Coming up to the 4^th of July now, one of the two holidays that never fails to make me nostalgic for the States (the other is Thanksgiving).  I supposed that’s because, unlike a lot of the other holidays, rather than being celebrated, but in a different fashion, they are totally ignored: no parade, no Independence Day barbecues, no pool parties in 90 degree heat and, most noticeable of all, no fireworks.

There is nothing like sitting on 15^th green of the local golf course with 437 of your closest friends, stuffed with hotdogs and potato salad and feeling the glow of a soon-to-be-major sunburn, and watching the fireworks light up the sky across the Hudson river.  Or, if you choose to brave the crowds of downtown Albany, you can watch the show exploding and booming directly over your head while “Proud t o be an American” blares over the loud speakers, and there is nothing like that, either.

Of course, in Britain there is, quite literally, nothing like that.

So thoughts of home are in the forefront of my mind these days, but this year the weather co-operated by giving me a tiny taste of a real Upstate New York summer in the form of a two-day heat wave and a thunder storm.

Summer, in Britain, usually consists of about three hot days.  We just had two so we’re looking forward to an early autumn.  The heat wave came at the end of a protracted period of rainy, cool weather, so we were all ready for it, expecting it and looking forward to it.  The Met Office promised it for this past weekend, and when my wife and I went shopping last Friday, the store was noticeably crowded with shopper buying a remarkable amount of groceries.  I can’t be sure whether this was to stock up on backyard-party fare, or to get the shopping out of the way before it was too hot to be arsed, or a mad dash to buy anything before the abnormal heat brought the British Empire to its knees (again), but whatever the reason (my money is on option number 3) they were all there and a sense of anticipate hung in the air.

Saturday, however, dawned disappointingly cloudy and drizzly and did not improve much until the evening.  Then Sunday made up for it with full-fledge, hot, humid, stifling summer weather which lasted through the night and into Monday (just to give the people a who had complained to their families all day Sunday about how hot is was a chance to complain to their work-mates, as well).  Then, at 4 o’clock Monday afternoon, summer ended with a five-minute (but, admittedly respectable) thunder storm.

Still, it did me good; the stifling heat hung around just long enough to remind me why I like the summers in Sussex, and the booms, cracks and lashing rain were reminiscent (however briefly)of the thrills and excitement of an actual thunderstorm.  An hour later, as I walked to the bus, the air was cool and thick with the scent of recent rain.  It felt good; it felt like New York.

Then I arrived home.  The news was on.  The top story was about “the storm.”  They reported on the storm’s path, showed where lightening had struck, displayed photos people had sent in and cut to on-location cameras for eyewitness interviews.  In all, they devoted ten minutes of air time to a storm that had lasted half that long.  Admittedly, they do cover storms in New York, but they have to be something special, although, given the rarity of thunder storms here, I supposed that was something special.  It was, however, not like New York.

So summer is behind us, the temperatures are back in the more seasonal seventies and Monday is the 4^th of July.  Experience tells me it will be much like any other day and will likely pass by without any notice.  It would be nice to see some fireworks, but I think those five stormy minutes of yesterday afternoon brought all the flashes and bangs I am going to see for some time.

Enjoy the 4^th of July, where ever you are; and if you are an American, enjoy your Independence Day celebrations.

The paperback version of my book, More Postcards From Across the Pond—dispatches from an accidental expat, is being released on the 4^th of July (how patriotic of me).

Find it on:

Amazon.com

Amazon UK

Smashwords

Dispatches From the South – Not Like New York is a post from: Anglotopia.net

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). (Editor’s Note: I’m not afraid to use 2012 Olympics)

(Side Note: As I write this, it is 407 days until the, um, Big Event in London.  If you want to know how far away it is now, check the countdown clock:  http://www.theolympicgamescountdown.com/.  And have a look at the text beneath the counters.)

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 resulting lawsuit by the UK Olympic Committee.  The results were predictable: 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 the words “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.  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, alas, the US has hosted The Games recently so they let the UK 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.

Preparing for the 100 metre Hop-Scotch relay

Sadly, I have not been fortunate enough to be sued by the UK Olympic committee (yet), so I have to flog my book the old fashion way:

More Postcards From Across the Pond on Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/6gzfez7

More Postcards From Across the Pond on Amazon UK: http://tinyurl.com/63kq4u5

Dispatches from the South: London 2012 Olympic Dreams is a post from: Anglotopia.net

This week, I am reporting to you from the south of Scotland, the very south of Scotland.

At the tip of the Mull of Galloway is the Gallie Craig Rock, reputed to be the most southerly point in Scotland. We were staying n Kurkcudbright, which was only 60 miles away, so we couldn’t resist going to see it.

The site, in addition to a big rock, also has an RSPB Nature Reserve, a working lighthouse (that allows visitors on weekends and Bank Holidays—which this happened to be) and a nice gift shop and café.

A True Scot

To get to the Gallie Craig rock, we followed the A716 down the Mull of Galloway toward Drummore. Even I couldn’t get lost; it is the only A road on the peninsula. This road ended at Drummore and turned into a series of what could accurately be called “paths” that led us closer—via a winding and scenic route—to our destination.

As luck would have it, we ended up following another vehicle, which was good because it sort of paved the way for us. We were behind it from Drummore all the way to the car park at Gallie Craig. The two people got out of their car, and we followed them up the path to the light house.

The Mull of Galloway Lighthouse is the main attraction, providing a small, informative museum, an invigorating walk up 114 steps and a 360-degree view which includes—on a clear day—the Isle of Man, the Lake District and Ireland. The lighthouse was built in 1828 by Robert Stevenson, a member of the family of engineers responsible for most of Scotland’s lighthouses, and used a kerosene lamp until electricity was installed in 1971.

Overall, a fascinating diversion to discover at the end of long drive. However, the man ahead of us, who had driven and walked all this way with his wife, when stopped at the gate and told it would be two pounds each to visit the lighthouse, replied:

“I’m na’ paying tha!’” and walked away.

