Americans Amuck

Mysteries of Britain, Part I

2009-01-25T16:43:00.003+00:00

Even though I've lived in MOE for more than 3 years now, there are still some things about the culture I just don't understand. I encountered one today: It's raining out, and no one has an umbrella. Some people (mostly old men trying to cover their bald patches) were wearing hats, one or two had hoodies up, but no one I saw had a brolly.

Why? Do people here like getting wet? Are they genetically altered to have skin and hair on which the raindrops bead? Mr. W says it's about "toughness." Brits are tougher than we Yanks are. I say they're just wetter than we are. Anyone care to enlighten me on when it's appropriate to use protection when it's raining out?

Thanks in advance,
Ignorant in Islington

More Things I Like, Things I Don't Like

2009-01-19T13:30:00.002+00:00

Things I like: Trains.

These past two weekends, I've ridden my bicycle to Cambridge and ridden a train back, and taken a train to Stevenage for a running race and come back. In both cases, my wait for a train was minimal and travel time was tolerable. Train service is frequent and more often reliable than unreliable. You can get to more than 2,500 destinations by train. Now if you ask a Briton, it's gone downhill since Margaret Thatcher reorganized it. And having been on Swiss trains recently, I can say that they appear to make more allowances for bicycles than British trains do. But still, the rail service makes car ownership optional for a larger share of the population than the United States.

Things I don't like: Northern accents.

I shouldn't make fun of the way people talk, but there is something in the northern English accent that rubs me wrong. I love a broad Scottish brogue and a Welsh lilt, but strong Yorkshire and Liverpudlian accents are at times almost incomprehensible to me. The TV serial Hollyoaks best exemplifies the accents I hate. See if you don't want to punch your computer screen when you click through to this Hollyoaks clip for which embedding has been disabled.

Things I Like; Things I Don't Like

2009-01-12T10:34:00.004+00:00

The stamp on my UK visa tells me I entered this country on a permanent basis Jan. 21, 2006. Three years (or thereabouts) gives me some perspective on life here. It's not long enough to be cynical ... OK, it's long enough to be cynical about some aspects of life here ... but long enough to have developed some clear likes and dislikes. Or at least things we enjoy and things we find peculiar. So to celebrate the three-year anniversary, I thought I'd do a series of posts on things I really like and things I really don't like (Mrs. Werbenmanjensen is free to join in as she wishes).

A thing I like:

Beer.

It is fortunate that I live in a land with so many good beers. It is unfortunate that I am unable to try each and every one of them. So my advice to those who ask me what they ought to drink when visiting Britain is to tell them to walk into the nearest pub, look for the long handles on the bar and order what looks interesting from the selection of badges on those handles. Those are the cask ales, pumped by hand from a cellar to your pint glass. While over time they may have gone from being made by specialist brewers to being a brand owned by a major conglomerate, they are beers you won't get in any other country--bitters, porters and the like. Across the rest of the bar you may see familiar names--Guinness, Kronenbourg, Carling, even Budweiser and Coors. But you can get those at any old bar. I like to try something I haven't drunk before.

A thing I don't like:

The obsession with the carbon cost of heating a kettle of water for tea.

This is a comparison you'll find in many contexts. This morning, the BBC reported that two Google searches consume the same amount of energy as boiling a kettle of water (never mind the auto trips to the library averted by Google searching). A major train operator advertises that its trains are so energy efficient that they actually make up for millions of boiling kettles (the first of four on this clip):

Look, almost every action causes carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere. If we're going to drink tea, it will require energy, and until our energy sources are 100% sustainable, that energy consumption will result in carbon emissions--no matter if we heat our water in kettle, on a stove, or in an animal skin over a wood fire. If you don't want your beverage to have a carbon impact, drink water. From a stream.

This obsession wouldn't be so bad if it weren't trivial in comparison to some of the choices we make in our lifestyle, living accommodations, residence, commute, and leisure travel that release far more than the 14 grams of carbon that a kettle does. But we don't like the thought of giving up our houses, yards, automobiles, and sunny holidays, so we obsess about tea kettles.

