This, naturally, has led to some experimentation with native ingredients. Bad idea.

Nyquil is also among the missing. As is a qualified pain reliever. British aspirin, in addition to being doled out in packets of sixteen tablets, has the curative properties of tap water, and the various aspirin substitutes are not far behind. I think it must have something to do with what we are brought up with-—the drugs we take as children must get into our chemical structure, making us immune to foreign drugs. This is why I always have a large bottle of Aleve on hand-—it is the only drug that seems to work for me, and I have to have it shipped in from the States.

To be fair, there are a few indigenous comforts I am learning to adopt to ease my convalescence along. The main one is tea, simply because they have better tea over here and there is nothing like a nice cup of tea when you are feeling poorly. Add to that a steaming cup of Lemsip at bedtime and you can forget about American drugs. For four hours, at least.

But I know I’d be up and around by now if I just had a bowl of Campbell’s Chicken Rice Soup.

This is Pants

2010-10-28T20:34:00.000+01:00

We interrupt the scintillating tale of our vacation in the Royal Forest of Dean to bring you this special update on the state of my underwear.

You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?

Some time ago I posted about the lack of quality underwear in this country, and proved that the quality of men’s undergarments in the UK are no match for what can be bought in the US of A.

In that post, I did note that I had, at long last, found some acceptable underwear from Marks and Spencer that were comfortable and durable but, alas, only sporadically available. My loyal readers suggested I shop for them on line. I did. Thank you.

But in the months since discovering underwear that doesn’t disintegrate after a few washings, I have uncovered another, awful secret: it shrinks. (Okay, you in the back making cracks about how it’s me that’s getting bigger, not the underwear getting smaller, please knock it off; we’re all about to die laughing.)

I found this out while getting dressed this morning and attempting to pull on one of the aforementioned pair of Y-fronts. It looked as if I were trying to squirm into a white cotton Speedo. All of the pairs from that batch were, essentially, useless (unless you count sending my wife into a spasm of giggles as useful). I then found another M&S pair from a different batch that were still wearable. Then I looked at the labels:

The shrunken Y-Fronts were made in China; the “still okay but I’m keeping an eye on them” pair were made in Sri Lanka.

After discovering this, I said to my wife (who was still whipping tears from her eyes and gasping for breath), “I wonder where the American underwear was made.”

So I went through my underwear pile looking for a US pair. I admit that the bundle of Y-fronts and tube socks I brought over with me are getting a little thin on the ground—as well as in other locations—these days, but recall that they were purchased almost nine years ago.

“They were probably made in Bangladesh,” my wife said.

But when I turned out the still springy elastic band and located the label, I saw printed there, in proud, red, capital letters: MADE IN THE USA.

I rest my case.

Disconnected - Part IV - Wherein I Wake up

2010-10-17T19:58:00.001+01:00

(The continuing saga of our holiday in Gloucester)

Sun. 12 Sept

In my dream I was taking Part III of the Prince2 exam.

For those of you who didn’t live through the previous Prince2 campaign with me, Prince2 is the Project Management methodology (we PMs enjoy using terms like “methodology” – another one we like is “rebranding”) currently favored by the Office of Government Commerce, whose job it is to favor these sorts of things. And being, as it is, a government organization, you can bet the favored methodology is anything but simple and straightforward. The clue is in their logo:

Or, maybe this expresses it better.

Prince2 Certification is not actually mandatory, but finding out your PM is uncertified is a bit like visiting your dentist and seeing on his office wall—in place of a diploma—an affidavit, signed by himself, stating that he’s always been interested in fiddling with peoples’ teeth and fancies himself pretty good at it so he thought he’d have a go.

A few months ago my Prince2 certification expired and I had to re-enlist. Long story short, I somehow, miraculously, passed the exam (and quite well, thank you very much) and thereby avoided becoming the laughing stock of the office (I was sure they would start calling me “The Project Manager formerly known as Prince2”). My stress levels dropped and I congratulated myself on the fact that I will never, ever have to take that exam again.

But here I was, betrayed by my subconscious, sitting a fictional Part III of the exam and feeling my anxiety writhing and climbing inside me like a spider skittering up a rain spout. The series of 50 questions that I had 20 minutes to complete began:

Question 1:
A question mark, but don’t make a point of it.
Chose one:
a. A
b. B
c. C
d. D

Question 2:
Fog, ten years from now:
Explain

And so on.

There were other plot nuances I could divulge to give you a sense of the complete story arc but you probably hate it when people start describing their dreams to you. So I’ll tell you about my other dream, instead.

In this dream, a young girl was being held captive and, although she had a mobile phone with her and could call for help, due to government cutbacks, every agency she called –police, child welfare, MI5 – simply put her on hold or told her they would make a note of her issue and get back to her at a later date.

This was the dream that woke me up, and I took it to mean that I shouldn’t watch the evening news before going to bed. With sleep now beyond me, I got up, stumbled through the unfamiliar darkness to the far side of the kitchen and turned on the light so I could make some coffee. Then I spent fifteen minutes looking for a spoon.

If I were in charge of hotels and guest cottages, I would force the owners to live in them for one week each year. This would eliminate many of the little annoyances that remain even after they have lovingly outfitted the place to perceived perfection, as our hosts had done. The cottage was charming, well-decorated, kitted out with quality furnishings and utensils (at least I saw nothing I recognized from the Pound Shop) and even had two-ply paper in the loo. They had, in their minds I am sure, thought of everything. Well, a week or so of living here would have set them straight:

As noted earlier, I had to walk all the way through the kitchen to turn on the light. Whose idea was that? And everyone knows that cutlery belongs in the drawer just to the left of the sink. So what is it doing in a cabinet on the other side of the kitchen?

Another thing they did was put wooden counters throughout the kitchen. They look lovely but wood, as anyone should be able to tell you, warps when it is wet (there’s the sink, there’s the draining board; pay attention, these are clues) and if it stays wet, it rots. My father was a cabinet maker. I grew up to the smell of sawdust and the grinding of a belt sander and was, at an early age, imbued with a near religious reverence for wood, which means I cannot leave the cottage until the dishes are washed and dried and all the counters wiped down. This is not something I relish doing while on holiday.

But as petty annoyances go, nothing beats the bathroom waste bin. You know the ones I mean, the white plastic cylinders about the size of a flour canister with a little pedal on the bottom you are supposed to step on to open the top, allowing you to drop whatever it is (I don’t want to know) that needs dropping into a little plastic cylinder. They are in every bathroom in every hotel, guest cottage and B&B in the world. No matter how posh the establishment, you’ll find one in the loo, but you’ll never see one in anyone’s house. Do you know why that is? Because they are shite, that’s why.

They are so light and flimsy that attempting to step on the peddle results in you inching forward as the bin inches backward until it ends up out of reach behind the loo. And if you do manage to gain enough purchase on the tiny pedal, the lid will fly open with just enough force to careen the bin off the nearest wall and send it rolling under the sink, disgorging its contents along the way. So I am not a fan of these bins and my heart sinks each time I see one in a hotel or guest house bathroom.

This place has one in the kitchen.

Now, not only do I get to constantly experience the joys of these useless apparatuses, but as a bonus, I get to take the garbage out every 20 minutes.

But enough of the carping. As I said, the place is lovely, our hosts most gracious and the inconveniences petty.

Except for that one about the waste bin.

(Next: the first morning)

Disconnected - Part III

2010-10-10T15:14:00.000+01:00

(The continuing saga of our holiday in Gloucester)

We were heading for Chippenham, but managed to completely miss it, ending up in Devizes instead. By now we were ready for lunch but Devizes was not ready to let us stop; the entire town was locked solid with parked cars, leaving us no choice but to allow ourselves to be carried on through on the rippling flow of stop-and-go traffic to be dumped into a wilderness that, on the map, was nothing but a criss-cross of red and white lines, many of them unlabeled.

From there we drove randomly, eventually stopping at a service station out in the middle of nowhere that, unaccountably, had a large and very busy Subway attached to it. Judging by the car park and the queue at the till, it must have been the only Subway in the entire county, a place the locals visit when they want to treat their families to a special meal, such as a foot-long tuna sub with sweet corn and a blue drink in a plastic bottle. Good thing it was merely the lunch hour—if we’d have arrived at dinner time we might have needed a reservation.

After that, we grew tired of adventure and headed north for the M4, where we covered the final half of the trip in a tenth of the time the first half took.

To continue our holiday tradition, we stopped at the Tesco in Chepstow to do a week’s shop. Later on, I knew, when we finally reached our destination, we would put the groceries away in logical places, hang up our clothes, pack everything away in drawers and quickly fall into our usual routine. For us, going on holiday, at least in Britain, is less like a week at a resort and more like living in someone else’s house.

Still, that’s not a bad way to have a vacation; it’s cheap, you’re surrounded by familiarity and comfort, you don’t have maids poking around while you’re out during the day and you get to visit all of the local attractions that you would never see if you actually lived there. It’s such a good idea that we spent one holiday in our own flat, using the week to tour a variety of local sight-seeing destinations we would otherwise have never gotten around to.

And so we left Tesco’s with our groceries, running into Kate Humble on her way in, ostensibly to do her weekly shop, or to slip into a blind cleverly hidden in the produce department for a special segment on “Autumn Watch,” highlighting the mating rituals among Chepstow Tesco shoppers.

We were now just past the time for check-in and we were close to our destination, but there was still one more holiday tradition to get through: the tradition wherein the directions—supplied by the cottage owners—leave off a vital piece of information. In this case, we were to take the major road we were driving north on through the center of town and turn at the Gagging Ferret. No problem. The trouble started when we discovered that the road we were on did not, technically, go through the town.

After becoming acquainted and reacquainted with the bypass several surrounding villages and a car park or two, we eventually reached our destination—later than we’d planned, knackered from the drive and stressed out from taking so many wrong turns (including going the wrong way up a one-way street), which is, of course, also part of the tradition.

The accommodation was lovely, the area quaint and quiet and the landlord friendly and effusive. He was a displaced Londoner who had come to visit the Royal Forest of Dean some 14 years earlier, fell in love with it and never left. He was filled with nothing but praise for the area, how peaceful it was, how beautiful and wild the landscape remained and how welcoming the locals were.

His wife was also from London but his three young daughters were locally bred, making them, in his estimation I imagine, true “Foresters.” I had to wonder how the locals might feel about this; if they were anything like the old Yankees of Maine, you continued to be regarded as an “outsider” for the first five or six generations.

“If a cat has kittens in the oven,” they would say, “that don’t make ‘em biscuits.”

So after getting the key and exchanging life stories, we set up housekeeping and took stock of the local area.

I love vacationing in the UK. Over the years I have discovered a host of stunningly beautiful locations and then returned home thanking my lucky stars I didn’t actually live there. Pretty and peaceful it was, but there was a single pub/restaurant (albeit, a very nice one) in the scattering of houses that masqueraded as a village, along with a single, small convenience store/post office combo. And that was it, no shops, no market, no cinema, no Starbucks, no fast food joints, no hair styling salon on every corner, no betting shops, no kebabs and no rail link to get you anyplace where you might find these things.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. This was, after all, why we came. I’m just saying—having been spoiled by the delights of civilization—that I’m glad I don’t live here.

I grew up in a very rural setting—more rural that this—and I loved it. But that was before the days of 24-hour television, internet, computer games, shopping malls and mobile phones, back when we knew how to entertain ourselves and could find diversion in the simplest activities, such damming up a stream or building a raft out of twigs and leaves and encouraging your little brother to try it out in the mill pond to see if it would float.

These days, we’re not happy unless someone or something is holding out attention, but not for long. We crave 24/7 connectivity but can’t communicate in more that 140 words at a time. As a culture, we’re addicted to sucking the teat of technology and we cry when it is pulled away. I’m not altogether happy about that, but having long ago sold my soul to the cyber-gods, there was little left to do but open a beer, light a cigar and settle down at the picnic table in the garden to check my e-mail on my CrackBerry™ and connect my laptop to the internet.

I turned them both on. There was no signal. None at all. No phone, no internet, no way to communicate with anyone, no way to update my blogs…

Imagine my disappointment.

(Next: coming to terms with our surroundings)

Disconnected - Part II

2010-09-27T20:49:00.000+01:00

Driving in Britain is always a crap shoot.

This is a country, after all, where one well-timed accident can make three quarters of the population late for dinner, and where a stiff breeze brings transportation to a standstill. Consequently, Britons possess a skewed idea of how long it should take to get somewhere. “Three Days” covers most trips within a hundred mile radius, while anything longer requires you to begin sometime last week.

Add to this their astounding reservoir of detail, and their willingness to share it, and you will understand why I never ask for directions.

If you do innocently let it slip that you are planning a trip to Ticklebottom, your companions are sure to give you detailed directions urging you to take the Bilgewater Bypass to East Periwinkle and turn left at the Slaughtered Duck toward Bobbin Upendown and other mysterious instructions that you will promptly forget.

Your best refuge, in these instances, is to nod knowingly as if you are thoroughly familiar with these locations because if you let on you’ve never heard of the Swingsan Roundabout, your guide will begin naming equally unfamiliar landmarks until you admit your ignorance or your ears start to bleed. The safer alternative, therefore, is to feign understanding and hope there won’t be a quiz at the end.

They also possess an unnatural ability to recall where traffic tie-ups are likely to be, and offer various ways around them. If you tell them you are leaving on Wednesday, for example, they will tell you about the big Wednesday Afternoon Car Boot Sale off the Chuckablock Turnpike that causes an eight mile tail-back from Tuesday evening until Thursday afternoon.

So I never tell anyone where I am going or give the faintest hint that I don’t already know how to get there, which, in this case, was a shame because they could have told me about the traffic jam at Stonehenge.

Now, I’ve driven past Stonehenge a number of times, so I should have remembered, but traffic jams, to me, are like birth pains: I hate them while I am stuck in the middle of them, but as soon as I am on my way again, the relief of revving up to 60 MPH makes the misery melt away as quickly as the memory of labor dissipates when the mother is presented with her new baby.

My decision to plot a route past Stonehenge was due to two factors: 1) we couldn’t check into the cottage until 3 o’clock, and 2) I am in the middle Sarum, Edward Rutherford’s fine book about the Salisbury Plains. This was a great opportunity, I reasoned, to see the area I was reading about, and for a while it was. The green and undulating landscape rolled by easily until I crested a rise some eight miles from Stonehenge, saw the solid line of brake lights and, like the forgetful mother, recalled the impending unpleasantness only when it was far too late to do anything about it.

The traffic jam outside of Stonehenge is nearly as old and immovable as Stonehenge itself but, ironically, has little to do with Stonehenge. The causes are more due to A) Devon and Cornwall, B) people’s desire to be there, C) the A303 being a major artery to facilitate that migration and, D) the insanity of squeezing this surfeit of traffic from a four-lane divided highway into a two-lane road.

With all the opportunities the British have to practice merging, you’d think they would be better at it, but they continually manage to make a hash of it, causing traffic to back up for mile after mile because they can’t figure out how to smoothly converge from two lanes into one. And so we sat, rolling forward inch by painful inch, watching as vehicles ahead of us arbitrarily switched from one lane to the other, driven by the desperate but misguided certainty that traffic was moving faster in whichever nearly stationary lane they were not in.

We put the time to good use. We read War and Peace, did a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and then watched Rocky movies until the battery on my laptop ran out. Eventually, we caught sight of the vortex that spawned the jam. It was a quarter mile—or about half an hour—in front of us, and not far beyond sat Stonehenge, looking like a scattering of small rocks nestled in the triangle formed by the A303 and the A360 bypass. We admired it for, oh, about two minutes, then started reading Moby dick.

If I failed to be amazed by Stonehenge on my previous visits, I am doubly un-dumbfounded since reading Mr. Rutherford’s account (a guess, admittedly, but a scholarly guess) of how it was built. Surely it was a massive undertaking, but the technology was not a mystery and the whole project could have been completed in ten years. In my view, the most amazing thing about Stonehenge is that it is still there. It was an ancient and useless ruin by the time the Romans landed and managed to survive only because people who found it in their way over the ensuing centuries couldn’t be arsed to do a thorough job of erasing it from the landscape. Even as late as the 1940’s the British military was lobbying to have it removed because it was impeding their exercises.

Now, thankfully, the world has recognized that Stonehenge, by virtue of its age alone, is worth saving. Unfortunately, while having been named a World Heritage Site might protect it from intentional destruction, it has not placed it in the most capable of hands. Instead of treating it with the reverence it deserves, it is displayed like one of those 1950’s roadside attractions in America that promise the world’s largest ball of tinfoil or the Amazing Glowing Rock. And like those attractions, every time you visit, the display seems just a little more tatty. So if you do visit, expect to be underwhelmed. And if you visit in ten years time, don’t be surprised to find it under a tarpaulin.

At length, we eased into an orderly, single-file line and the speedometer climbed into double-digits. On the next rise, just beyond Stonehenge and less than a mile away, we could see the tail end of yet another traffic jam on the A303, caused by an overabundance of holiday makers and the junction with the A36 at Deptford, over thirteen miles away.

Happily, that had nothing to do with us. We veered off onto the A360, sped past Stonehenge, the parking lot filled with tour buses, the lines of cars parked along the roadside where people had stopped to see Stonehenge without having to pay, and out into the Salisbury Plain.