You have to admire them, sticking to their principles like that. But this is what they missed; surely worth two quid, even if only for the exercise.

Signs of the Ancients

Not far from the lighthouse is an ancient chalk drawing, smaller than the ones I’ve seen in Sussex and throughout the south.

It’s a strange hieroglyph—a large H surrounded by a circle. It’s reputed to be a hunting symbol meant to bring good luck to prehistoric hunters. (Hunting was important to the ancient inhabitants of the Mull because—living on a thin peninsula—they were getting really, really sick of fish.)

Dispatches From the South – South of Scotland, that is is a post from: Anglotopia.net

One of the major differences between living in Sussex and living in Clifton Park is that, while I was living in New York, I rarely ever left my apartment and walked into town to find it teeming with men and women dressed in all manner of strange get-up, festooned in jingle bells and prancing about whacking at each other with big sticks. In fact, I don’t recall that happening at all. Here, it’s just another day.

Or, to be precise, the Day of Dance, a yearly festival my town hosts that brings out the Morris Men (and women), cloggers and the occasional Scottish Sword dancer.

Getting ready to whack at each other with sticks

Morris is the traditional English folk dance. Where it came from, no one knows but, depending on who you choose to believe, it is either a modern (by British standards) affectation or a mysterious ritual passed on from the misty depths of time.

Women can be Morris Men, but an All-Woman Morris troupes are called Magogs

Whatever. It’s a hoot. And a fun day out.

And how can you not admire a dance that includes drinking in the choreography?

The all-important drinking step.

Morris Dancing is changing a bit, to make it more appealing to the younger generation. Here we have Morris Goths...

... and here, some Morris Punk.

Dispatches from the South: Dances With Ales – Morris Dancing is a post from: Anglotopia.net

What’s the use of having a column if you can’t use it to your advantage once in a while. I don’t have much to say these days because I’ve been busy working on another book. Just for you (yes, you).

This book covers the second half of my first decade in Blighty. If you liked the first book (Postcards From Across the Pond) you’ll love this one.

(What, you haven’t read the first one yet? Well now is your chance.)

More Postcards From Across the Pond is available on:
Amazon Kindle US Amazon Kindle UK
And
Smashwords

If you are a troglodyte like me and have not yet bought a Kindle, you’ll have to wait for the book. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when it comes out.

Sorry to use this column for shameless, self-serving promotion but I didn’t have much else on offer anyway and you probably would have ended up hearing about my breakfast or something.

I’ll try to have something exciting happen to me over the next fortnight.

In the meantime, you know what to do.

Dispatches from the South – The Latest Expat Must-Have – New Expat Book is a post from: Anglotopia.net

It has been no ordinary week. The wedding, as you are well aware, went off with nary a hitch and I was able to sit and watch it in the comfort of my own sitting room (drinking tea out of our commemorative Kate and Wills tea mug) while Jonathan braved jet-lag (as well as a crowd of more than a million revelers) not 30 north of where I was.

As predicted, the Brits rose to the occasion admirably, and I managed to annoy a few republicans by stringing bunting around my desk at work, and then on my balcony on The Day. This earned me just a bit of disapproval (just a bit) for being too American, or not British enough, or too much of a Royalist—I’m still not sure which.

But the glow had barely dimmed before The Other Big News hit (well done, America, for holding off until after the wedding weekend—what a downer that would have turned out to be). That, too, was a big day, especially if you were an American; I basked in the collective victory along with my fellow countrymen but with a bit (just a bit) of caution, reminding myself and others that this really doesn’t bring anything to a close.

For this, or perhaps something else, I was labelled an “American Basher” by an old and dear friend. This, of course, gave me pause: you can do many things to an American, but you do not question their patriotism.

We’re heading into a new week now, and one has to hope that it is not so eventful and filled with passions. As the Tweeters have been observing, “The girl married the handsome prince, the dragon has been slain, it’s all very Disney.” To add to that, we’ve also had unbelievably stunning weather to accompany all of this. So I am ready for some uneventful days, a return to the drip, drip, drip of real life, and rain.

Have I really been in Britain so long that I have forgotten what it is like to be an American? And am I so brashly American, despite my longevity here, that I can never hope to fit in? That’s a sobering prospect, to be a man with a foot in two countries—and passports to both—but to belong to neither.

Don’t get the idea that I am planning to throw myself off of Beachy Head over this, it’s just something the flurry and fervor of this past week have brought to mind, and I welcome a bit of time to digest it.

I see the previously blue sky is clouded over this morning. I really hope it rains.

Dispatches from the South: A Week of Contrasts is a post from: Anglotopia.net

These are exciting times to be in Britain. In addition to the exhilaration that comes from living on the knife-edge of national bankruptcy, we have a Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games coming up. Oh, and a Royal Wedding.

This is a new thing for me (Charles and Camilla don’t count) so I am looking forward to it, and if my anticipation falls somewhat short of unbridled joy, it is at least a notch or two above “mild interest.” The country itself doesn’t seem to know how it feels about it; they know they should be excited, but with everything else going on and being so busy helping out with the Easter Pageant, there just isn’t the time to get excited.

They’ll come around, I’m sure of it. A lot of people are moaning of late about the Monarchy and how much it costs and thinking we’d be better off with a republic, but as the day draws nearer, I see more and more bunting going up and a little more heightened interest. They’re British, after all; and when their Queen or one of her close relatives does something interesting, their inner-royalist comes to the fore and they take an interest, whether they want to or not.