Death Of An English Folk Tradition

2009-01-06T07:33:00.003+00:00

Without comment, I'll note this following article about the feared demise of Morris Dancing:

The numbers of people participating in the traditional British folk dance are dwindling whilst the age of the dancers is increasing, according to the Morris Ring, an association representing over 200 Morris troupes across Britain.
It is warning that "unless younger blood is recruited during the coming winter months, Morris dancing will soon become extinct".
Charlie Corcoran, Bagman of the Morris Ring, said: "There's a distinct possibility that in 20 years' time there will be nobody left.
"It worries me a great deal. Young people are just too embarrassed to take part.

Embarassing? I'll let the reader be the judge:

Merry Christmas From Your Local Pub

2008-12-25T10:57:00.001+00:00

Which, you will note, is open noon to 3 p.m.

-- Post From My iPhone

Tuesday Catblogging

2008-12-23T08:15:00.002+00:00

Greg and me. (Apologies for the quality: It's a photo of a photo.)

Well, there's some bad news on the catblogging front. Greg has departed. Not this plane of existence, but he's gone to live with our pastoral assistant, who was his chief caretaker. A lot of turnover in the parish--several longtime priests have moved on to another parish the order runs Kent--meant that Greg was feeling a little out of sorts. His new home is a little more rural, perfect for a maturing cat like Greg. I was chatting with the pastoral assistant about his new life. She said he'd mastered the catdoor to go outside, but was having a little trouble figuring out how to get back in through the same door. To teach him how to do it, she said she'd gone out another door, then "posted" him--as a postman might--through his catdoor.

London, 8:26 a.m.

2008-12-22T08:28:00.001+00:00

Somewhere over there is the sun.
-- Post From My iPhone

London, 8:12 a.m.

2008-12-19T08:13:00.001+00:00

Looks like we'll see some sun today.

-- Post From My iPhone

The PSA Tales

2008-12-17T10:47:00.001+00:00

I might have mentioned in the past that public service advertisements are a bit different here, with a tendency to scare instead of persuade. Here are a couple more examples:

Dear Hollywood,

My film-going habits have changed in recent years not because I'm downloading pirated movies, but because I've grown weary of your constant recycling of superhero movies and remakes. I could tolerate this advert if it were simply on my television--that's what mute buttons are for. However, that I'm forced to sit through this advert in a cinema after I've paid £8 to get in is well beyond insulting. Knock it off.

Dear Department for Work and Pensions,

I doubt even 1 percent of this advert's viewers are benefit thieves. I would applaud your vigilance if I didn't know that this ad was instead aimed at me, the taxpayer, to try to persuade me that you're doing a good job at cracking down on benefit fraud. However, what this ad reveals to me is that the scale of the benefit fraud and the efforts to eliminate it are about equal. Not a good use of resources.

(This one is rather unpleasant.)

Dear Think! ad campaign,

This ad is just disgusting. You know what having this ad thrust in front of me during a quiet night's TV watching is like? Imagine me coming into your house at dinner time, and spitting on your plate. Yeah, it's like that. Please take it off.

Dear Countryside Access,
This one is still enjoyable after all this time. I could watch this one again and again. Thank you, Countryside Access, for coming up with a PSA that is charming and persuasive.

Tuesday Catblogging

2008-12-16T10:42:00.003+00:00

If you look at Greg's tail closely, you may find it forms a golden spiral.

London, 8 a.m.

2008-12-16T08:01:00.001+00:00

The sun is about to rise, or so they tell me.

-- Post From My iPhone

Another Neighbor

2008-12-11T10:48:00.002+00:00

John Bunyan is another resident of Bunhill Field, maybe 50 yards away from William Blake and Daniel Defoe.

-- Post From My iPhone

EDITIED: I know how to spell Daniel Defoe, but I can't always see what I'm writing on BlogPress.

Darkness On The Edge Of Town

2008-12-10T08:58:00.001+00:00

The city, or maybe the merchants, light your way home, at least for December.