And promptly became lost.

Disconnected

2010-09-19T17:46:00.004+01:00

On Saturday, 11 Sept 2010, my wife and I went on holiday to a cozy cottage on the cusp of the Forest of Dean. My plan had been to post updates from there and, armed with a WiFi enabled laptop, my brand new Crackberry™ gizmo and a BT Broadband dongle for backup, we set out.

Things did not go to plan.

This is the story of that holiday, and my seven days of being

DISCONNECTED

Sat. 11 Sept

This holiday came none too soon. Our last week away had been to Iceland in the middle of January, an intentionally ironic holiday designed to plunge us into enough cold, snow and ice to make our return to Sussex seem like spring. What we failed to take into account, however, was that Reykjavik enjoys a climate much like our own, and they were having a better winter than we were. So that disappointment—compounded by the fact that the one time the Northern Lights appeared during our stay was while we were sitting in our room watching utterly forgettable television—was followed by many long weeks and months of uninterrupted work.

Multiple yearly holidays may be a new concept to me—I managed the first forty-six years of my life on about three vacations, after all—but I have since come to appreciate the benefits of one week out of every ten to enjoy as I see fit.

Our autumn holiday, therefore, was not intentionally ironic; we were to spend the week snug in a little guest cottage between the Severn and the Royal Forest of Dean, taking in the wonders of yet another part of this pretty little island. It would also, I hoped, provide an opportunity for me to pay some much-needed attention to my blogs and backlog of e-mails. This resolution had less to do with the impending week of free time and more to do with my recent re-conversion to technology.

I have, for some time, been disillusioned with advances in computers and related gadgetry. Our relationship, which began in the barnstorming days of personal computing, when everything was filled with passion and possibility, began to sour about five years ago. We had fallen into a passionless routine, and all the attempts to win me back just seemed like showing off to me. A phone that takes pictures? I never wanted my camera to make phone calls, so what’s the point? And then there was the bi-yearly ritual of making me rearrange all of my files and folders and turning my familiar applications into indecipherable puzzles. And wireless computing? It all seemed just too Harry Potter and Hocus Pocus to me. I had grown used to the idea of allowing the cyber world into my home via a computer cable, as long as it remained safely contained behind a sheath of insulation. But to have it roaming willy-nilly all over the place at will, well that was just unseemly.

In the end, we decided to stay together for the sake of the children, but a frosty silence always descended when we were in the same room together.

But then I got BT Broadband, and a wireless laptop. Windows 7 followed and, after a brief climb up the learning curve, I fell in love with it. The latest acquisition was my Crackberry™ and it immediately became essential. I could take notes with it, check and answer my e-mails, post to Facebook, record voice notes and access Twitter. Eventually, after a few fumbling attempts to rekindle the passion, Technology and I warmed to each other, I re-resolved to become a Twit (That is what they call Twitter users, right? Or is that just me?), and became excited by the prospect of twitting, posting and updating while on vacation.

So I practiced a bit, and waited for the holiday; I didn’t have to wait long.

Our Going-On-Holiday routine has been well-established over the years and begins about a month prior to the event with an informal countdown and my wife becoming increasingly anxious about the fact that the suitcases are still in the loft. Then, a week before we leave, she begins to pack.

I admire this trait. She gets the full benefit of the holiday, basically stretching it out for an extra week, and it goes something like this: on the Saturday before we leave, the “packing table” appears in the living room. Over the next few days, piles of panties, socks, toiletries, slacks, blouses, brochures and provisions gather and grow. And there they remain, until the rising frequency of reminders prompts me to fetch the cases from the loft, allowing her to merrily transfer everything from the table into the suitcase.

It’s her talisman, her Zen method of easing into holiday mode, while I tend to wake up on the morning we are leaving and think, “Oh, we’re going on holiday today,” toss an armload of random garments into the mix and have a quick look at a map of Britain to plot a route.

This time, the route consisted of “head west until you hit Wales, then turn right.” In a country as small and water-bound as Britain, you can only go so wrong. If you unwittingly miss your target, the ocean will keep you from going too far astray and will encourage you to turn around and try again, hopefully paying a little more attention this time. In the States I had to rely on different clues, such as signs saying “Welcome to Vermont.” I find this a perfectly valid method of getting places by car, since years of experience have taught me that, even if I do plan a detailed route, I’ll end up lost anyway.

And so, locked and loaded, we set out through the drizzle. Our target was a mere two-and-a-half hours away so we allotted ourselves five hours because this is Britain and I had a plan.

Travel Plans

--------------------------------------------------This is a portion of a much, much longer narrative.
I will be posting episodes in blog-sized chunks in the coming days.
I cannot tell you how long that is likely to be.

Easy Living

2010-09-02T09:24:00.003+01:00

The British kids are going back to school today, and if it seems as if they have just begun their summer school holidays, that is because they have.

Compared to their colonial cousins, British school kids get a paltry amount of time off for the summer. Granted, they make up for it during the rest of the year—the British school year seems to consist of a few weeks of classes, a few weeks off, a few weeks of classes, etc. I’m sure there must be some advantage to this system—such as not allowing time for all of the knowledge the teachers struggled so hard to cram into their pupils’ heads to leak out of their ears—but I still prefer what I grew up with, even at the risk of returning to school more ignorant than when I left.

In the States, when school is on, it’s ON. They call it the school year because that’s what you do during it—School. In September and October you’re settling into your new life; you used to be a 5th Grader, now you’re a 6th Grader, and at the top of the Elementary School food chain. You make do with Columbus Day and Halloween for diversion, and in November you look forward to Election Day and the mini-break (not to mention the turkey) at Thanksgiving.

December brings the Christmas/New Year ensemble, with its full week off and the opportunity to ride your new bike when it’s minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Then, I must admit, winter and school just drag on. And on. And on. And there is nothing for it but to hunker down, get to work and look forward to better days. It’s good training for adult life.

Even so, spring does arrive eventually, with muddy fields, blooming lilacs, cautious warmth and the Memorial Day weekend. Summer cannot be far away.

When I was a child, summer arrived in three phases, and the first was Memorial Day. It might be May, it might still be cold and dreary, but the Memorial Day weekend was the official starter’s pistol for summer. That was when the seasonal businesses reopened and people with swimming pools cleaned them out and got them ready for the coming season and people, like us, without swimming pools made the inaugural trek to the local swimming hole to test the waters. They were always freezing, but we didn’t care.

The second, and most important, was the middle of June when, after sitting in sweltering classrooms taking end-of-school tests for five days, you at last heard the clang of the final school bell. There is nothing to compare to the feeling of stepping out of school and seeing the whole of the sweet, sunny, sultry summer unfolding in front of you.

And finally, with the official summer solstice unnoticed and in the past and a few weeks of leisure under your belt, the Fourth of July would arrive. This was not a harbinger of summer so much as a confirmation that summer was here and in full swing. Picnics and fireworks—what better way to affirm your freedom?

During the summer, my friends and I would swim at the creek, ride our bikes, camp out in the woods or just enjoy lazing around in the hot, humid afternoons. The days stretched on forever, the world was benign and welcoming, and the possibilities for adventure were endless. We had no Internet, X-Box or iPods, but we were never bored.

I consider myself especially fortunate, as this long and languid period, for me, was punctuated by the Chatham Fair—the annual agricultural event held over the Labor Day weekend. We would go to the fair, look at the animals and exhibits, eat fried dough, cotton candy, candied apples, and then head for the main event—the rides. The Tilt-A-Whirl, the Ferris Wheel, the Scrambler, the Octopus—we would ride them all, repeatedly. Mostly without throwing up.

There would be car rallies, horse races and some has-been celebrity would put on a show in the grand stand and we would notice, as dusk settled around us, an autumnal chill in the air, signalling the end of this marvellous and magical season. Then the fair would pack up and leave town. We would have the next day—the first Tuesday in September—to find what clothes still fit us, get new hand-me-downs and steel ourselves for the coming year, where we would be back—on the bottom of the food chain—in Junior High School, to repeat the familiar cycle.

Now I just get a day off at the end of August; it’s not quite the same.

Just Like New York, Only Better

2010-07-26T21:13:00.000+01:00

Being removed, as I am, from the familiarity of friends and family, I tend to appreciate it when someone goes out of their way make me feel at home. I would therefore like to thank the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) for an unexpectedly inspirational morning that left me nostalgic for the glory days of the Department of Motor Vehicles Office in Albany, NY.

Our DMV was so legendary for its awfulness and buffoonish officialdom and I never expected to see its like again, but the Brighton DVLA managed to leave them pale in comparison.

In general, people would rather have root canal than visit any government office, so making supplicants feel impotent, off-guard and a little bit frightened is the bread and butter of any civil servant, but to totally cow and humiliate people, well, that was a thing of beauty.

It didn’t start well; they opened on time and had a deli-style “take a number and wait” system that threatened to be efficient, but they cunningly overcame this challenge by having one of the three clerks inexplicably disappear while the “average wait” time displayed on the overhead viewing screen changed from 4 minutes to 13 minutes to 22 minutes in short succession.

If this had happened in New York, they might have felt their point was made and leave it at that, but this office went the extra mile by having the absent clerk return to her window but not serve any of the waiting people. Instead, she fixed up her hair, spent a protracted amount of time laboriously opening a can of Coke with a letter opener and chatting with the clerk at the next window. Then, and this was simply breathtaking, she took up a small pile of mail and began dealing with that while ignoring the people who had taken time off from work, and otherwise had to rearrange their lives, who were standing in front of her. I was so overcome with admiration that I nearly wept; with those few simple gestures she conveyed to a room full of people, louder than if she had used a bull horn and more obviously than if she had spelled it out in red tape on the walls, that all the time, effort and money we had expended to be there was totally irrelevant. She showed us all how a true civil servant remains insouciant before the inconvenience of the masses.

And insouciant she was, for she could afford to be. In large, not-to-be-missed writing on the display board was a warning that they tolerated no abuse of any kind toward their staff. This might include, one should suppose, suggestions about how people might like to be treated in order to keep them from being cranky enough to become shirty in the first place. This promoted the fear that, unless you behaved meekly and obediently no matter how poorly they treated you, you would be deprived of, not merely your car, but your liberty as well.

While I applaud this masterstroke of crowd belittlement, it does take some of the fun out of it. I always enjoyed the occasional sparks at the Albany DMV.

Despite this disadvantage, she worked the room with such consummate perfection I could not help but be won over by her; I want to have her children.

But I mustn’t forget the Brighton Office as a whole. Although this one clerk took the opportunity to shine, her performance would not have been as memorable had it not been for the supporting cast:

First, her two colleagues, who sent a disproportionate number of people away empty handed:

“But the man at the post office told me this is what I needed to do,” cried one distraught applicant.

“Well he doesn’t work here,” the clerk replied, and sent the dejected man on his way.

Another brilliant ploy was to have no toilets available. If you felt the need, you had to leave the building, and the office complex, and walk to the top of the hill at the end of the street, elbow you way through the train station and make use of their lavatory. And, of course, you had to take a new number when you returned.

Lastly, they kept the waiting room so hot sweat trickled down my back even though I was doing nothing more energetic than sitting and admiring their ability to reduce grown people to gibbering children. There was a fan in the room, but it was not turned on, unlike the multiple fans on their side of the barrier, where they sat drinking cold soda and cups of tea while we looked in vain for a water fountain.

It was really quite exciting, and I could not imagine how the experience might be topped until I paid the parking fee: eight pounds for less than an hour and a half, or about ten pence a minute. Way to go!

New York, you’re good, but you have a lot to learn.

10 Things to Be Happy About

2010-07-06T21:07:00.000+01:00

While surfing the web the other day, I happened upon an article about sunspot activity. Namely, that there suddenly is none. Scientists have never seen anything like this before so the logical conclusion is, it’s the end of the world. (You have to extrapolate a bit to arrive at this conclusion, but just a bit.)

In any event, it hardly matters because, if you surf a little more you’ll find that we’re doomed to collide with a giant asteroid and that Yellowstone Park is scheduled to explode at any minute. Either of these events promises to plunge the world into uninhabitable cold and darkness, but just in case none of this actually happens, BP—as a sort of backup plan—is filling the oceans with oil.

Meanwhile, one half of the world’s population is trying to kill the other half because they don’t have the same imaginary friend as they do.

Add to this the government’s decision that you and I need to pay for the fiscal adventures the bankers went on a few years back and you begin to understand why some people, myself included, are looking a bit grim these days, and walk around as if they are carrying John Prescott on their shoulders. Frankly, I find it amazing that any of us have the strength to get out of bed in the morning.

But we do. We face the day, we fight the good fight and we try, against all odds, to look on the bright side. And that’s what this post is about—ten good things this modern and hectic life offers us that the harbingers of doom do their level best to cloud from our vision:

1. Indoor plumbing: Because an unfathomable amount of time has been saved, discomfort avoided and noisome smell eradicated due to the invention of the flush toilet. Just think about it; this is the only time in history where a man of modest means can rise up from the sofa when Midsommer Murders goes to commercial, have a dump, flush it away and still have time to make a cup of tea before the adverts are over.

2. Modern medicine: Because you would not believe the number of people who, in centuries past, died from simple things like paper cuts, catching a cold or even drinking the water because they didn’t have basic medicines. Once you scratch away the Jane Austin veneer you’ll find life back in the good old day was uncomfortable, brutal and short. And imagine having a hangover and not being able to pop a few aspirin to see you through the morning.

3. Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream: Because, well, seriously, what more do I need to say about that?

4. The smell of bacon (or fresh-cut grass, if you’re a vegetarian). Because, even though these were readily available prior to the technology boom, you would have had a hard time noticing them. (See Item 1)

5. Really small laptop computers: Because I’m writing on one now, and if Charles Dickens had tried to do this, he’d be spilling ink all over the seats and stabbing his pen through manuscript pages every time the bus hit a bump.

6. Decent instant coffee. Because when I was younger it, tasted like brown water. These days, it comes close to tasting like good coffee. And you don’t have to wait an age for it.

7. Electric kettles. Because they are the hallmark of a civilized society, as well as the perfect complement to Item 6.

8. iPods: Because when I was in high school, kids who wanted to be a nuisance to others lugged huge radios around and blared really crap music at a decibel level similar to that of an Apollo rocket during liftoff (and they always had a menacing look about them, as if they were hoping you might suggest they turn it down so they would have an excuse to rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bloody stump) but these days, the best they can do is crank up their iPods so that, even though they are six seats away on a crowded bus, the only thing you can hear is the hiss, chink and pops emanating from their ear buds. But whenever this happens you can smile inside, knowing that, by the time they are thirty-five, they will be stone deaf.

9. The Eurostar. Because the option of travelling to Europe in a metal tube skimming (more or less) safely over the ground is an eminently better option than shooting through the stratosphere in a metal tube at the speed of a bullet. A derailment trumps a fiery explosion every time.

10. Blogs: Because I can promise a list of ten items and, when I only come up with nine, I can ask other people to fill in the blank.

And they do.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

2010-07-02T21:24:00.000+01:00

A while back, in a post peripherally about the recent and tragic World Cup, Steve from Yorkshire commented about that particular phase of the World Cup (this was during our brief period of optimism—remember that?) and its resemblance to WWII. The comment went, “The World Cup is like WWII because the …” But you’ve heard that already.

Sensing this was an ephemeral joke, I told it to as many people as I could, including a bus-buddy on my way to work that morning. When we met up at the bus stop in the evening, he said to me, “Remember that World Cup joke you told me? My wife called me and told it to me after I got to work, and three other people told it to me this afternoon. That Internet really moves fast!” (By the by, this was ironic coming, as it did, from a BT employee.)

But his point was well made: humor, in the age of instant communication, has an incredibly short shelf life.

This got me thinking. And, after my brain recovered from the shock of such an unusual event, it occurred to me that I don’t hear many jokes these days. Time was, if you were out with some friends at the pub, or at a house party, or even chatting on the bus, someone would say, “I’ve got a great joke; stop me if you’ve heard this. A frog hopped into a bank…” And a week later, when you found yourself at another gathering, you could pull that joke out and be relatively sure that most people hadn’t heard it. A good joke could last for months.

Now, people don’t bother; they know everyone has heard them all. In fact, the rarest of pleasures available in these digital days is getting an Internet joke I have not yet heard. But even that is a fleeting and bittersweet delight because I know, by the time I get to the pub (or even out to the kitchen to tell my wife) everyone else will have heard it, as well. And so will I—over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the Internet is brilliant (after all, it was because of the Internet that I finally learned the real words to “Louie, Louie”) but I think the slow death of classic joke-telling is one of its unfortunate downsides; not only have I not heard a good, new joke in a long, long time, but venerable, old jokes are starting to resemble dead horses because they are being flogged around cyberspace so often. Information sharing is no bad thing, but we’re becoming like The Borg, practically reading each other’s thoughts in real time. And have you ever seen a Borg tell a joke? I think it’s clear that the lack of humor in their culture was what made them so cranky, like the Germans.

I wish I had an answer, I wish I could say the trend is reversing, but I fear we are entering a new era, an age where humor arrives via your IN box and is shared by use of your SEND TO ALL button (as an aside, please stop that, okay?). Perhaps this will lead to spam filters evolving to the point where they can divert any joke you have heard before (though this would make your incoming mail volume drop by about 97%) and filter out those recipients you have already sent it to.