Despite our proximity to London and our readiness to go (well, mine, anyway; in our household, I’m the royalist while my wife—the natural-born Brit—is a republican) we have not yet received an invitation. I’m sure it just got lost in the post, but if we do have to stay home and watch it on the telly, at least we have the proper trappings, thanks to yet another exciting circumstance:

I’m calling it my Tin Jubilee—the celebration of my ten-year anniversary. It’s still nearly a year away but, like the Queen, I need time for a big build-up. It also means that I recently passed my lesser-significant nine-year anniversaries. The first of March, nine years ago, was the day I arrived in Britain to stay, and a few weeks after that I was married. We have, therefore, recently celebrated our nine-year wedding anniversary, which gave me more trouble than usual because the traditional gift is pottery.

What sort of romantic gift can you buy a woman that is based around a pottery theme? A flower pot? A new casserole dish? What I ended up buying was a new tea mug, but not just any mug, I got her (lucky woman), an official, commemorative, Royal Wedding mug.

We pondered what to do with it for a while; it was relatively expensive and obviously a collector’s item but my wife still didn’t feel she wanted to display it on the bookcase so she could see it every day and dust it once a fortnight. In the end, we put it in the cupboard with all the common mugs to allow the privileged class see what living in the work-a-day world is like.

But come The Day, we will make certain The Mug is put to use while we are watching the Royal Wedding.

Dispatches from the South: Tea with Kate and Wills is a post from: Anglotopia.net

I understand. You’re an Anglophile, you’ve been dreaming of visiting Britain your whole life, now here you are on your first trip abroad, delighted to be in the company of real, live Brits. So why do they seem annoyed with you? Maybe it was something you said. In order to avoid spending most of your vacation on your own, take note of the following ten tips:

Ten Ways to Piss Off the Brits

1. If you want your first conversation with the locals to be your last, tell them they only won The War because the Americans came and bailed them out. This is, without a doubt, the single best way to piss off a Brit, especially one aged 60 plus. The only good that may come out of this is, if you say it to the proper person, you’ll receive a sterling lecture on European history and you just might learn a thing or two, such as the movie “U-571,” wherein the gallant Americans heroically capture a NAZI Enigma machine to help out the British isn’t exactly based on fact.

2. On a lighter note, say “a LUM eh num.” Really, that’s all you need to do to make them cringe. I recommend this, however, because the entertainment value of listening to Brits tying to pronounce it the way Americans do is almost as great as listening to Americans trying to say, “al you MIN ee um.”

3. I know this one is difficult to avoid because I managed it many times myself. It’s involuntary, but really, when they show you any national landmark—Tower Bridge, Stonehenge, the White Cliffs of Dover—resist the urge to say, “I thought it would be bigger.”

4. The British are thrifty people, but they hate a cheapskate, especially where beer is concerned. If you find yourself out with a group of locals you will notice a complex ritual involving the buying of pints. Don’t try to understand it, just be assured that they all know whose round it is and who hasn’t put his hand in his pocket often enough. To avoid being that person, insist on buying rounds often, even if you are out with your American friends. This will make you very popular.

5. Don’t correct their spelling; they are quite fond of it the way it is.

6. Refrain from reminding them that we beat them in the Revolutionary War. That won’t annoy them so much as bore them. Trust me, they don’t care.

7. Never jump a queue. The British live and die by queuing and you cut into one at your peril.

8. Don’t ask them if they have met the Queen; they haven’t…

9. …or Paul McCartney, or Rod Stewart, or JK Rowling.

10. Don’t finish a list when you promise them you are going to.

Dispatches from the South: Annoying the English Locals is a post from: Anglotopia.net

My wife and I went to the cinema to see “The Ghost” this week. It was a terrific book, and the movie, while perhaps longer than it should have been, was equally good. I recommend both, though if you are in America, you’ll need to look for “The Ghost Writer” because, for some reason, that is how the title came out in translation.

They do, you know, actually translate British books into American. I found this odd when it was first made known to me, but I can now see why it is necessary. During the movie, for example, when Ian McGregor—while in the US—drives into a ferry terminal, the ticket seller asks, “Single or Return?” This is not something an American would say. In fact, I expect most Americans wouldn’t even know what that meant, and I don’t doubt, in the version of the movie titled “The Ghost Writer,” the question posed to McGregor is, “One way or round Trip?”

Another thing that tickled me about the movie was how these Brits moved around on Martha’s Vineyard and the Massachusetts mainland, encountering a variety of locals and not one of them asked, “Have you met the Queen?” (A bit ironic when you consider that several of these Brits could have answered, “Yes.”)

If accounts of Brits travelling to the States (as well as my own experiences when I visit) are to be believed, your average American still holds as gospel the notion that Britain is populated by fish-and-chip eating, binge-drinking football-hooligans with bad teeth who talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, even when they are chatting up the Queen. And they’re all homosexuals. Except for Hugh Grant, and we’re not really sure about him.

As a correspondent living amongst the locals, I thought it my duty to set the record straight. So I’m happy to report that, after eight years of research, I can dispel all of these most of the some of those myths.

- Bad Teeth: Sorry to let the team down, but Brits, when compared to Americans, are a step or two lower on the dental-health ladder. This, however, is a subjective comparison; not everyone wants a picture-perfect, dazzling white, Tom Cruise smile. Well, not everyone over here, anyway.

- Fish-and-Chip Eaters: This, too, is a sort of true stereotype. Fish and Chips are still wildly popular with certain segments of the population (of which I am an enthusiastic member). However, thanks to globalization, I often see a longer lines coming out of KFC and McDonald’s on Friday night. I don’t mind; it makes it easier for me to get my fish-and-chips (with mushy peas).

- Binge Drinkers: Sad to say, there are some Brits who look upon drinking as a competitive sport, but for the most part they are sane and responsible drinkers. The sane and responsible ones don’t make very good footage on the “Cops With Cameras” programs, however, so we hardly ever see them.

- Football Hooligans: This behavior has been a problem in the past but the football clubs have worked hard to eradicate it. The hooliganism is (mostly) gone now, but the stereotype remains.

- They have all met the Queen and/or Paul McCartney: No, they have not.