-- Post From My iPhone

8 a.m. Dec. 9

2008-12-09T08:07:00.000+00:00

I don't see the sun yet.

-- Post From My iPhone

Who Made Steve Guttenberg A Star? We Did! We Did!

2008-12-07T16:37:00.001+00:00

Pantomime: One quarter comedy, one quarter vaudeville slapstick, one quarter rock opera, one quarter Christmas celebration, one quarter kid screamfest, and, uh, that's five quarters, but you get the idea. Throw in an out-of-work movie star, some minor TV celebrities, some West End actors, a children's dance troupe, some topical jokes for the parents, some silly jokes for the kids, and some audience participation. Sounds like a right mess, but it's fun. And they're still playing through January.

And in other panto news: Mickey Rooney's in one somewhere on this fair isle. I thought he was dead.

-- Post From My iPhone

Swiss catblogging

2008-12-06T17:06:00.002+00:00

Nala, who lives with our friends in Switzerland, gets snuggly with her stuffed chicken while it snows outside.

December Sunsetblogging

2008-12-03T09:35:00.005+00:00

The sun sets way too early.

That's better ...

... because it's better to light a single snowman than curse the darkness.

We're in that part of the year again, when the sun doesn't rise until after 8 and sets before 4. It's nice to see the merchants lighting up our streets during the dark months.

Still More Adventures In English As A Second Language

2008-11-25T10:59:00.004+00:00

During my church volunteer stint recently, I was chatting with the pastoral assistant (she does much more than that, including serving as the chief caretaker for Greg, but we'll just go with her title for now) about her duties as chaplain at a nearby Catholic girls' high school. She mentioned one of her duties was coordinating the school's "peer mentoring" program.

With her non-rhotic accent, however, I had a terrible time understanding what she was talking about. To my rhotic ears, I heard her saying one of two things initially: "pee mentoring" (a strange proposition, since most high schoolers ought to be potty trained) or "P.M. entering" (again, a strange proposition since most high schoolers are ready for all-day school).

On her third repetition, I finally understood what she was talking about.

An Extra Special Message From Steve Guttenberg

2008-11-14T14:06:00.004+00:00

And while we're at it ....

And in other panto news, Huggy Bear is doing a Snow White panto show in Catford.

EDITED: Hat tip to Mrs. W's colleague who pointed this out to us.

The Return Of Sky One

2008-11-13T20:13:00.002+00:00

Recessions tend to do amazing things. Even two egos as huge as Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch can bury the hatchet when the economy turns south. This all is good news for the Werbenmanjensen household, which just finished 90 minutes of Simpsons watching thanks to the return of Sky One.

Now we've been getting by (*sigh*) with the reruns on Channel 4 (home of the Gay-O-Meter), but it just feels, I don't know, right, to see a Simpsons that's been aired in the United States in the last two weeks.

I feel whole again.

That's Pants

2008-11-13T10:16:00.003+00:00

Yes, a British English expression for something that's really bad, or your underwear. Annie Mole, as usual, has spotlighted the Pants Day, a version of the No Pants days on mass transit in several American cities. As Annie notes, going without "pants" in Britain can get you arrested, hence the name variation.

Friday Catblogging

2008-11-07T12:14:00.000+00:00

If you say "President Obama" in Greg's presence, he starts purring. It helps if you're petting him, however.

-- Post From My iPhone

A Sarasota Stockbroker Sums It Up

2008-11-05T02:50:00.002+00:00

In an interview with the BBC (natch): "I want a better America and a better world, and I'm willing to pay a little more in taxes for that. A new America is being born."

I couldn't have said it better myself. And this was a guy who voted for Bush in 2000.

Our long national nightmare is over

2008-11-05T02:28:00.003+00:00

BBC finally calls Ohio for Obama. GOPers in Virginia say it's not looking good for them there, and Florida isn't either.

The cava has been uncorked in the Werbenmanjensen household.

That Smell

2008-11-05T02:28:00.001+00:00

It smells like victory ... and cava.

-- Post From My iPhone