I realize that’s a depressing note to leave you on, so here’s a good joke to cheer you up: A transvestite walks into a bowling alley wearing nothing but fish-net stockings and lederhosen and, as he’s requesting a pair of shoes, the clerk says to him…

Sorry, I see you’re heard this one already.

What Happened?

2010-06-26T15:14:00.001+01:00

I wasn’t planning to post anything until after the England game tomorrow so I could update you all on the World Cup. However, I wonder now that any of that is necessary; everyone over here watches it, so they already know what happened, while the people in America…

If I were to make a good joke at America’s expense, I would go on to say, while the people in America don’t have any idea what is going on, or don’t care, or whatever. But I just stumbled across this video (I understand it has gone viral, so I’m not sure how I avoided it so far):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbn3rOPmR9w

Apparently, America has awakened to the World Cup in my absence. I am simply gobsmacked by the amount of celebration surrounding this goal and the number of people watching it. Incredibly, if you go to the 238 mark, you’ll even see my old home city of Albany, NY (right before the shot of “Some guy in Arkansas”).

All I can say is, well done, America. Now the rest of the world can’t continue to make fun of you for being so unaware of soccer. (And, yes, I call it soccer. As someone else noted, we already have a wildly popular game called football, so we have to call it soccer, like the English used to, in order to keep from being confused. Deal with it.)

Watching this video, in addition to amazing me, makes me sorry I was on a train from Greenwich (that’s GREN-ich) to Horsham. This time I am going into town to watch it on one of the outdoor screens at a local pub. Superstitious as any fan, I notice that they do well when I’m not watching, but I’m not going to let that stand in my way. They will win, or not; this is more about being part of it.

My Wife Walked Thirteen Miles in the Middle of the Night and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt

2010-06-23T20:04:00.001+01:00

It’s midnight and instead of being tucked up in bed as any sane person should be at this time of night, I am in Horsham park with twelve hundred other people as part of the charity walk my wife signed up for.

But, you ask, if your wife signed up for it, why are you there? That must be the young, single men asking the question, the rest of you—the long-time married men and, of course, the women—completely understand.

The truth is, I wouldn’t have missed this and was, in fact, planning to go out and watch it anyway, so I figured I may as well sign up to and help out.

When they told me I was going to be a marshal, I thought I was going to be issued a Stetson hat and a tin star; a six-shooter, I figured, would be too much to hope for. As it stands, a six-shoot might come in handy because I have been assigned Station 11, which sits at the epicentre of five popular pubs and is in front of the only kebab shop on that side of town. Now, Horsham is a safe enough place, but the night belongs to the young and, as a fifty-five year old man, I would be enough of a target just being on that same corner with 157 youngish revellers who are drunk enough to want to eat a kebab, and all I am armed with is a bright yellow vest reading, “Marshall.” It may as well have a bull’s eye embroidered on it.

My job, they tell me, is to guide one thousand women wearing blue shirts and bobbly headgear safely across the intersection at prime chucking-out time. I am there to protect them, but who is going to protect me?

3:30 AM

I’m back home now. Having been ordered to “Stand Down” (my, but aren’t these ladies very military?) I found myself with nothing to do but return home and loyally wait up for my wife, who is due to finish about 5:30 AM. Then we’re going out dancing.

It all went very smoothly. The kebab shop was inexplicably closed. And on a Saturday night. I have to wonder if this was not somehow arranged because, when those women began arriving at around 1:30, there was certainly not enough room on the side walk for them, me and the usual horde of intoxicated, rowdy and yurking-up-in-the-gutter youngsters. They began appearing in dribs and drabs (the walkers, not the drunk people) but once the main body arrived—wearing their signature shirts and the glittery, ping-pong ball antennae they were issued—it looked liked the world’s largest, and most orderly, hen night.

I also turned out to be not alone. For the first hour, I guarded the corner on my own, but with the shop closed all I saw were a few puzzled partiers lurching by—lads in saggy jeans and untucked shirts accompanied by teenage girls skinny as the stiletto stilts they teetered on and wearing nothing but knickers and a bra—wondering where they were going to get their kebab. But just before the walkers arrived two young men in Marshall jackets appeared and helped guide the long blue line safely into the town center.

Afterward, I returned to the park and hung around long enough to see my wife return from the first leg of the route and set off on the second. They tell me they have raised over £140,000 for St. Catherine’s Hospice so, all in a all it has been a safe and successful night.

The only downside is, I had to give back the marshal vest, so all I am left with is the tee shirt. I really wish they had given me a tin star.

Take Your Wife to Work Day

2010-06-13T18:26:00.000+01:00

As I write this, the movie Death on the Nile is droning on in the background. This is strangely appropriate as I am currently in the Agatha Christy suite, which is, they assure me, the best room in the Royal Seven Stars hotel located in the quaint and quirky village of Totnes in South Devon. For those of you who haven’t been following this blog closely (and if not, why not?), Totnes is the location of one my employer’s customers, so I have spent a good deal of time here over the past year and a half.

The Canal, the bit I am really familiar with.

It’s a welcome departure from the places I usually travel to for work—inner city Travel Lodges, Premier Inns on the local industrial estate—but that’s not the only thing that makes this trip different: this time, I’m on holiday.

I finally got fed up with staying in such a pretty location and only seeing the hotel and the short, but beautiful walk along the canal to our client’s offices. So I booked a long weekend and my wife and I have spent the past two days exploring the town and the surrounding countryside. It’s been an interesting holiday, staying in a place that is so familiar, yet made foreign by having different things to do and my wife with me.

The room is a bit different, too. I usually have a single, but I’m a guy who knows how to treat women so I booked the most expensive room at the hotel for our stay (actually, all the other rooms were booked this weekend, but we don’t have to tell my wife that, do we?) It’s large, with a sitting area (where I am writing) and a big four-poster canopy bed (mink handcuffs not include*) where my wife is lounging after a hard day of exploring the retail opportunities of Totnes and watching the big screen TV. All she needs is a little bell on the sideboard to ring for maid service.

The bathroom is the size of our spare bedroom back home and comes with a shower and a double sized bathtub/Jacuzzi (of course we did). But the luxury suite aside, there are other things to consider when bringing your wife to a place you are so familiar with.

When we checked in, the staff knew me, and called me by name. I felt a little like Benjamin Braddock in the Graduate when he brings Elaine to the Taft hotel where he is schtuping her mother, and found myself hastily introducing my wife in case the hotel staff had assumed that, after 18 months of staying in single rooms by myself, I had finally pulled. Then in the dining room on the first morning, the waitresses demonstrated an alarmingly thorough knowledge of my breakfast preferences and morning habits. In a more cynical woman than my wife, this might have aroused a degree of suspicion.

All that aside, we’ve been having a wonderful time. Totness is a charmingly eclectic village where the well-heeled and those of the Bohemian lifestyle mingle easily. It is also, apparently, where old hippies come to retire. The local attire is refreshingly different, as well; whereas, back in Horsham, the only remarkable nature concerning fashion among the young is its uniform skimpiness, here it is the dizzying variety of individual nonconformity. It’s a bit like Brighton, but smaller, more intimate and without the raucous nightlife.

Totnes High Street, with the local castle in the background.

I must close now as we’re getting ready to go out to dinner with some friends. Yes, I’ve lived in Sussex eight years but have made no friends among the local Horshamites or my co-workers, but in my visits here I have become familiar enough with people to keep in touch with them and visit with them when I return. Tonight we’re going out with James and his fiancée Jenny. James runs an organic flower business and routinely dresses as if it is 1860.

But this is Totness, so that is considered quite normal.

*I jest of course; the room is very tastefully furnished; there are nine mirrors in the room and not one of them is above the bed.

PC Candy

2010-06-08T21:15:00.001+01:00

A Mr. Simms Candy Shop opened on our high street a few weeks ago. Mr. Simms, I am told, is a franchise that has a fair number of stores up north and they are now beginning to extend into the south. Mr. Simms didn’t come for the grand opening, or maybe he did—it would have been hard to tell with all those people packed into the shop.

Candy, the recession-proof food.

This candy store is off to a good start, thanks to their winning formula: go into any Mr. Simms shop and listen to the people as the peruse the shelves and counters and you’ll understand that they are not selling confections so much as they are selling memories.

“Oh, I remember those! And look, they have golden nuggets and fruit salads and cola cubes; I used to save my pocket money to buy them.”

Smarties, but not as we know them.

The candy hasn’t changed—it’s still just sugar and it’s still as bad for your teeth—but the perspective has shifted. I dare say, with our adult palettes now attuned to fine wine and haute cuisine (or at least a bucket of the Colonel’s best on a Sunday afternoon) the candy probably doesn’t even taste as good as it used to, but the nostalgia value is hard to put a price on.

Except for one item: the candy ciga...um, I mean, crayons.

Remember them, the hard white sticks made of sugar with one end tinted pink? We used to think we were so sophisticated, sucking on a make-believe cig…I mean, crayon, just like our dad, or mom, or mom’s new boyfriend.

I’m glad they kept the candy, and I understand the need for caution, but really, who do they think they’re fooling? Every school kid knows what comes in a cellophane wrapped, soft pack that you get into by peeling the top off of and shaking a few out. Crayons, right?

OK, these are chocolate, but you know the kind I mean.

Right.

The least they could have done was use the Marlboro hard pack that opens at the top; that would look more like a box of crayons and less like what your dad keeps stashed in his coat pocket along with his Bic lighter and house keys.

Repackaged cig…I mean, crayons, notwithstanding, I had a nice visit with Mr. Simms’ southern elves. It was doubly fun for me because I got to play the “what American candy does this remind you of?” game. I was pleased to see they had Smarties, and Sweet Tarts, though they called the Smarties “Fizzers” and the Sweet Tarts “Refreshers” and had to explain to me that British Smarties were similar to American M&Ms but without the “M” on them. And none of the candy tasted like American candy (the Fizzers, appropriately enough, fizzed). It was all too confusing. And they didn’t even have paper dots.

I expect I’ll make good use of the store; I have a grandchild on the way and I want him (fingers crossed) to grow up multi-cultural so we will, no doubt, be shipping bags of the stuff over for Christmas, Easter and birthdays.

And if my grandson grows up thinking that British children smoke crayons and colo(u)r with cigarettes, well, you can blamed the confection constables.

DISCLOSURE:

Allow me to disclose this: I may be an American, but I’m not residing in their jurisdiction so I don’t have to disclose a thing. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

Okay, I feel better having said that, and now. I’ll disclose, not because I have to but because I want to:

Do you know what Mr. Simms gave me for the above, glowing review? Nothing. Not even a free Ju-Ju Bee or a packet of Twizzlers!

No matter; I don’t do this for gain; if I did, I would have quit long ago.

A Day in the Garden

2010-05-29T12:33:00.002+01:00

My wife and I took Friday off so we could do something we have been meaning to do for the past eight years but just never seemed to get around to: visit Leonardslee Gardens.

Leonardslee, one of the prettiest gardens in England.

Leonardslee is just down the road from us. Hence the reason we have never visited; who wants to see something that is right in their own back yard? But Leonardslee is well worth the visit. It is one of the largest and most spectacular gardens in England and the Loder family—who own it—are also responsible for two other magnificent Sussex gardens: The High Beeches and Wakehurst Place. These have been a splendid trio of gardens for many years, though sadly, they are soon to be twins.

Bluebells in bloom at Leonardslee.

Wakehurst Place is now safely in the hands of the The National Trust and The high Beeches, though privately owned, is still going strong, but after five generations of overseeing the gardens at Leonardslee, the Loader family is packing it in. This is to be their last season; after this, the fate of the garden is uncertain.

Rumor has it that they sold out to some Russian zillionaire (who else, after all, could afford it) who is no doubt connected with the Russian mafia (name me a Russian zillionaire who isn’t).

Imagine this as a landfill site.

I realize the new generation of Loders probably has other ambitions aside from gardening, but it is surely a shame to see the tradition come to an end. The new owners are very likely already engaged in “negations” (“Nice house you have here; be a shame if something were to happen to it”) with local Councillors to gain permission to use the valley as a landfill so they can level the ground off and build high-rise tenements on it.

Leonardslee is also home to the largest Wallaby herd in Sussex (though, really, how many would you need to have to gain that particular title?). The Wallabies, naturally, will have to go; you can't have them roaming feral around the car parks of the tenements, can you? I expect the new owners will host a combination Grouse and Wallaby Shoot during their first season, followed by a massive Walla-barbee-Q.

Taste like chicken.

I’m just glad we made the effort to see these stunning gardens, and the adorable wallabies, while there was still time.

Outside the Demographics

2010-05-24T21:40:00.003+01:00

Spring came into its own this past week and, uncharacteristically, carried on through the weekend. It was a wonderfully sunny and warm day on Saturday, which proved quite a bonus as my wife and I were heading to Essex to meet up with some of my fellow countrymen.

We reconnected with NFAH, finally met a few other bloggers in person and enjoyed a lovely meal at an Italian restaurant in the charmingly twee village of Saffron Walden. And if it came to my attention during the meal that I was, once again, the lone male at a table full of women, I certainly didn’t think much of it. It’s just the way things are.

Saffron Walden

But at one point, the subject of blogging and the blogging community was brought up (at a table full of bloggers, go figure) and I did point out that I seemed to be the lone male voice (with the notable exception of Brit Out of Water) in the expat world. I don’t consider my situation very unique, so why am I an honorary member of the Mummy Blogger crowd?

The answer, it turns out, is screamingly obvious; I simply managed to avoid realizing it these past eight years: expat blogs tend to be written by the trailing spouse (stranger in a strange land and all that), and in every case I can think of (aside from myself and Dylan) that trailing spouse is female.

Up until the moment one of my blogging friends pointed this out, I had never thought of myself as a ‘trailing spouse.’ But there you have it. At least in the future, when I go to these sort of gatherings, I won’t have to wonder about being the only guy there.

And I always do enjoy meeting up with my fellow bloggers. We may be from different backgrounds in the States, with different experiences and different expectations, but when we meet up over here as expats, we bring with us so many shared experiences that the basis for a friendship is already present. The conversation, even from the initial introduction, is never awkward because we feel as if we know each other already.

That’s a good way to be, even if I am the odd one out.

We spent a relaxing few hours together in conversation, then parted, with promises to keep in touch. Then my wife and I took advantage of the commerce opportunities Saffron Walden afforded before heading home on the train.

And as we passed through London, I naturally I treated my wife to dinner at an exclusive restaurant.

Hey, I bought you dinner, what more do you want?

All in all a remarkable day: good weather, good conversation, good friends and good food. I’m already looking forward to the next time.

================================

Married to an American Moment of the week:

While watching the television.
Me: What’s he eating?
Wife: It’s a Chupa Chup
Me: What’s that?
Wife: It’s a boiled sweet on a stick.
Me: You mean like a Tootsie Pop?
Wife: What’s that?
Me: It’s a hard candy on a stick, but with a piece of Tootsie Roll inside.
Wife: What’s a Tootsie Roll?

Balls Up

2010-05-14T06:34:00.002+01:00

In the end, apathy and lack of money won the day.

About a year ago, the Shelly Fountain, Horsham’s iconic and vaguely pornographic water feature, fell into such disrepair that it was shut off and left forlornly empty. As time went on, the town polled the citizens to see what they wanted to do with this marvellous work of art that had put Horsham on the map.

The Glory Days.

The response was underwhelming.

I wrote to the local paper stating the case for repairing the fountain, but it appeared I was a lone voice crying in a sea of curmudgeonly complaints. No one, it seemed, had wanted the poxy thing to begin with and they saw this as their chance to get shut of it. A Facebook page dedicated to bringing back the Horsham Christmas lights enjoyed 3,037 supporters; a similar page to show support for the fountain rallied only 315. Condemned by social networking, its fate was sealed; The Council decided it would have to go.

So the great ball was propped up on steel girders and the fountain area surrounded by a metal fence, and there it sat, sad and broken, like a death-row inmate waiting for the padre and warden to lead it on that final walk to the metaphorical gallows. There would be no phone call from the governor.

Waiting for the hangman.

But then a miracle reprieve arrived from an unlikely source: the economy collapsed, austerity budgets were adopted and, when The Council looked into removing it, they found digging it out and paving over the area would actually cost a lot more than fixing it.

Repairs began in March, which The Council made very clear were not paid for out of the district coffers but with grants from the art foundation. The fountain was cleaned and fixed and filled and ready to be re-unveiled at a ceremony during Horsham’s popular English Festival.

At the appointed time, the crowd gathered, the speeches were made, the fountain revived…and shut off due to an electrical fault.

That's all folks...

So now it sits, a little cleaner, but empty, nonetheless, waiting for the repairman.

But at least it’s still here.

Feeling the Love

2010-05-07T06:32:00.004+01:00

BUT FIRST, A SHAMELESS AD:

My wife is participating in a sponsored half-marathon for St. Catherine’s Hospice.

Okay, she’s not actually running, and it’s only a half-marathon, but she is doing it between midnight and 6 AM so she deserves some support.

Horsham Midnight Walk to sponsor St. Catherine’s Hospice

19 June 2010 – midnight to 6:00 AM

Please click here if you would like to be a sponsor.

NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BROADCAST:

I just cancelled my ISP after eight complaint-free years to sign up with BT Broadband, on the theory that having a consolidated bill and paying two pounds less each month would somehow transform my life. That’s like divorcing your wife and marrying your dental hygienist because you’ll save money on your biannual cleaning and won’t have to drive to the dentist.

I’m sure someone out there has done that and is dying to tell me how badly it went. Thanks, but don’t bother. I’m committed; the hygienist is awaiting my call and the wife already found out. I told her, I mean, I informed my ISP this morning. They took it hard.

This surprised me. England not being the spiritual home of customer service, I fully expected the rep to give me the equivalent of a verbal shrug and move on. Instead, they dragged me through the seven stages of separation grief, which, as an American, pleased me. We don’t like people letting us cast them aside lightly, so I’m used to a bit of grovelling when I call to cancel a service. I think I was more prepared for it than the rep.

“But we’ve been together so long! Was it something we did? Have we made you unhappy?”

“No,” I said, my voice laced with faux regret, “it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve changed; I’m not the person you thought I was when I signed on.”

“But we can change, we’ll make you happy.”

“But BT is offering…”

“BT! That slag! You deserve better! Please come back to us.”

“I’m sorry, really I am. I know I shouldn’t have been looking around when I was happy with you, but this deal caught my eye and, well,… You really don’t want to stay with someone as fickle as I am.”

“It’s not your fault. We forgive you! Can’t you see how much we want you?”

“Look, I gotta go. I need some space right now-“

“No! Please! Can we still be friends?”

“I don’t think so.”

I hung up, feeling a mixture of guilt, amusement and admiration. Whether or not it was true, they made me feel like they cared, and that gave me just the slightest pang of homesickness. It made me ponder my ISP infidelity and I began to second-guess my decision. Really, what was so bad about my current provider that I had to jump on the first sleek and shiny thing to saunter by? Maybe I was being too hasty. Maybe I should call them. Maybe they would take me back.

Then, as I replayed the conversation in my mind, analysing the begging, the promises and the resolutions, I realized there was one thing they had not done: they had not offered me a better deal. That’s the way we do it in America, Sparky, and if you can’t see your way to it, then get used to the sight of my backside as I walk away from you.

I’m so glad I didn’t weaken. Now I’m looking forward to my new ISP; I’m going to love slagging off BT.

One Of The Girls

2010-05-02T20:40:00.001+01:00

I had a different post ready to go up, but I was diverted by some arresting statistics. This worked out nicely because I was going to post a secondary item in the sidebar but that item lends credence to what these statistics pointed out so, thanks to being so alert (or easily distracted, take your pick), I can post now everything in a single article, the premise of which is:

Over the course of my life, I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the company of women.

I don't mean to say I am a modern incarnation of Don Juan, wooing women on two continents (having recently and successfully stormed Europe). No, I mean I just always seem to be around women, through no fault (or complaint, for that matter) of my own.

As a young lad, I had an older sister, a doting mother and an absent father. Dad was around—he often stopped in between shifts at the mill and sessions at the bar—but he didn't leave much of an impression. Mostly it was me, mom, my sister and about 6,000 cows.

I was, however, a Boy Scout, so I managed to do my share of male bonding during my teenage years, but just as it looked as if I was on my way toward a wall-balanced life, I joined a charismatic Christian cult. While I did make some male friends there, these organisations tend to draw more females than males, but not the sort who would do you any good, if you get my meaning.

After checking back into hotel reality, I got a job as a keypunch operator. To say this field has a disproportionate number of women would be like saying the ocean is damp; I was the only male in the entire department.

When my children were growing up, I was working nights while my wife worked days, so me and the other moms all got together at day care and, later, for school meetings and such.

As a born-again bachelor, I took up scuba diving, a truly manly sport. But then, ignoring the advice of a good friend (a woman, I might add) I went scuba diving in the Caribbean and, as it had for her, the experience spoiled me. I could no longer face the dark, cold lakes of the Adirondacks, so I sold my gear and became an Irish dancer. I mean, what choice did I have?

I was actually surprised by the predominance of women there, what with Michael Flatley being all the rage, but there was only one other man in the entire class.

So I went to Ireland, met my current wife and settled in Britain. And started a blog. Or three. And, without meaning to, I began to acquire followers. But is what I discovered about them while doing routine blog maintenance this afternoon:

Of my followers, 82.2784810126582% on my Postcards blog, 91.4285714285714% on the Pond Parleys blog and 88.4615384615385% on my writing blog are women. Now, this isn't a complaint, simply an observation, but my intent was to promote myself as an expatriate writer a la Bill Bryson and, instead, I seem to have become an honorary member of the mummy-blogging circuit

So what's a guy to do when he find himself, once again, surrounded by women? Go out and do something that puts him in contact with other people, of course. And that's what I'm going to do.

I have volunteered to assist my wife in her latest endeavour—a sponsored walk. She's doing the walking; I'm just helping out by being a steward. And you can help out by sponsoring her.

Click this link: http://www.justgiving.com/sleep-walking to donate money toward the cause. The walk is to raise funds for St. Catherine's Hospice, a worthy charity. It's only a half-marathon, and they are only walking, but they are doing it between midnight and six in the morning, so she deserves a bit of support.

Oh, and did I mention this is the Midnight Walk for Women? Twelve hundred women, two thousand flashlights (torches), eighteen hundred bottles of water and me. I expect there will be a few more men there, but here I go again.

Don't worry; I'll bring my camera. Updates to follow.

And thank you for your support.

Come On, You Know You Want It

2010-04-29T19:22:00.000+01:00

So, who do you think wants it more?

What, no Labour? And where is the BNP?

This is my first general election, and I'm pleased to be voting in such an exciting election. It's every bit as historic as America's last election (who'd have thought that the US would ever be liberal enough to elect a man who admitted getting high in college to the presidency?) and I'm proud to be part of it. Even though my vote won't make a blind bit of difference.

You see, I don't get to vote for the who I want to run the country. I only get to vote for my local MP. Then, whichever party gets the most MPs gets to have their head MP as Prime Minister. And they elect that guy (or woman), and I have no say in the matter.

So with Horsham a solidly conservative seat, voting for anyone is an exercise in futility. Unless, of course, you are voting Tory.

But it's still good to get out and vote.

The exciting bit is watching a party who everyone had written off as irrelevant a few months ago come into the fore. The Lib Dems are, by some accounts, ahead of the Labour party. And, if they succeed in hanging Parliament (oh, if only; maybe we could make it happen if we all brought enough rope) they will be in a position to effectively select the next leader, which makes this an interesting race indeed.

The best thing about British elections is that the campaign period only lasts about a month. This keeps most of us from getting so very, very sick of political broadcasts, but still allows the candidates to do stupid things that make the electorate shake their head in collective wonder and switch parties. (Can you say, "Bigoted woman!")

Anyway, I'll be watching with interest, and going to the polls a week from tonight to throw away my vote. I hope you all do the same.

Horsham’s Hidden Talent

2010-04-21T20:33:00.000+01:00

As the husband of a social worker, I sometimes find myself in strange situations, such as Row J of the Capitol Theatre in Horsham, sitting between two middle-aged couples; a single man, on his own, out to enjoy a bit of amateur musical theatre. I was just glad I wasn’t wearing my corduroy sport coat; that would have pushed me passed the edge of plausible deniability.

I was there as part of an outing for one of the centres my wife manages, and to handle important tasks such as holding doors, minding handbags while people went to the loo and making awkward conversation with people who are meeting me, once again, for the first time. But as a bonus, I got to see the Horsham Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society’s presentation of Oklahoma! (The exclamation point is in the title, I’m not that excited.)

The play was surprisingly spectacular, taking into account, of course, that it was a local production. I mean, West End it wasn’t, but the company did manage the nearly impossible challenge of staging a believable version of a Broadway extravaganza while simultaneously retaining those special qualities only an amateur production can offer: wobbling scenery, props descending from above onto the head of an extra, a “Dirty Dancing” lift that nearly ended in disaster. So, yeah, it was a great performance.

When I booked the ticket last week, I asked the woman behind the counter if it was the sing-along version. She smiled politely at my joke and assured me it wasn’t, to which I replied, “It will be when I’m there.” I needn’t have bothered, the audience—most of whom looked as if they had attended the premiere of Oklahoma! and may have needed to hire a babysitter in order to get out for the evening—unabashedly sang along, even though the cast needed no help in that arena. Too bad no one in the audience could dance.

When you’re putting on shows in the West End, you get to pick from the most talented performers in the world. When you put on a show in Horsham, however, you’re fishing in a much smaller pool, so I expect the casting sessions went somewhat like this: “You have the physical qualities we’re looking for in our leading lady. Can you sing? Good, good! Can you dance? Um, okay, …can you fake it?”

The group, after all, is the Horsham Amateur Operatic and Dramatic—not Dance—Society, so I’m willing to cut them some slack. And the singing was suburb; bold, confident, occasionally complex; it resonated through the auditorium. On the other hand, the dance routines, to be kind, lacked finesse. It looked as if some of the cast had taken a few years of ballet when they were younger and had spent half an hour or so teaching the others what little they still remembered. In addition to the near-catastrophic lift, there was an ill-advised “spin and carry” sort of move that looked like a form of torture. I also noticed a few “rabbit in the high-beams” type of looks I recalled from my own dancing days, as players struggled to remember where in the routine they were. And I swear I could see a few of them counting out the beats, one of my favourite tricks.

But confident or not, they performed with enthusiasm, and made up for it in the singing. The final number, the aptly named “Oklahoma!” sung by the ironically-named “Curly” and supported by the entire ensemble, was rousing, energetic and well-polished.

And they stayed true to the original production, even when it did them no favors. In the scene where the townsfolk rouse Curly and Laurey from their marriage bed (no spoiler alerts here; I assume you all know the story), Curly comes out of the house wearing only his trousers, which allowed us all to see the rest of the gear involved in those cunning little stage microphones you see taped to people’s faces. If they had updated it at bit, say had Laurey come out dressed as a Police Constable and Curly in a set of Winnie-the-Pooh jammies (“Have you been in Kanga’s honey-pot, Pooh? You’re such a naughty bear!”) it would have avoided the awkwardness of revealing the tape and wire strung around his torso.

What impressed me most, however, was something I didn’t even realize until my wife mentioned it on the way home: they all spoke in American accents. The fact I didn’t notice shows how good they were. A bad accent or, worse, a local accent (“I say Jud, old bean, you’re not sweet on this Laurey girl, are you? If so, you’re in for a thrashing.”) would have been immediately noticeable.

I have a great respect for Brits who can do an American accent. I’ve been here eight years and the best I can do is mimic the Cockney accent perpetrated by Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, but that doesn’t really count.

So my hat is off the HAODS for their talent, tenacity and theatrical flair. But the dancing, really, a bit more energy next time, okay?

Stranded

2010-04-16T21:35:00.001+01:00

Finally, a new post. But first, some public service announcements:

Is Melissa (Smitten by Britain) among the missing?

She recently switched her blog from Blogger to Wordpress (Don't get me started.) Anyway, in the process, she lots, oh, lots of followers; let's say about a quarter million. If you want to get her back, or want to start following her (which I highly recommend) here's what to do:

To make sure you are seeing her latest updates, re-follow her by adding this URL:

If using Blogger: http://www.smittenbybritain.com/feed

If using Google Reader: smittenbybritain.com/feed

In other news:

Someone else bought my book (thanks, Erren), and here's what she had to say:

I just bought the book 'Postcards from across the Pond' by Michael Harling. It arrived today. I stole a couple of minutes to flip through it and laughed out loud twice. I can't say enough how validated I feel by this book. How wonderful to see someone else put down on paper some of the same struggles I've experienced being an American living in the UK. I can't wait to get the time to read it properly!

Thank you Michael!

So there you have it. If you still haven't bought your copy, you are obviously down a few laughs, so to keep up, you really, really need to buy one (or several) right now.

Now on to the post:

It has just occurred to me that I am, at this time, virtually stranded on this island. It’s not so bad, really; currently I’m holed up in a sixteenth century pub sipping a pint of ale and sitting on a deacon’s bench with a nice warming fire nearby. It’s the sort of pub with beams in the ceiling sagging so low even I have to duck.

But I doubt the thousands of stranded passenger—both those trying to get out and those trying to get in— aren't feeling so complacent. As for me, I’m just glad we visited Iceland when we did; it might have been a nice place, but I doubt I would have welcomed being stranded there for a fortnight.

Now I know that, technically, I could take a train or ferry to get out of Blighty but, having just seen the news, I wouldn't want to try. The ferries are packed to bursting, and I don’t fancy swimming the last fifteen miles to France. And the last I heard of the Eurostar, it wasn't running because it was too cold. Granted, it has warmed up over the months since I heard that, but no one has contacted me to tell me the trains were running again. And even if they are, I doubt I could get a ticket.

No, a plane is the only viable option. Except none of them are flying. The TV news showed footage of the runways at Gatwick and Heathrow; never before have the runways been so continually empty. I hope they are at least taking advantage of the down-time by sweeping the tarmac.

I don’t doubt that the airlines are being over-cautious, but who can blame them. Sure, the planes might not crash, but who wants to be responsible for making the decision that results in a jumbo jet with three hundred and thirty people on if falling out of the sky? And while the stranded passengers might wish they wouldn’t err so heavily on the side of caution, would you want to be among the passengers of the first flight testing the theory that the air was clear enough to take off?

Actually, I think they are being overly optimistic about starting flights as soon as tomorrow. The last time this volcano starting misbehaving, it spewed volcanic grit into the air for eighteen months. I just hope it stops in time for us to go visit my grandchild before s/he graduates from college. (Did you know I’m soon to be a grandpa? Well, I am, and you heard it here first.)

Otherwise, life is good. The grim job reaper hasn't visited, my writing is going well and spring appears to be, albeit grudgingly, showing her pretty face.

On the other hand, it now occurs to me that I am stranded in this booth. My pint is empty, but if I go to the bar to get a refill, my kit may not be here when I return. And if I pack everything up and take it all with me on the twenty foot trek to the bar, I might not have this booth when I return. (These olde worlde pubs are very popular, even among the locals.)

So here I sit, stranded on a deacons bench, with an empty pint glass in front of me. But I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not so bad.

Writing in a Different Language

2010-04-04T17:35:00.002+01:00

Nothing drives home the fact of how much you don't know about your host culture than writing a book set there featuring characters who grew up there.

My current project takes place in England and is populated with native Brits. For the most part, people are people, and I've been here long enough to know how they talk and how they go about their daily business, so I shouldn't fall into obvious traps, like having a character talk about when she was in "high school" or making reference to a "senior prom." There are, however, numerous opportunities for gaffs.

After finishing the first draft, I reread it and took pages of notes highlighting details I needed to research. Such as: you can't go visit someone in the hospital (actually, the person would be "in hospital") here and expect the receptionist to give you a room number. Patients are on wards, there are nurses, but no candy stripers and some nurses, depending upon their duties, are called "Sister" or "Matron."

Registering a car, getting insurance, all different from my American experiences. They don't have appointment books, they have "Diaries" and they don't write things like, "Nathan said 'Hi' to me outside of math class today and I have a great big pimple in the middle of my forehead! I wanted to die!" in them.

What gets me is not the amount of research I have to do to make my prose not sound like it was written by an American (for one thing, in the above dialogue, I'd have to change Math to Maths and Pimple to Spot); I'm more concerned about the things I can't know:

What is it like to go through the British school system? What TV shows would they have watched, what pastimes would they have enjoyed, how would they and their friends have behaved?

But, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, those are things I know I don't know, and I expect a combination of creative prose and research will get me over those hurdles; it's the things I don't know I don't know that are more likely to trip me up. (By the by, that famously amusing "Things we know" quote makes perfect sense if you read it carefully.)

My biggest fear is that I will spend a lot of time on this manuscript only to send it off laced with unintentional hilarity like having a Memorial Day celebration and totally ignoring Whitsun, or having a character asking for a "round trip" ticket.

At least I know enough to not have a cop pull a gun.

Earth Hour in Horsham

2010-03-28T17:36:00.000+01:00

Being the Green sort of people we are (we buy local products when available, have a small, efficient car, always take reusable bags with us when we shop and make use of public transpiration as often as we can – if the planet pulls through, you can thank us) my wife and I decided to participate in Earth Hour.

At the appointed time, we turned off all our lights and electrical equipment and then, instantly bored, decided to take a walk around town to see if anyone else was as daft.

Seeing as how this is a humor blog, and pointing out failure is funnier than relating how something actually worked, I was slightly disappointed to notice a difference. A small one, to be sure, but a difference just the same.

Along the High Street, lights glowed from the storefronts of the travel agent's, mobile phone shops and clothing outlets, but Jones Boots was dark, as was Swan Walk Mall, which usually has all its internal lights on for security reasons.

The Carfax was well lit up, but that likely had to do with public safety. Along the pathways leading over Albion Way and through the park, however, many of the streetlights were turned off, provided enough light for safety yet using half the energy. One wonders why they don't do this every night.

The District Council office buildings were suitably dark, though I have to admit I never really paid much attention to them before so they might be like that every night.