- They all talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins: The only Brits I hear talking like that are ones who are imitating Americans trying to talk like Brits.

- They are all Homosexuals: Well, of course they are. Except maybe Hugh Grant

Dispatches From the South – Hugh Grant, the Queen and Six Pints of Lager is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Even as you read this I may be exercising my civic duty as a UK citizen by voting in my first General Election. Then again, I may not be; I may have already voted by now, so I’m probably down at the pub discussing the weather or the economy, or, just perhaps, the election.

This is a significant and historic election for the Brits, every bit as historic as the last Presidential race. But we won’t delve into that. Instead, I would like to point out the differences between voting in the UK and the US. First and foremost, I had to work today and I am going to the pub afterward. Now, I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention to what you do on the first Tuesday in November over there, but when I was young, the bars were closed and we got the day off.

I have trouble believing that is still the case.

Other differences include ticking a box with a pencil instead of pulling a level, but that was specific to my locality in America. We had voting machines where I lived; but you may have voted in “Hanging Chad” country.

So that narrows the big differences between a US and UK election down to who you get to vote for and the length of time they get to campaign.

In the US, I was able to cast my vote for the person I wanted to run the country, and a host of others, besides. But here, I don’t get to vote for the President, my State Senator, my local Representative, the county sheriff and the dog-catcher all in one go. What I do get to do is vote for my local MP. Period.

The idea is, with the backing of my vote, my MP will get elected. If enough MPs from their party get elected, then the party’s Head MP gets to run the country, and that would be the person I would naturally have voted for if I did get a say in who I wanted running the country. Perhaps, but not always. And this year, not bloody likely.

On the other hand, I rarely point this out to the locals because they usually counter by asking me to explain the Electoral College.

The best thing about British elections, however, is that they only last a month. This pales in comparison to the year-long media frenzy that is an American election. As an American, I just assumed our way of doing things was The Way It Should Be and never considered an alternative. But having experienced a different reality, I have come to the conclusion that the US method is well and truly bonkers.

Think of the waste, the effort, the drain on our economy and our nerves. The only winners in a US election are the manufacturers of red, white and blue bunting and media underlings with maxed out credit cards who are glad for the overtime. We put the person who would be President though a media gauntlet designed to kill an average person and expect them to come out the other side unscathed. What we are doing is making certain that, once the election is over, our successful candidate is as totally and thoroughly exhausted as we are tired of listening to them. And by the by, who is running the country during this time?

Our method makes it impossible for anyone but the obscenely rich to even attempt running for office. And the constant need for greater and greater amounts of money practically guarantees that our candidates, if they did not go into the election corrupt, will surely come out of it that way.

Now I’m not naïve enough to believe the UK candidates are any less sullied, but at least I don’t have to suffer their attempts to convince me otherwise for eleven additional months. And, seriously, if it takes you a full year to make your mind up concerning who you want to run the country, maybe you should practice making decisions a little more often than once every four years. Or invest in an 8-Ball.

Really, four weeks is plenty long enough for an election campaign. Try it; you’ll wonder how (and why) you put up with protracted electioneering for so long.

And the best part is, enjoying the post-election coverage at the pub.

Dispatches From the South – The Election is a post from: Anglotopia.net

I’m standing outside my kitchen door trying to imagine American-sized appliances in there. Currently, we have a washer, dryer, refrigerator, freezer and a stove in there. The reason I’m standing out here trying to imagine it is, if they were all American-sized, I can’t imagine being able to fit in there with them. And my kitchen is unusual only in that it is relatively large; when we briefly considered moving, we viewed two-story houses that had less space than our flat, and the kitchens were tiny.

To be fair, I have been in some houses that have kitchens the size of the ones I remember from the US, but they are the exception. The new flats they are chucking up all over the southeast—lovingly referred to as breezeblock barracks—have kitchen half the size of ours.

But for all that, I have few complaints. Despite the fact that all of the appliances measure about 20 inches wide and fit under the kitchen counters, they are plenty big enough. Seriously, American fridges might be big, but they are mostly filled with crap, and you really don’t want to go poking around in the hidden depths for fear of what you might find. And, as a single man in the States, when I kept my fridge clutter-free, it simply looked pathetic holding only a six-pack of Corona, a bottle of milk and some left over pizza.

Our freezer actually holds more than my American freezer did, and the washer and dryer, though they can’t hold nearly as much as an American washer/dryer, are adequate if used intelligently.

But the stove—this malevolent electric monster too small to hold a full-sized turkey and with only two temperature settings (not hot enough, and way too hot)—has been the bane of our existence since moving in. And I doubt it’s suddenly going to get any better. I can see it now, sitting there at the end of the counter, just waiting to inflict more mischief on me. On those few occasions when we do cook a large dinner, things have to be cooked in shifts, so the food is either burned, cold or still on the stove being heated up. We use the microwave a lot.

Fortunately, even imagining it stuffed full of major appliances, I can still reach around the door way and fetch a beer out of the fridge. I think I’ll do that now and continue my ruminations from the safety of the balcony.

Dispatches From the South – Like a Kitchen, Only Smaller is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Photo from Flickr

To continue with my “I’ve been here how long?” theme, this week we’ll take a look at some of the things I would like to adapt to, but just can’t seem to get the hang of.

On the up side, I am pleased to say I can now travel around without getting lost (too often), can complain about the weather with the best of them, and even speak the language like a native. What I still cannot get to grips with however, are British eggs, electricity, aspirin and time.

The electrical sockets here are 220 volt. Yes, even for a night light or a Glade Room Freshener. This makes the Brits very cautious around electricity and practically eliminates amusing anecdotes about the time you convinced your little brother to stick a bobbie pin into an outlet. As a safety precaution, wall plugs have switches on them, so you can turn the power off “at the mains.”