One building I do pay attention to is the new County Office building. Whenever I walk by it at night it sits empty, yet lit up as if they are trying to attract the attention of passing aircraft. Tonight was no different.

On a normal night this strikes me as a needless waste of energy, but on this night, you think they'd have at least made an effort, especially as they were one of the entities jumping on the Earth Hour bandwagon.

So, after forty minutes of wandering around town, nodding our heads in approval or tisk-tisking the offenders, we returned to our flat, turned on all the lights and made tea.

I'm all for saving the planet, but get real.

This is a photo I snapped of our block of flats as we returned from our Earth Hour perambulation. No, Grainger LTD is not participating in the event, this is what it looks like every night because all the security lights are broken and the landlord won't fix them. Don't get me started.

Sucking Face

2010-03-14T15:52:00.001Z

I suppose it’s time to stop bitching about Facebook; it doesn’t show signs of going away any time soon and, I have to admit, I’m beginning to find it useful.

Before you think I’m jumping too enthusiastically on the technology bandwagon, let me assure you I still eschew e-books and think Twitter is a waste of bandwidth. Twitter offers only a tiny part of Facebook’s most used and useful feature, but without any of the bells and whistles. It is a redundancy. It should slink away. Now.

But Facebook, despite still being beyond my understanding, is carving out a cozy corner in my heretofore cold heart. It is actually a time saver, allowing me to hit one page and find out what all my virtual acquaintances are up to in one go. That, to me, is the selling point, and why it is the page I usually hit after my Yahoo mail homepage. It doesn’t take as much time or effort as reading though blog after blog and it lets me catch up on everyone. That said, it is a lot more superficial, but these days, that is probably a bonus.

Logging on to Facebook is like wandering into the school cafeteria at lunchtime. You can see groups of people clustered around different tables, some you know, some you don’t. You can overhear snatches of conversation between your friends and friends of friends. You might even sit down and have a word with one or two of them. Then you leave, content knowing everyone is all right and having a good time and that they know that you are as well.

If, however, you’re looking to sit down over a buttered scone and a cup of tea with one of your closer friends, well then, you need to go somewhere else.

A blog, for instance, where you can ramble on for more than 140 characters, make a point, paint a scene, talk about something important to you in a meaningful way and not be forced to reduce it to, “Got dumped on Saturday. Really sucks. :(“

I was a long time coming to blogs, being happy in my Luddite world of HTML, but once I crossed over, I was hooked. Problem is, now that I am firmly settled in the blogshpere, I find they are, like, so 2008. I thought I was being hip, but I find myself, once again, sitting on the trailing edge of technology.

I just read an article claiming that e-mail will be extinct in another ten years. Seems it is being regarded as too old fashioned. The focus, the article claims, is shifting away from instantly sending a significant chunk of information directly to the person you want it delivered to and more toward broadcasting snippets of news to a wide group of people.

Texting, Facebook, Twitter—that’s what the hip young people are using these days. E-mail is, well, so, 2008.

It makes me want to crawl back to my HTML and hide,

F*&%$@G Facebook.

CROSS DRESSING BLOGS -- a word of explanation:

In casting about so something new to write about, it came to my attention that the post on my Life of Writing blog has as much to do with writing as the post currently on my Postcards From Across the Pond blog has to do about being an expat. So, in the interest of buying myself more time (and perhaps gaining a few crossover fans) I have simply swapped them around.

I hope this doesn’t break some sort of blogshere code of honor or anything. I’m not trying to pull a fast one; I’m just too tired to write anything new (in the blog arena) at the moment.

And the best part it, the Sucking Face (book) post, when it goes on my Postcards blog, will automatically be posted to Facebook.

English as a Second Language

2010-03-05T20:53:00.000Z

I received the following e-mail the other day. The header is heavily edited for obvious reasons, but the body of the letter is word-for-word:

From: Bert Mckinnon: AssholeWithTooMuchTime@OnHis.Hands
To: NotMyEmailAddress@ButIGotItAnyway.Dammit
Subject: Hello
Attachments: (Brunette.jpg) – the sort of photo that comes in a new wallet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello!!!
How your mood? I very much would like to know you better... I would like to write to you a little about myself... To me of 28 years. I the brunette, very cheerful and beautiful woman... If you wanted me the nobility better can write only to my personal Email.
I hope you to me will write about myself.

Aside from the obvious (this person is tragically in love with ellipses) I’m guessing English is not the native language of the sender. And I have to wonder at the point of such a letter.

How lonely and desperate do you have to be for “If you wanted me the nobility better…” to sweep you off your feet?

And “Bert McKinnon”? What sort of name is that for an Internet temptress? I don’t know about you, but Bert screams “I’m a man” in my world, unless you are a Roberta. But anyone out for a cyber-snog with the name of Roberta McKinnon would do well to adopt a more appropriate nom de plume, such a Sally Cyberslut or Julie I-want-To-Send-You-Naked-Photos-Of-Myself-To-Gain-Your-Trust-So-I-Can-Empty-Your-Bank-Account Smith.

At least she didn’t mention the size of my penis (how do they know?) like many of the mystery women who write to me do. You know, things like “Make your man-tree hard grow so women laughing at you will stop.” I made that up, but it isn’t far off of the mark.

Unfortunately, these are the types of communications that make up the bulk of my e-mail these days. I can’t complain; it’s my own fault.

A few years ago I naïvely thought I could defeat spammers by changing my e-mail address on a regular basis. So I changed my spam-ridden e-mail address to a new one and told all my friends. Many switched to the new address. Some did not. The spammers used both. Not one to give up on a bad idea, I tried this about five times before I admitted defeat. By then I had thoroughly confused my friends and provided a huge target for the spambots.

My supposed saviour, Yahoo Spam Filter, didn’t help. There is a button you can click to notify Yahoo that the letter is spam and the filter will “learn” what is and is not spam and filter out all the bad stuff. In my experience, all the button does is alert the spammers as to where I am because whenever I undertake a campaign to eradicate spam, I generally end up with ten times more.

Worse yet, the Yahoo Spam Filter also sends all my blog comments, which are specifically tagged to go into my IN box, into my spam folder. So I currently enjoy the irony of having to go to my spam folder because, if there is any mail for me, that’s where I’ll find it.

So I am reading a lot of letters from Bert and his buddies these days. It’s a bit of a nuisance, but on the bright side it is often a revelation to discover the extraordinary and starling ways desperate third-worlders with an internet connection and a penchant for larceny can torture the English language in their attempts to woo the gullible and, one has to suppose, functionally illiterate into revealing their bank details in exchange for virtual titillation.

So until Bert and his ilk discover they can make more money robbing liquor stores, or I become wealthy enough to develop my own, effective spam filter (or at least have enough money to hire people to read my mail for me) I’m afraid finding relevant communications will continue to be a scavenger hunt through spam hell.

But those days may be over sooner than you think: I just received a notification from The National Lottery Board informing me that I have won $87,674,287.37 in the National Lottery. I can’t wait until they deposit the money in my bank account!

far and wee

2010-02-28T20:23:00.000Z

in Just-
spring..........when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame balloonman

whistles.....far.......and wee

and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far.......and........wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonman.......whistles
far
and
wee

Spring is slowly raising her head here in Sussex. She's a bit out of sorts this year, having been lulled by the easy rhythm of previous years, she allowed her hedonistic half brother, Winter, to seduce her into complacency and allowed him to run riot. She is just now opening a bleary eye and pushing up some tentative crocus, whereas, by now, the daffodils are usually in full bloom.

But where Winter is simply an opportunistic conniver here, in New York he is an absolute bully, beating down his frail sister with frozen fist, spreading his cold carnage over the land with malicious glee. In Upstate, Spring is a time of disappointment and false hope. Winter, the brute, teases Spring with the occasional peek into the world and sometimes allows her to place a tentative foot on the earth only to beat her back with the blizzard bat.

And when spring finally does escape his cold grasp, she can't frolic about the countryside in lazy abandon, instead, she bursts upon the landscape in a riot of color, because she knows her time is short. She has scant weeks between that happy day when Winter loses his icy grip on her and before she is lost in Summer's hot, humid and bug-ridden embrace. So she doesn't amble, she whirls like a dervish, spreading herself across the land until the earth explodes in color.

It makes for a vivid few weeks, a time of tulips and blue bells, when the air is fresh and the world is mud-luscious.

It usually happens around the last week of April.

But wherever you are, spring will arrive eventually. So I'll close now with that promise, offered in another poem by e e cummings:

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
........fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

.......beauty........ how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
.............(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

.............thou answerest

them only with

.....................spring)

Iceland

2010-01-31T18:20:00.003Z

They have a saying in Reykjavik: “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” Oddly enough, we had that same saying where I grew up in New York, and they have it here in Sussex, as well. And I would bet a few thousand Icelandic Kronas (about two pound fifty) that you have that same saying where you live.

However, nowhere is it more accurate than in Iceland. The days we were there were predicted to be cloudy with rain, but we ran the gamut from sunshine to thunderstorm, idyllic calm to gale force winds, and gloomy night to an unexpected display of the Northern Lights. (Unfortunately, they were so unexpected we weren’t watching for them and we missed it.)

Icelandic Observations:

For the most part, the climate was mild and agreeable, and aside from sneaking the Northern Lights in behind our backs, the weather only caught us out once and, being British, we coped well enough. For a land with “Ice” in its name, that’s not too bad.

Iceland is a pretty country, filled with dramatic scenery, active volcanoes and very few people. Only 300,000 in the entire country. That’s hardly as populous as a large town. They elect a president, but he’s more like a mayor.

Icelanders are justifiably proud of their country, but on occasion stray into “proud parent” territory, where they just cannot resist gushing about their precious, precautious offspring.

They openly talk about “the crisis” here. A lot. They were hit very hard and life has changed dramatically for them. But at least they fired their bankers; we gave ours bonuses.

Their money also took a hit (See above). While we were there, Icelandic Kronas were 200 to the pound (or 128 to the dollar). It’s sort of like currency, only worthless.

Their water comes directly from natural springs. It is the best tasting water I have ever had. They are very proud of it and hand it out free in restaurants. If you visit, drink it; it really is good and it is the only thing you will get for free in Iceland.

The hot water also comes directly from the ground. It is rich in minerals, velvety soft and smells of rotten eggs. They are very proud of this, too. (The minerals and velvet soft part, not so much the rotten egg part.) It really is fine water, but after you take a shower you smell like rotten eggs for a while, which is handy if you need to sneak a fart.

Icelandic Photos:

This is the Blue lagoon, where you can swim in warm mineral waters in a large, lavish lagoon. It is a must-do if you visit Iceland. Our tour included a dip in this wonderful water. Let me tell you, there is nothing like spending the morning with 30 strangers, all of you struggling to hold your stomachs in.

This is, believe it or not, a set of water towers; those silvery things at the right of the photo are two of the four huge water tanks. The Icelanders build some astounding buildings around features you normally wouldn’t want to visit. We also visited a geothermal power station that was equally lavish and visitor-friendly.

A view of Reyjavik from the observation deck off of the restaurant in the water tower.

There are many pools, both outdoor and indoor, in Iceland. All of them are heated with geothermal energy and people flock to them. Swimming is the second most favourite pastime of the locals, handball (no, not the kind you’re thinking of) is first. This was taken at about 10:30 AM.

Downtown Reykjavik at about 11 AM.

Leif Erikson, the Viking who discovered and colonized America 500 years before Columbus.

A visit to the Geysers; another must-see.

One of the many striking vistas in the interior.

This is one of the lava fields. It is not foggy, that is the ground smoking. The strange object in the background is a pumping station pumping super-heated water (300 degrees C) for the geothermal power stations.

One of the many dramatic views from the coastline.

Iceland has one of the highest literacy ratings in the world, and this is the best they could do graffiti-wise. Must try harder.

They seem quite fond of this style of sink in Reykjavik. They are rubbish. As you can see by the cake of soap balanced on the faucet, they are not shaped as God intended.

Coffee Nation

2010-01-20T07:34:00.000Z

On our various travels, my wife and I have noticed that every country is either a coffee country, or a tea country, never both. I am here to tell you that Iceland is a coffee country. It’s the type of coffee country, however, that prefers strong coffee in teeny tiny cups, which suits neither of us.

It is also—though this may be just the type of hotel we booked (three star) or the fact that the economy is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy—the type of country that is rather economical with its coffee packets. The coffee and tea making facilities in our room consist of an electric kettle, two coffee packets, two tea bags and two sachets of powdered creamer. This precluded us from having a cup of tea at bedtime, so we resolved to stock-pile what we could by locking the leftovers in the hotel room’s safe and hopefully scoring some UHT milk and extra tea bags at breakfast.

Breakfast, it turned out, was a buffet affair with—I kid you not—a guard stationed at the tea caddy and a communal jug of milk that discouraged us from nicking any for personal use. So we left breakfast defeated, but upon leaving our room to meet up for the city tour later that morning, we ran across an unguarded maid trolley and helped ourselves to what supplies we needed. (Hey, Iceland owes the Brits billions of pounds in bad debts; they can take it off the bill.)

After the tour we were cut loose so my wife and I wandered up to Kringlan, Reykjavik’s answer to Bluewater or the Icelandic Mall of America. I have to say, for a nation that can boast only 300,000 inhabitants (that’s the whole country—Reykjavik has only about 120,000) it was fairly impressive. Before engaging in retail therapy, however, we needed a caffeine boost so we headed to the food court.

Now I am always chagrinned at my inability to speak a foreign language, especially when I hear the fetching young lady at the counter speaking Icelandic to the young men in front of me, and then smiling and saying, “Yes,” to me when I am forced to ask, “Do you speak English?”

I ordered two strong coffees in teeny tiny cups, then drew on my vast knowledge of the Icelandic language I learned during the five-minutes of instruction the tour guide gave us that morning, and said, “Tak,” meaning, “Thank you.”

The young lady smiled again and said, “I’m Polish.”

Now I could have made a witty observation accentuating the irony of me, an American, attempting to speak Icelandic to a Polish immigrant I mistakenly took for a local. Or, even better, I could have kept my mouth shut. Instead, I replied, “Then what are you doing here? I thought you were all in England.”

This is when I learned it is not always wise to joke with people for whom English is a auxiliary language. Her smile remained, but it faltered. If she spoke British, I’m sure she would be thinking, “wanker!”

Since I don’t know how to say, “I’m sorry,” in either Polish or Icelandic, I simply took my coffees (only 385 Icelandic Kronas) and retreated.

So much for a career in the diplomatic corps.

What I Learned at the Mall

For some reason, a lot of manikins in Iceland are left naked:

But the ones they dress, they dress with style:

The Worst

2010-01-10T11:02:00.000Z

Do you want to know the worst thing about being trapped inside the flat all day like some petty criminal with an electronic leg tag? I have nothing else to do but listen to the radio, and what I hear on the radio is often so incredibly insane it makes my head hurt.

For example:

During this crisis, I have been quite critical of the clean-up methods, and of a group of local people who are taking the council to task for not doing a better job. Four days after the snowfall, the sidewalks (excuse me, pavements) are still a dangerous morass of snow, ice and slush. The locals thought the council should have cleaned everything up and I was more of the opinion that people should have done more themselves.

In New York, if you have a sidewalk (in New York, they are ‘sidewalks’) running in front of your home or business, you go out and clean it off as soon as you can. This allows pedestrian traffic move freely and safely and it greatly assists in the general clean up.

In Britain, however, the law is, if you have a pavement running in front of your home or business, and if you clean it off, and someone then slips, you are liable, and you can be sued. On the other hand, if you just leave the snow, ice and slush lying there to trip up pedestrians and send them to the hospital with fractured wrists, broken legs or very sore bums, you are not responsible at all.

Can someone, anyone, explain to me how that makes any sense at all? Who is responsible for thinking up this tosh!

It’s the sort of thing that, for me, doesn’t so much address the mystery of how the British lost the Empire, but rather begs the question “How did they acquire it in the first place?”

Here’s an impromptu quiz based on some other tidbits from my reading and media viewing during my “house arrest”:

Question 1:

If you were faced with a formidable army, and all you had were 18,000 well trained, experienced soldiers (this would be the British Expeditionary Force at the start of WWI) would you:

A. Have these 18,000 soldiers train recruits in order to quickly build up an army of tens of thousands of well-trained soldiers?

or

B. Send your 18,000 well-trained, experienced soldiers headlong into machine gun fire to see what happened?

Question 2:

If you were engaged in the hunt for the fearsome German battleship, Bismarck, at the critical, early stages of WWII, and your battleship and the Air Force had it cornered, would you:

A. Provide supporting fire for the airplanes so they could get in close enough to deliver the coup de grace?

or

B. Try to shoot down your own aircraft so your ship could take credit for the kill?

If you gave the blatantly sane answer to either of those questions, then you have no future in British politics. On any level.

Now, granted, my two previous examples are a bit extreme, and the government no longer enjoys the opportunity to visit mayhem on the populace on that gargantuan a scale but, bless them, they clearly remain dedicated to taking out the population, one slipped disc at a time.

One For The Road

2009-12-31T19:29:00.000Z

On this last day of 2009 I thought I’d give you a belated Christmas present, and something to ponder as you start the New Year.

This is a chapter from my book, Postcards From Across the Pond, (I have mentioned that I wrote a book, right?) and I’m reprinting it here because A) I care about you, B) I want you to see what you’re missing by not having bought my book yet, C) I don’t have anything else prepared right now, and D) I get a giggle every time I read it (yes, I am my own best fan).

So have some holiday cheer, sleep in tomorrow, nurse your hangovers and get your sorry asses ready to hit the ground running on Monday for the beginning of 2010.

One For the Road

Has anyone else noticed that sleeping with your secretary at the office Christmas party is a perfect metaphor for the Holiday season as a whole? I didn't think so, but hear me out anyway.

First there is the overall event, filled with glitter, good cheer and lots of drunken hugging. Add to that the pervasive promise of presents, the excited expectation of secrets soon to be revealed, and you're practically bursting with excitement when the affair finally comes to a head. Then, in a brief, orgiastic frenzy, everything is unwrapped and opened, fondled and forgotten or eaten and drunk until, sated, you look around at the evidence of your excess and feel a rising sense of guilt. You begin to wonder where your resolutions vanished to and now wish the whole thing would just go away and let you get on with your life, or at least stop calling you at two o'clock in the morning in a weepy, drunken stupor.

(Allow me to state, for the record, that I don't even have a secretary and have, therefore, not slept with one; I am making these suppositions based on the observations of those people who do and did.)

The accumulation of days now pushing Christmas further and further behind us serve only as a nagging reminder that, A) it's now merely winter, and B) I haven't taken down my Christmas decorations yet. We're currently entering what I like to call the underbelly of the year, that ragged seam between the festive season and the arrival of spring; a time when getting up would be the hardest part of your day provided the rest of the day wasn't so crappy.

All of this is the long way of saying I have those mid-winter blues, and, while I have often remarked (to the irritation of those I left behind in the Great White Northeast) that winters in England are nowhere near as harsh as they are in upstate New York, they are God-awful dark. In addition to that, the British climate makes full use of what little cold it does produce and has, through centuries of diligent practice, long ago perfected the art of seeping into your bones and sucking your soul out through your nostrils. (Even so, I still wouldn't trade a winter here for one in Albany, but I wouldn't mind swapping with someone in, say, Barcelona.)

Winter in England means evening, like an inconsiderate dinner guest, arrives several hours early, when you're dusted with flour, making the hors d'Oeuvres and haven't stepped into the shower yet, while Dawn, the little tart, doesn't sneak in until most responsible people have already started their day, and even then can't be bothered to offer a suitable explanation. The few daylight hours occurring between these events tend to be muted by low clouds, dispiriting drizzle and the occasion, sad attempt at sleet.

And, to make things worse, all around me I see remnants of the erstwhile festive season--languishing decorations, dead, discarded trees and rubbish bins overflowing with shredded ribbons, crumpled wrapping paper and empty beer bottles--which, like the aforementioned secretary, seem determined to hang around even though they no longer have the capacity to inspire joy and serve only as a reminder of our brief, and perhaps misguided, frivolity.

I guess that means I've come full circle and, though I still have more to say on the subject, I suppose I ought to let you off so you can get back to the business of enduring winter. Besides, I think it's about time I took those decorations down.

Yes, Virginia

2009-12-22T20:36:00.000Z

Back in The States, I used to periodically cash in on this brush with greatness: when I was in first grade, Virginia O’Hanlon, who was a friend of our teacher, Mrs. Drum, came to our class near the Christmas Holidays and read her famous letter to us. I was impressed even then. I’m more impressed now. But no one else is, especially now that I live in England. So in an attempt to get some more notoriety from this incidental meeting, I’m taking it upon myself to educate the Brits, and remind the Yanks, of what it’s all about:

In 1897, eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of The Sun (this was a respected newspaper in New York City then, not the rag famous for its page-3 girls) and the response was printed as an unsigned editorial on Sept. 21. The response was the work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church, and has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

He rarely gets any credit for it, however.

Dear Editor:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun it's so.'

Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety-Fifth Street
New York City

Virginia,

Your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

For more information: click here

The Santa

2009-12-18T07:34:00.001Z

My favourite season and my two favourite poems welded into one; what more could I ask?

The Santa
By Edgar Allen Moore

Once upon a yuletide dreary, while my brain with sleep was weary
and sugar plum visions danced in children's heads beyond the bedroom door.
Not a creature here was stirring; mamma in her kerchief was worrying,
I in my winter's cap was touring presents lying on the floor.
Train set, race cars, aircraft carrier and a purple dinosaur;
all in pieces on the floor.

Ah distinctly I remember it was in the chill December
and the moon its eerie light upon the fallen snow did pour.
Presently I heard a clatter, wondering what was the matter,
straight I spied an elf much fatter than any elf I'd seen before.
Drawn by reindeer in a sleigh this elf drew up outside my door.
Parked and sat, and nothing more.

Then this burgundy elf beguiling my wan spirit into smiling
By the jolly countenance and fir trimmed uniform he wore.
“Elf,” I said, “these reindeer brought you, but really don’t you think you ought to
let them go. If PETA caught you, they’d firebomb your house for sure.
Are you immune from PC zealots? Tell me why,” I did implore.
The fat elf smiled. “I’m Santa Claus.”

Then, me thought, the air grew colder, and my flagging spirit grew bolder,
cheered by memories of my pleasures drawn Christmases of yore.
“Santa,” I cried, “these memories hold you, like angel wings they do enfold you,
Sweet Virginia could have told you: doubters tried and failed before
to bend you to their narrow purpose and make you something to abhor.
Quote the Santa, “Never more.”

Be that word our sign of parting, elf or saint, I said, glad heartened.
Whether Coke created or sent by legends from the lusty days of yore,
you remain the true Yule Spirit, Scrooge himself was glad to hear it,
my soul is light, my mind is clear; it sadly was not so before.
But now this light will shine its tiding ever from my bosom’s core
I’ll keep the season evermore.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof - Audience Review

2009-12-10T14:47:00.000Z

This isn't a review site, but I do like to mention some shows and movies I see that I think are notable. In this case, while the production was fine (and some might say superior, what with the voice of Darth Vader playing a lead role) the audience was far more remarkable.

First of all, about fifteen minutes into the first act, when the house was in silent thrall of the drama being enacted on the stage, they let in more people. These people moved through the rows in front of us, behind us and even right up in front of the stage, saying, "Sorry," "Excuse me," and making people stand up to block and drown out the acting.

I'm surprised James Earl Jones didn't stop what he was doing and say, "Okay, you folks take your time getting to your seats and settling in. We'll wait."

As far as I knew, if you showed up late for a performance, tough shit. Wait until the interval, give them a synopsis of the action and then let them in. That will teach them to catch an earlier train next time. My wife and I were an hour early and we came from Sussex.

As if this intrusion wasn't enough, a while later, a mobile phone began to ring, and it belonged to the lady sitting next to us. It was one of those obnoxious musical ring-tones that gets louder and louder and this woman rooted through no less than three bags in a frantic scavenger hunt for it as more and more people became aware of the noise and turned their attention from the stage to where we were sitting.

And then, when the woman finally, finally unearthed her phone, instead of apologetically (and with copious amounts of chagrin) switching it off, she flipped it open, checked who was calling and answered it!

"Hell-o,” she said. “I'm in a theatre, I can't talk."

What the FUCK? She just DID talk!

This left me shaking my head in awe, convinced nothing else could surprise me. But then, during a 5-minute pause between scenes, a stand-up row erupted in the front row.

At least that's what I think it was. There was a sudden and alarming amount of shouting in front of the stage, then everyone in front of us stood up to get a better look. All I got to see was a knot of people surrounding the action and a gaggle of usherettes running around talking into hand mics and listening to earphones as if they were Secret Service members in charge of protecting the President.

If War Horse gave me the best overall theatrical experience I have ever had, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof provided the most interesting audience I have ever had the misfortune of sitting through.

At least the show was good.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

2009-12-05T22:50:00.000Z

I don't really have a post this week (very busy times for all of us, you know) so I thought I'd take advantage of this down time to throw up a hodgepodge of items I had on my list but never got around to writing about.

(You can take "throw up" as a metaphor if you like, but I will try to make this as tasteful as the traditional "First Week of December Turkey Casserole" at the very least.)

Currently, I am engaging in another time-honored holiday tradition called "Waiting in Line at the Post Office." I arrived just after they opened but the queue was already out the door; the only good thing about that was it has, briefly, stopped raining. So while we're here, let's talk about some unconnected trivia:

Ah, the power of my web site! After my last post, more lights have begun appearing around the town—not many, but a few. The black hole that was the Bishopric now has festive lights strung in the trees so it no longer looks like this:

but now looks like this:

How much effort and expense could that have taken? No more than half an hour and £6.00 at Poundland. Yet they had to be shamed into it by my previous blog post. (I know they must have read it and been spurred into action by justifiable guilt; what other explanation could there be?)

In other news, no one here seems to know what 1,000,000,000 is called.

Traditionally, a British billion is a million millions, or 1,000,000,000,000, which is a US trillion. Granted, this is falling out of fashion but it was the standard until a few years ago. However, no one has been able to tell me what increment comes after the American million. If it's not ‘billion,’ then what is it?

My boss, who was a math teacher in a former life, couldn't tell me, so I went to the bank and asked, "Hi, I'm Trish, How Can I Help," but she puzzled over the query and had to retreat to the back room to consult with her mates while the queue stretched out behind me and I apologetically explained that I hadn't meant to take so long, I was only doing it for a joke. (Now you see why my wife doesn't like to come into town with me.)

Eventually, I'm Here To Help Trish returned with the pronouncement:

1,000,000 = Million
1,000,000,000 = Billion
1,000,000,000,000 = Trillion

I thanked her and, in order to keep the queue from turning in to a lynch mob, left without pointing out that the combined knowledge of the entire bank staff was patently wrong. My next stop was Waterstones Book Shop and the Oxford English Dictionary, which unequivocally states that 1,000,000,000,000 is a British Billion, though it does note this is falling out of favor (or, favour, if you will).

It did not, however, tell me what 1,000,000,000 was, and further confused matters by telling me that a British trillion is actually 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, or "a million, million, million."

So what do they call a proper quadrillion? The mystery deepens.

And finally, British clothing is pants. (For those of you light on the lingo, "pants" is a mild insult, as in, "having to work on Thanksgiving Day is pants!") Anyway, I've been on a quest for pants, or underwear, lately because, frankly, the ones I brought over with me nearly eight years ago are starting to show their age. I've tried British Home Stores and several brands from Marks and Spencer but, with one notable exception, they were all, well, pants.

The BHS line fell apart after a few washings, as did one M&S line. One of M&S lines, however, wore well and was every bit as snug and comfy as my traditional fruit-of-the-looms. (If any of you are beginning to suffer from Too Much Information syndrome, I invite you to move along. I won't be insulted, honest; I wouldn't want to hear about your underwear, either.)

American underwear after 7 years

British pants after 7 months

The problem is, I can't find the 'good' line again. I've looked in every M&S I have been in and even wrote down the make, model and serial number for comparison and still cannot find any. They say, "Better to have loved and lost," but I would prefer not having found any good pants than knowing there are perfect pants out there somewhere, hiding from me.

Another fashion anomaly involves shirts:

US Shirt

UK Shirt

Enough said.

British shirts do not come with sleeve sizes. You get a neck size and just deal with it. This makes me look somewhat silly when my cuffs stick out 6 inches from my suit coat sleeves, so one day I came up with what I thought was an ingenious solution: I put rubber bands around my arms just above my elbows to hold the sleeves at their proper length.

This worked well enough, and back at home when I removed my suit jacket, I expected my wife to look at the rubber bands and exclaim what a great idea they were. Instead she just looked puzzled and asked, "Why didn't you borrow mine?"

Apparently, croupier-style arm garters are standard apparel here in Britain. I now do borrow her pair (I had seen them before, I just thought they were some sort of bracelet) and I have to say it is really cool dressing like a Wild West bartender. All I need is the vest and the handlebar moustache.

The queue has moved a bit. I'm nearly inside now and should be out of here in time for lunch. This, you see, is another British tradition—a Christmas queue filled with people mailing packages all over the world and the only time they can do it is between nine and noon on Saturday morning and the Royal Mail sees to it there are never more than two tellers on duty at one time.

Traditions: what would Christmas be without them?

Seriously, if this is true, why are they bragging about it;
why not make the service less complex and confusing instead?

Bah, Humbug!

2009-11-29T20:15:00.000Z

Horsham, the quaint and picturesque market town where I make my home, traditionally kicked off the Christmas Season with a fireworks-infused Christmas Lights Turning-On Ceremony that attracted thousands.

A few years ago, however, the town said the fireworks were too expensive, so they cancelled the ceremony and simply turned on the lights without any fanfare.

This year, however, they have gone a step further, and decided to not even put up any lights to speak of.

The local paper put a brave face on this situation by saying there “fewer Christmas lights” this year. That’s like saying Jordan has a few less IQ points than Einstein:

The Carfax in years past

The Carfax, this year.

Middle Street looking toward West Street in 2003.

The same view today, where the most festive item on the
two streets is the cheerful glow of McDonald’s Golden Arches.

The Bishopric in the glory days.

The Bishopric as it is now, not even any street lights!!!

It is a real shame when a town as famous as Horsham is for festive lights descends to such a miserly display. Other, smaller town have better displays than Horsham does.

Heck, my own flat has a better display than this!

Review: War Horse

2009-11-08T23:10:00.000Z

War Horse is a book by children's author Michael Morpurgo. The book was made into a West End play and my wife and I went to see it this past weekend.

You must see this play.

It was, without question, the most dramatic, moving, thought provoking and technically dazzling piece of theatre I have seen. Ever.

We admittedly benefited from sitting four rows from the stage, where we could feel the vibrations of the horses hooves, experience the shock of the shells, smell the smoke and see the sweat on the faces of the actors. But even if we had been sitting in the balcony I am fairly certain I would still have left the theatre in an exhausted daze.

The technological marvels do not stop with the horses, but they are the major part of it. They become so believable as living creatures that they even had their turns at taking bows to riotous applause. The set, too, was an amazement, and the large cast kept the action flowing flawlessly from scene to scene, going from the carnage of the battlefields to the bucolic tranquility of the farmyard with fluid ease.

If you live anywhere within range of London, you do yourself a disservice if you fail to see this play; it will be an experience that will stay with you long after the applause fades.

Minutes

2009-10-29T21:16:00.001Z

... of the Third Annual UK/US Meeting - Southeast Chapter

No, this isn’t another “24 Hours” post, though if you haven’t posted yours yet, there’s still time.

These are the minutes of the annual meeting of the UK/US Forum members, southeast chapter, more informally known as me, Howard and Molly getting together for a couple of pints. My wife has attended in the past, as has Mrs. Howard and an occasional guest, but the three of us form the core group. And so, finding myself without adult supervision on a weekend in mid-October, I decided to nip over to Lewes for another meeting at the Dorset.

Lewes is a fetching, mid-sized town with a castle, a bustling main street and a river running through its center. It’s friendly, negotiable and has so many landmarks it is impossible to get lost.

I got lost.

Somehow, I missed the castle and the river and ended up walking out of town on the opposite side from where I wanted to be. I eventually had to ask directions from a woman in a Volvo who was kind enough to direct me back toward Lewes’ town center and the Dorset pub.

Lewes. A lovely town, but easy to get lost in. If you're clueless.

One day, I will discover the secret of travelling around Britain without getting lost.

I still managed to arrive at the meeting bang on time and, after order was called (two pints of Harvey’s and a lemonade), we got down to the business at hand. (Once you reach a certain age and imbibe a certain number of drinks, this business generally centers around the appalling state of the young people today; I won’t bore you with details.) Later in the afternoon, however, when the pub suddenly filled with people dressed as cavalry officers, WWI soldiers and smugglers with their trademark striped shirts, discussion turned toward the upcoming Guy Fawkes festivities. And before events became too blurry to recall anything, I learned a thing or two about the Bonfire Night.

Society members in waiting

The first thing I learned was that the guys in the striped shirts were supposed to be smugglers. Prior to this, I was unaware that smugglers had a uniform and that it consisted of a striped shirt. (Good thing I never applied for a job as a smuggler; I would have failed the interview the second I walked through the door wearing a charcoal grey suit and maroon tie.) I also learned that dressing up is a big part of the bonfire celebration, which mirrors our Halloween tradition nicely, though they leave the ritual shake-down of the neighbors to the Americans.

There are, it turns out, a number of Bonfire Societies in Lewes, alone, and Bonfire Society chapters in nearly every town in Sussex (and, for all I know, Britain). In fact, there are so many Bonfire Societies, that they begin having bonfires as early as August. This allows each society to put on a bonfire and invite all the other bonfire societies in the area to the party, which having them all on the same night would preclude. For reasons that I don’t recall, Lewes is the Big Daddy of bonfires and the actual 5th of November Bonfire Night is always held in Lewes and, from all accounts, it is a thing to behold.

A Bonfire Society in action.

If you like a party and don’t mind being in the center of a crowd of about 75 thousand, torch-wielding people, I recommend you go there; it will be an experience you will never forget. If, on the other hand, you shy away from that sort of thing, you’ll have to settle for talking about it in a pub with people who live there, like I do.