This is all well and good, as long as you remember to turn it on at the mains. I wish I had a 5 pence piece for every time my laptop ran out of power or I turned a light off and on half a dozen times wondering what was wrong with it or I returned to the kitchen after 20 minutes to see why I didn’t smell dinner cooking only to find the stove stone cold and the mains power still switched off.

And time, over here, is military-style, with trains arriving and leaving at such times as 16:34 or 19:04. And for some reason, I just cannot get used to this. The simple formula of subtracting 2 and losing the first digit (turning 18:46 into 16:46 or 6:46, for example) often has me thinking that my 18:47 train is due at 16:47 so that would make it 4:47. Even with a 24-hour watch, I would still have problems adjusting. The whole thing gives me a headache.

Which brings me to aspirin. The abiding belief that topping yourself by eating a handful of aspirin means you cannot buy it by the gross, as in the US. So I am forced to buy it in boxes of 12. And you can only buy one at a time. Consequently, when I get a headache, I have to go buy a box, take two and then put the box somewhere that I will remember it in the future. The medicine cabinet seems like a good place, and I swear that is where I put them, but weeks later, when I have another headache, the box has disappeared. So I have to buy another box.

Somewhere in this flat, there are about 187 12-packs of aspirin with 10 tablets left in them. I expect we’ll find them if we ever move out.

Photo from Flickr

As for eggs, I spent 46 years developing the perfect tapping technique for cracking an American egg and then found out—to my bitter disappointment—that the skill is non-transferable. The problem, in my opinion, is they don’t feed their chickens enough DDT or whatever it is we feed them in the States because the shells here (on their brown, not white, eggs) are hard as walnuts.

Since it is my privilege to make breakfast on weekend mornings, and since my vegetarian wife and I have a limited selection of foods in common, a typical morning meal inevitably includes eggs. A favourite of mine is eggs over easy, and my wife likes fried eggs (they are the same thing, by the way) but the odds of me getting a yolk out of an eggshell in one piece are about the same as the Labour government sweeping to victory at the polls in the next general election.

Now, I know from experience that I have to hit the egg harder than I am used to, so I steel myself and give it a good whack. Generally, the first blow glances off the armour plating leaving hardly a nick. The second blow, delivered with more determination, adds a dent and a few cracks. So the third blow is practically guaranteed to end up with me holding a dripping mass of canary yellow goo, splintered eggshell and a good deal of something that unnervingly resembles snot in my hand.

We eat a lot of scrambled eggs.

But only if I remember to turn the stove on at the mains.

Dispatches from the South: American Things I Still Can’t Do in Britain is a post from: Anglotopia.net

I have just passed my eight-year anniversary. On February 28th 2002, I left the US with no home, no job and a new appreciation for what it means to be homeless—as if most homeless people are flying off to Europe on a trans-Atlantic jet. My fiancée’s parents took me in, so I didn’t actually have to sleep on the street, and things began to look up after that.

Now on the cusp of my ninth year in the United Kingdom, I thought I’d take the opportunity to look back and see just how anglicized I’ve become. While I do speak the language (I’ve been bi-lingual for several years) I have not developed an accent. And although I have readily adopted many of the customs of my new homeland and its people, there are a number of things I still cling to, and an equal number of things I simply cannot get the hang of no matter how hard I try.

Here is my Top Ten List of Things I Still Cling To:

1. My flag: I had an American flag flying from every place I lived in the States and I see no reason not to have one here. My only concession is, now that I am a dual citizen, I put up the Union Flag on Remembrance Day and replace it with the American flag on Memorial Day. My neighbors think I’m a nutter.

2. The “H” thing: Sorry, but it’s “urb” not “herb.” Herb is short for Herbert. And besides, it drives my wife potty, like when I say “a LUM in um” instead of “al you MIN i um.”

3. The “Z” thing: Whenever possible, I use the letter “Z.” For instance, instead of referring to “Company ABC…,” I always say “Company XY ZEEEEE,” just to let them know they’re saying it wrong.

4. Coffee: I brought a thermal pint coffee mug over from America with me. I still use it.

5. Thanksgiving: if you’re an American, it’s in your genes; you must celebrate.

6. Rinsing the dishes: I know this tradition of leaving soapy dishes in the dish drainer is becoming out-dated, but many people—my wife included—still subscribe to this habit. To an American, it is just wrong. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! Consequently, I do the dishes.

Right

Wrong

7. Fruit of the Loom underwear and white tube socks: Just before I moved overseas, I went to Sam’s Club and bought a bale of each. I still have them. Here’s why:

US Undies, After Eight Years

UK Pants, After Eight Months

8. Ketchup: The universal condiment; it goes on everything, except French toast.

9. Expecting good customer service: If we go into a restaurant and no one comes to take our order in the first ten minutes, I’m ready to walk out. This thoroughly embarrasses my wife who, like most British people, has an overdeveloped cringe gland.

10. Driving on the right: I still drive on the right side of the road, as God intended. It keeps my passengers alert and the looks on the faces of the people in the oncoming traffic are priceless. (Note to the serious minded: I’m just kidding.)

Next up: Things I Still Can’t Deal With

Dispatches From The South – Ten Things I Miss About the USA Living in Britain is a post from: Anglotopia.net

It’s always a crap shoot when you agree to meet up with another blogger.  I’m happy to say, however, that I have a good track record (and still regret not being able to meet up with Jonathan) and that today was no exception.

I used the last of my 2009 holiday allowance (25 days a year, oh yes!) to travel up to London to meet up with Brit Fancy and her non-bloggy friend.  They were both charming, attractive young ladies and it did this old man good to be in their company.

The hastily agreed meeting was arranged some time ago and there was ample opportunity for something to intervene or for me to forget what day it was scheduled for, but I managed to get to the agreed location at the appropriate date and time.  The only problem was, the restaurant I was planning for us to have breakfast in was closed.  The put me in the unenviable position of having to rely on someone from America to figure out where I, someone who should have such knowledge, should take them for breakfast.