When it appeared that the beer garden and pub could not hold any more ersatz smugglers and cavalry officer, they suddenly disappeared.

“The bus must’ve arrived,” Howard explained. “They’re going over to the bonfire in Hastings tonight.”

From there, my meeting notes get a little wooly. The only thing I am certain of is that I managed to find my way back to the train station, and negotiate two connections on my return journey, without getting lost.

I think I’ve finally uncovered the secret of travelling around Britain.

24 Hours: Horsham

2009-10-20T21:41:00.000+01:00

My Friend Marsha wrote a book. (Okay, she’s not really my friend, but as a fellow expat from the Americas – when I say it that way I can include Canadians – and fellow writer, I feel like we’ve connected on a deeper than “exchanged-a-few-emails” level.) It’s called “24 Hours: London” and it goes through a diurnal cycle, listing what you can do, where you can go and how you can entertain yourself during that particular hour (e.g. naked disco dancing at 22:00 -- www.starkersclub.co.uk ).

To help her launch it, I thought I do a tribute post, in the best, “I know a good idea when I steal one” tradition:

24 Hours: Horsham – the Baby Boomer Edition

05:00: What are you doing up? Nothing is open. Go back to bed!

06:00: There’s still nothing open, but the kettle is on. Make yourself some toast and oatmeal.

07:00: Costa Coffee will be open in a while if you want a frothy coffee and a breakfast muffin. McDonalds and Starbucks will be open, too, but don’t go there, not unless you’re happy to feed the American corporate giants.

08:00: A nice morning stroll along the Causeway to St. Mary’s churchyard. Nothing stirs a bit of joie de vivre like spending half an hour or so communing with dead people.

09:00: Time to queue up outside the Royal Mail office with the pensioners. Or you can queue up outside of Waterstones and vie for a seat at the Santa Fe café.

10:00: Swan Walk Mall is in full swing now; time to do your bit to help Britain out of the recession.

11:00: Elevenses at the Black Olive. Try their bacon butty, it is to die for.

12:00: Have a walk around the Forum and admire the sundial, dedicated by her Majesty the Queen. While standing next to it, ask passers-by if they have the time and tell them that the sundial is broken and is stuck on 6:37 PM.

13:00: Wander through picturesque Horsham park; you can linger by the bandstand and have a light lunch at the Café in the Park or sit on a bench to watch the children in the playground.

14:00: Uh oh! Here comes PCSO Davenport. Someone has complained about a pervert sitting on a park bench leering at the children; time to move on.

15:00: There is still time to pick up a bale of toilet paper and a sack of crisps at Poundland. Bring lots of change.

16:00: Have a browse through Beales and stop off at Café Nova on the first floor, just to admire the look of exquisite boredom on the faces of the waitresses and marvel at how long it can take a coffee shop to produce a cup of coffee.

17:00: Five o’clock; time to roll up the sidewalks. If you haven’t bought it yet, it’s too late now.

18:00: You have your pick of restaurants on East Street—Horsham’s own Restaurant Row; from the plain to the posh, it’s there. And if you’re really feeling the pinch, you can find a bargain dinner at the chippie, Panda House Chinese Take-away or the KFC on the Bishopric. Dine early and you’ll beat the rush.

19:00: Just enough time for a quiet pint at the Stout House.

20:00: Thanks to the Nanny State, it’s back home for a Bolivar and brandy on the balcony.

21:00: If you have Freeview you can get channel Fiver and watch CSI, CSI, CSI, …

22:00: …and CSI…

23:00: A nice cup of tea and a good book in bed.

24:00: A comfy pillow and a warm duvet.

01:00: You may find you’ll need to get up for a wee about now.

02:00 – 04:00: What do you care? You should be asleep like a normal person!

Grace Darling

2009-10-18T14:12:00.001+01:00

To me, one of the best, unexpected side-effects of living in Britain is that memories from my youth are often confronted with their reality here. And while reality can sometimes be disappointing, it is always a thrill to find myself walking down Drury Lane (where, if anyone had any sense they would open a pub called “The Muffin Man”) or playing “Pooh Sticks” on the actual Pooh bridge in the original Hundred Acre Wood, or standing on the bank of the river where Virginia Wolfe drowned herself.

Great Britain, it seems, figured large in my early life, which was likely due in equal parts to my grandfather having been born there and the fact that, until very recently, they ruled the greater part of the planet. In fact, I can’t think of any other country I might have moved to that played a more prominent role in my upbringing, with the possible exception of Israel (“Is that the REAL Sea of Galilee? Can I walk on it?”)

Accordingly, while we were on holiday in Craster, we took a jaunt up the coast to Bamburg where I came face-to-face with that quintessential heroine, Grace Darling.

I knew of this courageous, northern maiden from a song on the Limelighter’s Through Children’s Eyes album, which happened to be in my family’s meagre record collection and which I played nearly continuously from the age of 6 to about 13 when I took up cow-tipping (we didn’t have cable TV or Game Boys back then; you found your amusements where you could).

The specific song from the album was entitled, appropriately enough, “Grace Darling” and was a humorous, audience participation song about a young girl who braves a storm to rescue nine drowning sailors over the objections of her cowardly father. The song held a particular fascination for me because, despite the overtly humorous presentation, my mother told me it was true, which fired my imagination. At least until I took up cow-tipping.

Fast forward, um, a number of years. I’m in Bamburg, and there is Grace Darling, the original, the one and only. Not surprisingly, the truth of her story varies somewhat from the humorous song of my youth, but I was still pleased to meet her:

Grace Darling was born in Bamburg and, at a very young age, moved to the Longstone Lighthouse with her family. At 4 Am on the 7th of September, 1838, the Forfarshire—a 150-ton steamship—sank after crashing into the rocks offshore. At 7 AM Grace, who was 22 at the time, spotted nine survivors clinging to the rocks. She and her father then set out to rescue them.

If there was any truth to the idea that Mr. Darling was anything less than daring, it was probably due to his reluctance to put his daughter at risk. As it was, they both set out and rowed through the gale, reaching the men about an hour later. They took five of them back and then her father and two of the survivors rowed back out for the remaining four.

Although it wasn’t quite the single-handed rescue that modern myth espouses, it was enough to capture the admiration of a (one must suppose) fairly bored nation. Offers of gifts, money, proposals of marriage and opportunities to take her story on the road and perform it for audiences in London poured in. But Grace, a modest and shy girl, turned them all down, refusing to prostitute herself and her story. She continued to live with her family at the lighthouse and died four years later of tuberculosis.

The Grace Darling Memorial; notice the oar at her side.

Maybe she should have taken her chances with the road show.

Seems they made a prostitute out of her after all.

The Tour; a Reminiscence

2009-10-14T07:57:00.002+01:00

The Tour is over, so now it’s time to sit back, relax, pour myself a big glass of Pinot Noir and reminisce about those halcyon days of travelling the world.

I have to say, The Tour was one of the best ideas I stole from people who are smarter and better at marketing than I am; it’s cheap, simple and has the potential to introduce you to a much wider audience. And it might have actually worked if I had kept in mind that it was supposed to be a promotional tour. As it happened, I met so many great people and began having such a good time that I became caught up in the adventure and usually forgot to mention the book.

Still, it was very worthwhile, and as I sit here sipping my noir, I can look back on some memorable moments and interesting tour statistics:

- Visits: 26
- Furthest: this was a tie between Suzer and Vicki Gray, both in Australia
- Closest: Marsha, from London
- Most Memorable: sitting on Wendy’s porch drinking mint juleps
- Most Fun: going on an outing with Jen and her Girl Guides
- Most Relaxing: this is a tie between Andy Mont in Tenerife, Paul Allen in Catalunya and Debs in Murcia; I love sitting in the sun drinking beer
- Most Exotic: being hosted by an Azeri (Scary Azeri) in London
- Most Hectic: visiting Kat and her family on the USAF Base in Suffolk
- Most Ironic: posting a virtual tour post while actually being in the place I claimed to be (Brainard, NY)
- Second Most Ironic: visiting Northumberland, then going home and posting from Bizzywig’s blog as if I were in Northumberland
- Most Amazing Coincidence: posting about an unsung fingerprint expert on Brit Fancy’s blog and finding out she was the great-great-granddaughter of the man I wrote about
- Biggest Shock: showing up at Mickey’s place in Massachusetts, prepared for a bloke weekend of drinking beer and catching some American football on the tube, only to discover Mickey is not a guy but an attractive woman

It is also worthy of note that, of the 26 people who hosted me, 23 one of them were woman. I don’t know quite what to make of that, but it sure was nice.

And one final Tour statistic:
- Books sold: 3

C’mon people, you’re not keeping your end up!

Seriously, thanks again to everyone involved for making this a success. Now I’ll have to look around for another good idea to steal.

Thanks and Good-bye from
The 2009 KINDNESS of STRANGERS TOUR

Michael Harling is the author of
“Postcards From Across the Pond – dispatches from an accidental expat”
“Laugh out loud funny regardless of which side of the pond you call home. Bill Bryson move over, there’s a new American expat in town with a keen sense of humor.”
-- Jeff Yeager, author of “The Ultimate Cheapskate”

Buy the Book: http://www.lindenwald.com/booksale.htm
Follow the Tour: http://www.lindenwald.com/thetour.htm
Visit the Home Page: http://postcardsfromacrossthepond.blogspot.com/

Craster, the Castle and Beyond

2009-10-04T17:23:00.005+01:00

Like many of the towns and villages in this coastal corner of the Northeast, Craster has a castle. And a golf course. As near as I can tell, both are the “must have” features of any successful municipality and, thanks to an uncharacteristically sunny day, we explored both on a wander along the Coastal Path.

Every town I have ever been in has three guys who seem to be paid by the Council to hang around to add local color and enhance the atmosphere. These are the guys who do this in Craster.
Craster’s castle dominates the town but sits a comfortable distance away, separated from everyday village life—and busloads of tourists—by a kissing gate and a picturesque expanse of sheep pasture. It’s a lovely stroll and, with the sun shining and the surf pounding and the sheep staring, it’s not hard to imagine yourself transported in time to the castle’s heyday, making your crepuscular commute with the rest of the villagers to muck out the horse stalls, scrape the fish-guts off the scullery floor for the preparing of the communal fish stew, or to work in the English Heritage Gift Shop.

Dunstanburg castle, a bit of a “fixer-upper.”
As castles go, Dunstanburgh is a bit of a "fixer-upper." It also isn't very old; it was not begun until 1313 and, while impressive in its day, it was never very important. The reason for its construction was mainly to keep up with the Joneses (in this case, the Joneses being the King) and by the 1500's was already being described as a ruin. Frankly, there isn’t a lot to see, but it’s only £3.50 to get in (free for English Heritage or National Trust members), the grounds are expansive and the views are stunning. And there’s a gift shop.

Just beyond Dunstanburg Castle is Dunstanburg Golf Course, which the locals have kept in much better nick over the years. Apparently people in this area place more importance on hitting little balls with big sticks than on providing comfort and wealth for the local Earl. Or maybe they were just so chuffed at that the course was opened to the public after the king foreclosed on the castle that they adopted it as their own.

Protective as they are about it, they were not successful in keeping the Coastal Path out and a trek along The Path includes a walk through the course, minus balls, of course. Another intrusion they had to acquiesce to was the insertion of coastal defenses during WWII, though it must have grated on them to have to spoil their lovely golf course with Pill boxes just for the sake of national security.

Dunstanburgh golf couse, where the bunkers are real bunkers.
Craster itself is a picturesque, tiny and isolated village, accessed by a single, dead-end road, consisting of a small network of streets lined with tightly packed houses, a single pub, restaurant, castle and the looming presence of the sea. When you walk the dark and deserted streets in the evening, you can imagine this secluded and vulnerable community to be a place where pirates operate (as proved by my last post) and where whispers of unspeakable crimes are investigated by the sole, stalwart constable or an aged spinster cum amateur detective.

Craster, splendid isolation or a hot bed of foul play?
All in all a pleasant place and a great location for a quiet getaway; just be sure to lock your doors.

Sure sign of quality lodgings: wooden hanger without anti-theft devices.

Here there be Pirates

2009-09-27T08:33:00.005+01:00

This week we’re in Northumberland*, in a holiday cottage on the coast. Very scenic, very relaxing and very isolated. (* We’re not really in Northumberland. I had been planning to post in real-time from here, but after arriving, I discovered there is no mobile phone signal or Internet connection so these posts are going to have to go up after I return home.)

The drive up took about eight hours, but that, in itself, was part of the holiday. The scenery along the west coast is stunning and, being in no hurry, it was a relaxing day. We arrived in Alnwick (pronounced AN’ ick) about 2 PM and, being an hour early for check-in, decided to stop there for a nose around.

Our first realization that we were in The North came while doing a bit of shopping at the local Morrisons. One of the things I like about England is the laid back nature of life in general, but I’m from The South, where people are taciturn and enjoy getting their weekly shopping done in peace and unimpeded. Up here, however, the supermarket seems to be a grand place to catch up with your friends, hold lengthy, group conversations in the middle of the aisles, or just go for a languid and, oh so very slow, stroll around the produce section. We, being rude southerners, could barely contain our impatience and had to rudely say, “Excuse me,” several times so we could squeeze by to get at the fruit juice.

I was surprised to discover that at least some of the Alnwickians are pirates—or maybe they were just preparing for International Speak Like A Pirate Day—but later, on the telly, the news reports confirmed that pirates still operate in the waters off these coasts. Shiver me timbers!

Pirates! Avast me beauty; prepare to be boarded!
Alnwick town center.
Alnwick is a picturesque market town and the day we were there was uncharacteristically lovely. We found out later that it has been raining and grey for weeks and we happened to arrive on the first nice day in a long time. So far, so good.

We wandered around a while, scoped out the gardens and castle for possible, future activities and headed even further north to the tiny village of Craster and our holiday cottage.

Dunstanburgh Castle, as seen from our bedroom window.
Renting holiday cottages is one of the best things about living in Britain. For a surprisingly reasonable fee you can rent a self-catering cottage (in case that doesn’t translate into US English, “self-catering” means it has a full kitchen) in the most beautiful locations. (And if you can’t afford the reasonable fee, you can always go to the Holiday Park down the road, but you don’t get the fireplace, the Juliet balcony in the bedroom and herfing deck out back.)

View from the Herfing Deck.
This cottage is, without question, the most well-appointed we have ever stayed in. They have all been comfortable and filled with ample dishes, flatware and cooking implements, but they are usually mismatched, camping-quality items, which is what I would expect. This cottage, however, has full, quality sets of dishes, cooking paraphernalia and flatware. The kitchen also has a stone-tiled floor, a Belfast sink and a four-slice toaster, so I think we’ll be happy here for the next week.

Even though it had already been a full day, after settling in we took a stroll around the village to reconnoitre the local castle and enjoy the sea views. The area is lousy with castles; it seems every town has one. Some were built by William the Conqueror but this area needed a surplus to keep those pesky Scots in line and protect the locals from periodic Viking raids.

It’s dusk now, and I’m on the herfing deck with a cigar and a beverage watching the ocean. It’s remarkably soothing; I think I could sit here all week watching it roll back and forth in its hypnotic rhythm. I need to get one of these in my back garden; but only if I can find one without pirates.

The Parley Partners

2009-09-20T11:53:00.004+01:00

My wife and I travelled to a little town near Hampton Court recently to meet up with my Pond Parleys writing partner, Toni Hargis.

Toni and I have been in contact for ages—in Internet terms, that is; in reality, it’s been about two years—but we have never met. On her recent holiday to Britain, however, she told me she could meet us at a pub in Surrey not too far from where we live in Sussex. So, after printing out a Google map and a set of directions, we set off in the car confident in our ability to find this place.

What could possibly go wrong?

I am probably the only person in Britain who does not own a Sat-Nav, even though I am unquestionably the person who most needs one. After seven years, I have yet to drive anywhere without taking at least one wrong turn. And the most frustration thing is I can’t even blame it on British roads; I was like this in America, too.

I can’t tell you how many times I set off, looking for a house or a business in a land where people still stop what they are doing to watch passing cars, on a trip that involved maybe two or three turns at best, only to come face-to-face with a sign reading, “Welcome to Vermont.”

When you realize that the sorts of roads I travelled in the US are to British roads what simple addition is to analytic geometry, and that, when faced with an option, I will always take the wrong one (even if my wife is sitting next to me shouting, “Right! Turn RIGHT!” I will inevitably turn left) you will appreciate why I always add ample “getting lost” time to my journey schedule. The formula is two hours of “Lost Time” for each hour of travel, unless I’m going somewhere near London, then it’s three.

US Roads
UK Roads
So we set off and within minutes were hopelessly lost. We then played the game where I drive around randomly while my wife attempts to pin-point us on the Google map or recognize some road name from the print-out of directions. Occasionally, she would see something familiar, we would get back on track, and then I would get lost again.

Soon after, I stopped at a petrol station and bought a Surrey Street Atlas, which at least gave us more favourable odds in the “driving around randomly” game. The strategy ultimately evolved into a manoeuvre sort of like sailing against the wind, where we would drive in a generally correct direction until we were very wide of the mark and then turn to the other direction, hoping to move marginally closer to our target.

Eventually we arrived, and right about on time (thanks to my formula).

Meeting someone you “know” through the web is always interesting. You wonder if they’re going to be a plonker, or if they are going to think you are a plonker but what generally happens is you greet each other like long-lost friends and then sit down and chat as if you’ve known each other for years.

And this was how our meeting went. There were no awkward moments trying to decide if we really were the people we had come there to meet (you know, that “blind date” sort of unease). Granted, I made it easy for her by wearing my “Postcards From the Pond” tee shirt, but even without that we would have recognized one another right off.

Mike Harling and Toni Hargis – Team Pond Parley; together for the first time.
We chatted for a couple of hours over a pint or two of shandy and then parted—Toni on to her European holiday, and my wife and I back to Sussex. Getting back home, I was assured, would be a doddle; all I had to do was follow the A3 into Guildford and then the A281 home. What could possibly go wrong?

Within minutes, we were hopeless lost.

State of the Nation

2009-09-11T10:52:00.002+01:00

When did we lose our sense of humor? First the Candy Man*, then Rocky the Rooster and now a group of doctors and nurses have their heads on the block. Their crime: boredom, poor judgement and Facebook. (Yes, a recipe for disaster if ever there was one, but in this case it’s not as bad as it could be.)

Here’s the setup: a group of seven doctors and nurses working the night shift decided to take part in a Facebook contest wherein you are to submit photos of yourselves lying face down in unusual places. So in the lull between stitching up knife wounds and digging plague pits for Swine Flu victims, they sneaked into a quiet corner and took some photos of each other lying on “unusual” things, like a gurney. (Really, someone lying on a gurney in a hospital? You could die laughing.)

Then they posted them on Facebook. Someone saw them. That someone turned them in. Now they’ve been suspended pending an investigation and may all be fired.

Okay, so they broke the rules. Now, I doubt there is a specific rule that says, “you shall not take photos of yourselves lying face down on gurneys for the purpose of posting to social networks,” but I’m sure there is something in the Employee Handbook that covers this sort of thing. Even so, would they be fired if someone caught them lying face down on a gurney. Of course not. Would they be fired if someone snapped a photo of them while they were lying face down on a gurney? I doubt it. So the reason everyone’s knickers are in a twist must be due to the photos appearing on Facebook.

Again, fair enough; it’s unprofessional and an embarrassment to the hospital that they hired people with such limited social skills. So haul them into HR, browbeat them for a bit, hand them an Official Warning and send them back to work. Then have a quiet laugh about it after you show them out the door.

That’s what normal people might do, but in this enlightened age it’s all, “patient’s lives at risk,” and “”Heath and Safety violations,” and “cost the tax payer thousands, no millions, no BILLIONS in lost wages and security and public trust and they are probably terrorists!” (Okay, I made that last bit up.)

It was a prank; get over yourselves.

Why, oh why do we have to blow everything up to such gargantuan proportions; don’t we have enough real dangers to tackle? When did we become such curmudgeons? When did we turn into our parents?

You may think it odd that I care so much, but I’m a humorist, and I see my livelihood slipping away before it even becomes very lively. What’s more worrying is, the way things are going, it may not do me any good to simply stop making jokes when I notice fewer and fewer people laughing and more and more people calling the police. I’ve got a book out, remember, I’m on record as being funny; they may institute some sort of retroactive humor law and I’ll find myself being swept up in a “Comedy Cull” for an off-color reference I made about Margaret Thatcher and a Doberman ten years ago.

So lighten up. Free the Facebook Seven, get a dictionary and look up the difference between “Prank” and “Malicious Intent.”

The mirth of future generations hangs in the balance.

* The victory of the Candy Box over The Council may be short-lived. I just found out they are now planning to outlaw ALL A-Boards, meaning that no shop—including the Candy Box—will be allowed to put up signs advertising headlines. It’s a draconian measure to get at one guy, but humor must be stamped out at all costs, and if innocent civilians become collateral damage, well, that’s a small price to pay.

Wankers.

Adding to my Fifteen Minutes

2009-08-25T21:15:00.001+01:00

I've graduated from the BBC Five Live night shift to a day spot on BBC Oxford. Fewer listeners, but at least they were awake.

You only have a week to listen to my five-minutes of fame:

Click to listen and move the time line to 32:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00437cj

And The Hits Just Keep on Coming

2009-08-23T16:22:00.003+01:00

Yup, my crap landlord is at it again:

FROM: Grainger Residential Management

Dear Mr. Michael. Harling,

Please contact our office to discuss your outstanding administration fee. We cannot accept your signed Tenancy Agreement without the fee so if we do not hear from you in the next two days we will start proceedings to gain possession.

Hannah Devine
For and on behalf of
Grainger Residential Management Ltd.
St. John's House
Barrington Road
Altrincham WA14TJ
0161 929 3160
www.graingerplc.co.uk

FROM: Michael Harling

Dear Ms Devine,

It was lovely speaking to you on the phone this morning. I trust our conversation will result in my not returning from work on Monday evening to find my door bolted and padlocked. A check for £90.00 is enclosed.

I am compelled to say, however, your assertion that you "cannot" accept my Tenancy Agreement is, to put it in the best possible light, a lie. You've done so for the past seven years. What you mean to say is, "we will not process your Tenancy Agreement, and will toss you out on the street unless you pay us ninety quid." I don't know what you people call that, but to me it sounds like extortion.

If I went up to someone and told him I was going to throw him out of his house unless he paid me £90, I would go to jail. And rightly so. But as a business, you're not bound by the constraints of fairness, decency or, apparently, law. The only binding contract I have signed with you is the one where I agree to pay you X amount of money per month in exchange for you maintaining the building and its grounds and allowing us live here. For the past seven years the rent has been paid on time and in full. We have been very conscientious about that; you, on the other hand, seem to regard the contract in a more casual manner, but that's a different issue.

The ninety quid is more than just an arbitrary bill sent out by a company looking for free money; it's a slap in the face, an insult and a worry for the future.

In the seven years we have been here, we have endeavoured to be good tenants:
    - My wife (and a few other concerned tenants) spends her own time and money to tend the flowerbeds in front of your flats; the flowerbeds not adopted by tenants are fetchingly overgrown with bindweed and thistles. (ref: Different Issue)
    - We had to pay to carpet your flat because you refused to, even though the existing carpets were very old when we moved in and had become dangerously frayed and rucked up. You eventually did agree to pay a portion of the bill. (ref: Different Issue)
    - We had to pay to paint your flat because you refused to. You did agree to pay us for materials if we sent in the receipts; we sent in the receipts, but you never paid us. (Ref: Different Issue)
    - This weekend, we are going to paint the bathroom—we're not even going to attempt to get you to do it or pay for it.

And now you decide we need to give you an extra £90 for basically no reason, aside from your promised to not allow us to continue to live here unless we do.

So we've paid it, but I fear our capitulation will only serve to encourage you. Will the "fee" be £180 next year, or £250? Will we be required to chip in for petrol and supply tea and scones if we call out a workman?

In the future, when you decide to make up capricious fees, please disguise them as rent increases; that way I will feel as if I have simply been ripped off instead of robbed outright.

Cordially,

Michael Harling

Remembering Denny

2009-08-02T20:50:00.004+01:00

To commemorate the passing of Harry Patch, the last fighting Tommy, I am posting another chapter form my as-yet-unpublished memoir, Memorial Day, the only about my mother's father, Denny. He has little in common with Mr. Patch with the exception that they both fought in The Great War, were wounded and returned to their civilian lives to get on with it as best they could.

Memorial Day 1967

Shortly after my parents moved into the house on Rabbit Lane, my father decided a hedge was in order. After carefully surveying his property, he planted a row of lilacs a full thirty feet inside of our western boundary. Not content with that (or, perhaps, in possession of an abundance of lilac bushes), he planted yet another row which cut our still-ample back yard in half, then finished off the masterpiece by lining the southern boundary with a mixture of lilacs and pine trees.

This arrangement led to our referring to the property in terms such as "the back yard,"the back back yard," and "the back back back yard," the latter being an area which, until reclaimed in my later teenage years, remained a mysterious, unexplored and impenetrable wilderness.

I often wondered if my father's erratic boundaries were the result of an honest mistake or a ploy to keep him from having to mow so much yard. None of us minded. It did, after all, also keep us from having to mow so much yard and, as everything west of our bucolic boundary remained fair game for Ray Meyers and his tractors, we were able to glean that portion of the potato/corn field which was planted on our land without injury to conscience.

What my father had counted on was for these trees and bushes to grow into a full, leafy hedge. What he had not counted on was for them to continue growing once they had reached optimum size. By the time I reached my teens, these tiny lilac bushes had climbed twenty feet or more into the sky before sagging under their own weight and spawning rapidly growing shoots which encroached further and further onto our property until the back yard (and the back back yard) began to look like a low-budget remake of The Day of the Triffids.

During my childhood, these large (but not yet enormous) bushes were a constant and integral part of our lives. They provided ample shade during the hot summers, and served as an excellent hiding place during games of tag, hide-and-seek. In the fall they became a barrier against the poisonous clouds, which Ray Meyers sprayed over his potato fields to kill the vines and ready the roots for harvest. in the winter they helped break the wind which blew across the barren fields, and in the spring, they bloomed.

For the entire month of May the air in and around our house was thick with the scent of lilac. The bushes practically exploded with blossoms. We brought them to school, decorated our home with them and on Memorial Day, just before they began to fade, my mother would cut a huge bouquet to bring to the graveyard.

I would bend the taller boughs to within her reach and she would snip the flower-laden branches with her green-handled garden shears. When she had gathered a fair amount, she would wrap the cut ends in sodden paper towels, mold aluminum foil around the base and stick the entire, unwieldy creation into an empty mayonnaise jar.

The actual cemetery visits remained a relatively small segment of a day filled with parades, cookouts and the ritual first swim of the summer season, but they were pervaded with a sense of solemnity, a feeling that this act was one of the few things my mother did that she cared deeply about.

I know my father drove us there and that my brothers and sisters would have had to have come with us, but I only remember my mother and myself walking across the expansive graveyard, lilacs in hand, toward the far corner where her father lay under an unassuming headstone--a flat marker which noted his rank and participation in The Great War. I welcomed the walks, for during them she would talk of her father, his origins and adventures and where his wanderings had taken him and his family. No single trip stands out in my mind--for the only variations from one year to the next were my age, the details of the narrative. I am left, therefore, with a collage of stories, molded haphazardly together into an incomplete whole, as if looking into my mother's past through a shattered window.

My grandfather, she told me, was born in northern Vermont on November 11, 1895, and christened Benjamin Franklin Denison, the namesake--so the legend goes--of his great-great-uncle, Benjamin Franklin. Nobody ever called him Benjamin; to his family he was Frank, while all his friends called him 'Denny.'

Denny was an affable, intelligent character with many diverse abilities but a short attention span. He never held on to one job for very long and appeared to make a career out of drifting. He was fond of drink, and of his uncertain origins: "I'm Scotch-Irish, French-Canadian, Dutch and English," he would say whenever asked about his ancestry.

It is rumored that, prior to 1916, he was in the Canadian Army and that he had also spent some time with General "Black Jack" Pershing chasing Poncho Villa around Mexico. At the age of 22 he married 17-year-old Ava Stafford and went off with a machine-gun battalion to fight in World War I.

I know very little about Denny's adventures on the battlefields of France, but I assume they were as morbid and mundane as anyone else's. I do know that he was overcome by mustard gas and had to be returned to the sates for a time to recover. He was given a purple heart and sent back to the front where, on his 23rd birthday (November 11, 1918) word spread through the trenches that the armistice had been signed. A friend of Denny's, upon hearing the news, leaped up for joy, and was shot dead by a German sniper who was not as well-informed on current events.

Denny went back to Vermont, fathered a son and managed to stay married until 1928, when John Stafford--Blacksmith for the village of Lyndonville, Vermont, and father of Denny's bride, Ava--decided that his little girl had had enough of her hard-drinking, ne'er-do-well husband. What he did for a living during those years in unclear and ultimately unimportant for, whatever he was doing, he supplemented his income through moonlighting (literally) as a rum-runner--a quaint, prohibition-era custom in which one would drive a specially designed car across the Canadian boarder, fill its secret tanks with whiskey and then drive it back. The trick was not getting caught, an ability which Denny seemed to have mastered.

After his divorce, he wound up in New York City where, on September 7, 1931, he married my grandmother, Jeannette Wacker.

My mother was born in Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx but, soon after that, her family moved to Jamaica in Queens. They were still in New York City when the world went to war a second time. My mother had a vivid memory of being in a theater on December 7, 1941, with her sister when the lights went up and the theater manager announced the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

"He told us that all service men were to report to their bases immediately," my mother, who would have been eight at the time, recollected, "and about two thirds of the theater stood up and left."

Men were scarce during the war, which made jobs easy to come by. This was the only period of relative prosperity my mother could recall. By 1944, Denny had gotten a job at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and was earning good money. Then suddenly, and unaccountably, they left.

After living the first eleven years of her life in the sprawling city of New York, my mother found herself in the wilds of Upstate New York. Denny, through the recommendation of some friends, had gotten a job in a textile mill in the village of Valatie. The job was short-lived, for he developed an allergic reaction to the dye used in the wool, and the family wound up living in a shack on a farm in Nassau where Denny had gotten a job as a handy-man.

The following year, Jeannette died at the age of 46. The family took her body back to New Jersey for burial, then returned to the farm in Nassau. Later, Denny moved them into a summer cottage on the eastern side of Kinderhook Lake where they lived for two years. My mother told stories of dire poverty, of no running water, of waking up in the winter time and having to break ice off the top of the pitcher to get water to wash with, of outhouses and hand-pumps, of never having money and always being cold, and of Denny, who through it all, retained his eccentric ways and somehow won the adoration of my mother while she condemned everything he did.

But none of those stories ever came out in the graveyard; they were reserved for those times when, lost in reverie, she caught herself comparing the conditions she was living in to those awful years she had thought were behind her. Only then did she hint at the bitterness she felt for the life her father had provided. In the graveyard, however, he was a hero, and a poet, and an artist, and a loving parent--the only one she had ever really known.

And so, each year on Memorial Day, she brought to this man who had raised her in poverty and bequeathed her to poverty, the only things she had in abundance--a bunch of handpicked lilacs and her silent devotion.

Montreal

2009-07-19T14:57:00.005+01:00

Montreal is not as compact and quaint as Halifax, but it is more diverse and vibrant, full of shopping centers, restaurants, historic sites and other diversions. The old center is picturesque and, though not as closely resembling a European capital as Quebec, it is nonetheless filled with old and interesting buildings, quirky boutiques and cobbled streets.

Montreal at night

We took a walk from our hotel to the center and around the piers and—in that relatively small area in a short amount of time—saw the preparations for the Jazz Festival, a raucous street party featuring a mini Mini rally and some loud music, two wedding parties, some lovely old buildings and one stunning church. If we had more time (we're leaving tomorrow morning) we could visit Mount Royal, the World's Fair locations and go on a river cruise. It is definitely a city that merits a second look.

Montreal--the old
And it is, by golly, a clean city. The Canadians are a tidy lot and very proud of their country, and it shows in the way they don't use it as a communal litterbin, like they do in Britain.

It's also a very polite city. A brochures we read featured a humorous list of ways to blend in with the natives and one of them was, "Strike up conversations with complete strangers." And it is true; if we happen to remain in the shared proximity of a local for more than, oh, five seconds, they start talking to us. This makes queuing at shops, waiting at pedestrian crossings or making eye contact with the couple at the next table in the restaurant an illuminating experience.

Montreal--the new
The one unfriendly encounter we had was in a boutique in the historic district. We went in, as is our habit, with my wife leading the way and instructing me to feel this or that item and holding up different outfits for me to assess, when a short, perky lady appeared at our side.

"Let me tell you how this store is operated," she said, then launched into actual instructions regarding the browsing methodology they apparently employed in their particular boutique. It wasn't startlingly unique, and it made us wonder why we needed training. It also made us leave the store.

The bums—my litmus test of a city—are plentiful, but polite. Mostly they just stand unobtrusively next to the buildings holding out a hat or a cup. They rarely say anything, but there are more than there should be in a city so outwardly prosperous.

Attractive as the downtown area is, the ring around it is heavily populated by high-rise concrete structures—no doubt hastily constructed in preparation for the 1976 Olympics—that would look more at home in a former Soviet Republic. Our hotel is one such building but, thankfully, the communist-inspired architecture is only skin deep; the inside is elegant.

Our room is up on the twenty-first floor. It has a spacious bathroom, a kitchen, a dining area and a sunken living room complete with writing desk, coffee table, sofa and chairs. It also has a balcony, which has allowed me to engage in an activity I like to call "Extreme Herfing."

Both my wife and I are afraid of heights. She stepped out onto the balcony once and refuses to do it again, but I love a challenge, so over the course of our stay, I moved a comfy chair out there and managed to smoke a cigar while teetering on the edge of terror.

I don't know how many of you share this particular phobia with me but being separated from a 300-foot drop by nothing but a railing produces a feeling similar to a low-grade electric shock running continuously through your bowels. It was strangely enjoyable to engage in my traditionally relaxing ritual while, at the same time, having my nerves stretched tight as banjo strings.

Extreme Herfing
And for your information, if the railing had not been there, I would not have even opened the balcony doors.