In the end we found ourselves in a Harvester in Victoria station.  It could have been worse; my only idea was McDonald’s.

We had a great chat about all our travel experiences, the amazing co-incidence that more or less brought us together and the relative merits of Facebook versus Twitter (namely that Facebook is sort of useful but Twitter is stupid).  It was an easy conversation, free of awkward pauses, but I’m afraid this won’t be much of a review as that is all I feel comfortable saying about it.

In this day of full and instant access to personal information, some people still wisely chose to keep their details to themselves.  So despite the fact that we traded stories of our lives and took photos of each other to commemorate the meeting, I am not going to reveal any of that here.  Instead, I’ll tell you about the amazing co-incidence:

In another life, I was a fingerprint historian.  That was some time ago, when I was employed at the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services as an Identification Specialist and serving as the unofficial agency archivist.

The history of fingerprinting captivated me from the start and my years of research uncovered many amazing facts.  One of the most intriguing was the revelation that Sir Henry’s account of how he devised the Henry System of Classification was, to be kind, an imaginative detour around actual events.  Henry originally claimed to have come up with the system while on a train journey across India, adding that, because he had no paper to record his flash of brilliance, he had to jot notes on his shirtsleeve.  Although in later years he did admit that it was his Indian assistants who actually came up with the formula, no other facts were available to me at that time.

Who were these unsung assistants?  How did they do it?  How did they feel about not getting credit for their work?  Were they ever credited with inventing the system?  I can’t say these questions haunted me, but they did occur to me.  With the limited research tools available at the time, however, I was unable to answer any of them.  Eventually, I moved on—to a different agency, different job, different continent, and a different life.

I live in England now.  The move was sudden, unanticipated and infused with humor.  So I wrote a book about it.

In the meantime, the Internet burgeoned at an unbelievable rate and unheard of phenomena like blogs and social networks were running riot in cyberspace.  I decided to use them to help promote my book and one of the methods I chose was to “tour” the Internet by writing articles for other blogs.  A number of people took up my offer.  One of them was Brit Fancy (we’re fond of pseudonyms here in the blogsphere), who ran a UK-centric website from St, Louis, Missouri.

When the time came to write the article for Brit Fancy, I had a hard time coming up with anything of interest involving St. Louis.  Then I remembered the Exhibition of 1904, where Captain James Parke and his American System of Fingerprint Identification were overwhelmed and out-maneuvered by John Ferrier and the Henry System of Fingerprint Classification.  In the article, as a point of interest, I mentioned how Henry had usurped credit for the system from his assistants.  The article went out to Brit Fancy and I imagined a puzzled pause at receiving something so esoteric.  But instead, I received an entirely different reaction.

Brit Fancy, it turned out, was the great-great-granddaughter of Azizul Haque, the Indian assistant who devised the Henry System.  Needless to say, she was surprised by my interest in such an obscure subject, and gladly told me her story:

“My parents moved from Bangladesh to the states when they got married. I was born in Oklahoma and we later moved to St. Louis.

“I have a general interest in the past, but in looking into my family history I was frustrated at the lack of written records from my homeland.  Then one day, about five years ago, my grandmother said to me, ‘I know something about one of your ancestors,’ and proceeded to tell me about my great-great-grandfather, Azizul Haque.”

It’s difficult to say how I felt about stumbling upon this information after all this time.  On the one hand, it just seemed natural to find yet another piece of the fingerprint puzzle, but when I thought about the billions of people in the world and how I randomly connected with one who just happened to be related to someone I casually mentioned in my article and started tallying up the odds of that happening, my head would begin to hurt.

Eventually, if only to ease my aching head, I moved on with my tour.  Then, last week, I heard from Brit Fancy again.

Since finding out about her great-great-grandfather, Brit Fancy has been helping, in her own small way, to gain some recognition for Haque and Bose.  She wrote to tell me that the efforts she and others had made have finally paid off and that the UK Fingerprint Society is remembering Haque and Bose by setting up an award in their honor.

It took over 100 years, the dedication of a pair of researchers and the surprising discovery of an unknown celebrity in her family tree by a tenacious history major, but Henry’s assistants have finally received at least some recognition.

And, most importantly, it gave me something to write about.

Dispatches From the South – When Blogs Collide is a post from: Anglotopia.net

I don’t generally do reviews, but this was something special:

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.

Dispatches From the South – War Horse; a Review is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Mike Harling – our excellent American Expat columnist living in Britain who writes Dispatches from the South – was featured on BBC Oxford on Friday.

Mike talks about the differences between the USA and the UK and how they celebrate Halloween. Very interesting talk! Click below to have a listen – it’s about five minutes long!

Congrats Mike!

Harling 20091101 1249

Mike Harling Featured on BBC Oxford Radio is a post from: Anglotopia.net

If you’re in Britain on the 31st of October, don’t expect to see a lot of ghosts and goblins at your door; trick or treating is not the done thing here. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that the season of Halloween is not a festive time in the UK; it is, and then some. It’s just that the candy scam is frowned upon.

Halloween is celebrated here and, increasingly, given over to parties of one sort or another (as it happens, the Autumn Festival will be held in the town park this weekend – I blame the American influence). All Souls Day, and All Saints Day also get a nod, but not a very big one these days. But the real fun is had on the 5th of November (Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot!) Yes, it’s Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night, where a failure to blow up Parliament in 1605 is still celebrated by heavy drinking, fireworks and building huge bonfires, then throwing people you don’t like on them. Well, effigies of people you don’t like, that is; the burning of genuine people has been outlawed—except in portions of rural Wales—for some years.

Who says the Brits don't dress up for Halloween?

Bonfire Night is so big over here it actually started back in August (no, really). There are so many Bonfire Societies that they have to start lighting bonfires weeks ahead of Guy Fawkes Night in order to get them all in. They could, of course, just have them all on the one night but, in addition to burning down the entire island, it would preclude each Bonfire Society from hosting all the other Bonfire Societies in the surrounding area at their bonfire.

Bonfire Society Memebers

This sort of rolling pyromania-fuelled drinking session is thereby extended from a single night to as many weekends as the Society members can convince their wives to let them out for the night. As God intended.

The culmination of this pyro-party is, as you would expect, on Guy Fawkes Night, the 5th of November. Here in the southeast, it is held in Lewes, not far from where I live. The town is so steeped in Bonfire Night tradition that, if you go there any weekend from mid-September on, you cannot escape the linger scent of kerosene. Equally, you will find strangely dressed men and woman wandering around with no one taking a blind bit of notice. These are the Bonfire Society members, and their stripes designate which society they are members of. And unlike football clubs, these societies support and help one another, even when they are drunk. It’s like a big, friendly, fire-induced fraternity. What’s not to like?

Well, trick or treating, for one thing. (You knew I’d come back to this, didn’t you?) You can build a bonfire, you can burn an effigy of your landlord, you can wear stripped shirts or dress up like a captain in Wellington’s army, but you can’t knock on stranger’s doors and expect them to give you candy.

Brits looking for Trick-or-Treaters

To us Americans, it’s as normal as a Post Office massacre, but to the Brits, it’s simply confectionary extortion, and it is not looked upon favorably. Start them on Smarties and M&Ms and the next thing you know they’re mugging kids on the playground for their lunch money, or banding together with a bunch of other guys to get drunk, light fires and thrown things on them.

Now that's a fire!

PAY ATTENTION!

My fifteen minutes of fame has been extended!!
I will be on BBC Oxford radio once again – starting at10:35, on Friday, 30 October 2009.
If you can’t listen it (what, you don’t get BBC Oxford?) you can listen again when I post the link.

Dispatches From the South – Halloween is a post from: Anglotopia.net

One of the unexpected side effects you will discover if you become an expat is that you will often feel as if you are adrift in a sea of uncharted idioms. After seven years, I now know where most of the reefs are, but there is still the overall feeling that I am, ultimately, an outsider, both because I occasionally find myself not understanding what is going on around me, or because, more frequently, I will say something that elicits confused stares instead of understanding. (Such as when I used, “waiting for the furnace man,” as an example of a bogus excuse one might employ to stay home from work. This innocuous remark caused everyone at the table to burst into eye-watering laughter for reasons which remain a mystery to me.)

Even now, while watching TV, my wife will suddenly begin laughing but will be unable to explain why, beyond the brief and unsatisfying explanation that it was, “in reference to a show that was on before you came over.”

Conversely, when I make suggestions that our MPs should be enrolled in “Accounting 101″ or allude to them arriving at Parliament “on the short bus,” no one nods or smirks; they just look confused.

At restaurants, when someone at my table orders the Chocolate Mousse—an occasion that, in the US, practically insists you say, in an appropriate cartoon voice, “Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!”—I have to remain silent, or risk being thought quite mad. And no one gets the double-entendre implicit in “Nice sweater, Mrs. Cleaver,” either.

I also sorely miss in the ability to find out a great deal about my drinking companion by his answer to the question, “Ginger or Maryann?” If I tried that here, he would probably think I was asking about his preference of spices. It really leaves me feeling vaguely out of touch, with my companions, as well as society in general.

By not sharing the same frame of reference, you can never truly be one of the crowd; events and conversations will continue to unfold in a place you can only peek into but never be part of; and you will find yourself staying quiet a great deal more than you might prefer.

Virginia O'Hanlon

But for me, the most annoying aspect—now that I am attaining an age when I can recall a lot of things many of my companions cannot—is that I can no longer get any mileage out of the fact that I met Virginia O’Hanlon of, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” fame. My one brush with greatness and, just when it starts to do me some good, I move to a country where no one knows who she is.

But at least now I can trot out the previously useless fact that I grew up next to the house Jennie Jerome used to live in.

Dispatches From the South – Frames of Reference is a post from: Anglotopia.net

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.

And in case you’re interested:

Grace Darling, from the Limelighter’s “Through Children’s Eyes” album:

T’was on the Longstone lighthouse, there dwelt an English maid.
Pure as the air around her, of danger ne’re afraid.
One morning just at daybreak, a storm tossed wreck she spied,
and though to try seemed madness, “I will save the crew,” she cried.

She pulled away on the rolling sea, over the waters blue,
HELP! HELP! She could hear the sound of the ship wrecked crew.
But Grace had an English heart and she knew how to handle an oar.
HELP! HELP! Came the desperate yelp from the wreck off shore.

They to the rock were clinging, a crew of nine all told.
Between them and the lighthouse, the sea like mountains rolled.
Said Grace, “Come help me, father. We’ll launch the boat,” cried she.
Her father cried, “Tis madness, to face that raging sea!”

She pulled away on the rolling sea, over the waters blue.
HELP! HELP! She could hear the sound of the ship wrecked crew.
But Grace had an English heart, and she knew how to handle a boat.
HELP! HELP! Came the desperate yelp, they were still afloat.

She bravely rowed the billows, and reached to rock at length.
She saved the storm tossed sailors, in heaven alone, her strength.
Go tell the wide world over, what English pluck can do,
and sing of brave Grace Darling, who nobly saved the crew.

She pulled away on the rolling sea, over the waters blue.
HELP! HELP! She pulled away in the dashing spray
And the crew she saved!

Dispatches From the South – Grace Darling is a post from: Anglotopia.net

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 defences 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 course, 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.

Dispatches From the South – Craster and Dunstanburgh Castle is a post from: Anglotopia.net

This week, Dispatches From the South is coming to you from The North—further north, even, than our northern correspondent, Lisa in Hartlepool. We’re in Northumberland, in a holiday cottage on the coast. Very scenic, very relaxing and very isolated. (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 my posts from the north 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.

I was surprised to discover that at least some of the Alnwickians are pirates—or maybe they were just preparing for “International Talk 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!

Avast me beauty; prepare to be boarded!

Alnwick town centre

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, laid in some supplies at Morrison’s and headed even further north to the tiny village of Craster and our holiday cottage.

Craster Castle: view 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 reconnoiter 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.

* Herf (v): To smoke a cigar. (n) a gathering of two or more enthusiasts for the purpose of smoking, trading, admiring and talking about cigars. (adj) to ascribe herfing qualities to an entity.

Dispatches From the South – Here There be Pirates is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Here I am, dispatching from the south—South Wales, that is. This time I’m in a Travelodge in Newport with a mild hangover and a dodgy internet connection. Life doesn’t get much better than this (and you thought being an ex-pat was all glamour and good times).

So far, Newport is an interesting place, even though I can’t claim to have seen a lot of it yet; last night, after checking into the hotel, I only made it as far as the corner pub before I fell in with a group of locals. While this particular group of locals might grudgingly be referred to as “colourful” by the average, gainfully employed and occasionally sober citizenry, they were, at the very least, friendly.

Newport as I saw it

After it was established that I was an American, we spent a considerable amount of time (and more than a few pints) discoursing on the various differences between our disparate—but equally fine in their own way—cultures. Then, after a few more pints, the merits of the English were addressed. Although I remained neutral on the subject, the general consensus was decidedly of the opinion that the English were. . . okay, I’m sifting through the words they used and the only printable euphemism I can come up with is “not good.” The Celtic cultures, however, were good, nay, better than good, absolutely grand, in fact.

A protracted discussion (and a few more pints) followed pronouncement and it was eventually decided that, since I was a remarkably nice fellow, there had to be a Celt hiding inside me somewhere, so I must be Irish.

My memory of the conversation goes hazy after that, but rest assured we were all firm friends by the time we parted. And now, in the dim light of dawn, it occurs to me I had originally left the hotel in search of dinner, and all I have to get me through the morning is a packet of instant coffee and a Travelodge “Breakfast-in-a-Bag,” which cheers me up more than you might think.

The Breakfast Bag by Travelodge

This particular Travelodge has absolutely no restaurant facilities, but they make up for this unfortunate oversight by leaving breakfast outside your room in the morning. It’s so compact and cunningly fitted together it is impossible not to be impressed. There’s a bowl of cereal that has a cover filled with a white-make-believe-it-is-milk type substance and a collapsible spoon. How festive. It’s like eating an airline meal, except it’s not quite as good and, when I check out, I’m still in Newport.

But I’ve been in worse places. I think. Maybe next time I’ll get to see a bit of it.

Newport, Wales - probably a nice place

Dispatches From the South – Dispatched is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Okay, let’s get this out of the way from the get go: the biggest difference between cops in the UK and cops in the US is guns. It really mystified me when I came over here and saw cops without any side arms. It still does.

The result of this disparity is apparent if you watch those “Cops With Cameras” shows currently populating our viewing schedule (I call the UK version “Cops Without Guns”). When the UK cops engage in a wild vehicle chase through the village streets and the offender finally fetches up against a stone wall, he always makes a run for it. Wouldn’t you? He’s young and fit and the cop is nearing retirement and weighed down with a Kevlar vest and a utility belt jangling with handcuffs, pepper-spray and other law enforcement do-dads. Frankly, I’m surprised they ever catch anybody. In the US version, after bringing a vehicle to heel, the occupants generally can’t assume the “face-down spread-eagle” position fast enough in order to avoid being shot. Good thing, too; the US cops spend a lot of time in the donut shop; they need the advantage a reliable revolver provides.

But guns aside, the most surprising difference is, in the UK you can be a cop—a real, official, pepper-spray carrying cop—just for the hell of it. They call them “Hobby Bobbys” and they are unpaid volunteers who get genuine police training and some complimentary nylon hand restraints (or maybe not; I just made that part up) in exchange for working a minimum of four hours a week. For free.

The trade off is, the police force gets bulked up with a platoon of competent (and, one has to assume, eager) volunteers and the “Special Police”—that’s their official title, but it doesn’t mean they are driven to the police station in the short bus—get to wear a spiffy uniform and enjoy nearly all the powers of an actual, paid police officer. Which, in my view, must stick in the craw of the PCSOs.

PCSOs, Constables, Specials - can you spot the difference? (Americans please note: none of them have guns.)

The PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) are sort of police, but not really. They help out, give support (hence the name), take on some of the more menial duties but have no real police powers. (Think “Police-Lite.”) They do, however, get a spiffy uniform and a paycheck. We have PCSOs in our town, and their main contribution seems to be fooling the public into believing there are more police officers than there really are. The uniforms are identical, save for the insignia, and if you are close enough to read it, you are already nicked.

But in either country, it’s better to stay on their good side; recent TV footage has confirmed that the cops here are pretty keen on thumping people up, even if they aren’t allowed to shoot them.

Dispatches From the South – Stop! Or I’ll Shout “Stop” Again! is a post from: Anglotopia.net

Mike already blogged about this today – but since the BBC makes you use their iPlayer and scan through the whole thing, I thought I’d capture a recording and post it here for everyone to listen to.

Click the player below to listen to Mike Harling talk about the differences between the USA and the UK in the way the celebrate events and holidays. Very interesting conversation!

Congrats Mike! You’re starting to look at home on the BBC!

Mike Harling on BBC Oxford Comparing American Celebration Traditions to the British

Listen to Columnist Mike Harling on BBC Oxford is a post from: Anglotopia.net

We interrupt our regularly scheduled dispatches to bring you this special bulletin. Your dispatcher from the south was on BBC Oxford today (25 August) for a five-minute interview on the differences between the way American and the British celebrate.

Click the link and move the counter to 32: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00437cj

It’s only good for a week, so listen soon, and listen often.

Dispatches From the South – Anglophiles on the Air is a post from: Anglotopia.net