Tales from a Flyover State

On students

2011-09-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

I was at KU yesterday, where I'm helping teach a course in magazine journalism, and got chatting to a colleague whom I taught with last semester. While we were talking, a student came up to say hi and tell us how things were going with him. His face was shining with enthusiasm as he told us how much he was enjoying the course he's taking right now, and how it's really getting him excited for his future. He has a grand plan all in place, and is busy urging other students to sign up for the internship he took during the summer, he told us. "And maybe one day I can sign my name to a scholarship here," he finished.

It got me thinking about the differences between American and British students. You'd never get a student in Britain so enthusiastic about their studies - or at least you certainly wouldn't have done where I was at university. Forgive me if I'm making a sweeping generalisation here, but British students don't, on the whole, come up to thank their professors for what they have taught them, or express their desire to give a scholarship to the university so other students can enjoy a little financial aid. They're more likely to grumble about their workload (likely to be far less than what the average American student has to produce per term), and then go and spend their student loan in the pub.

The meeting made me simultaneously encouraged and depressed. Encouraged because it is great to work in an environment where students are genuinely excited about learning. Depressed because I come from a country where that's not the norm. It makes me want to send my children to a US university when the time comes. When, of course, a little financial aid in the form of a scholarship might come in very handy....

On being American versus being a Brit

2011-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

My cousin-in-law Adele (whose blog, Circus Queen, circusqueen.co.uk is really excellent btw), commented that it must be hard to leave the place where your child is born. The more I think about it, the more I think she is right. With the birth of our son, America really has become home, and leaving it will be hard.

I arrived here very definitely a Brit, with set ideas about what was good and bad (mostly, I have to confess, Britain=good, America=bad). I'm pleased to say I've chilled out a lot since then. Last night we watched a British film about a group of Muslims in Sheffield, called Four Lions. It was supposed to be a comedy (I think), but was a bit too close to the bone for comfort. The whole thing made me feel depressed, from the issues it was raising, to the gloomy weather and run-down streets in the background.

I used to laugh at American patriotism, with its gung-ho, we're-the-best-in-the-world enthusiasm. I still find it slightly uncomfortable, but at least here, the majority of citizens are genuinely enthusiastic about their country, no matter where they have come from. Even if they still identify as Greek or Italian or whatever, they are also Americans, and while they might hold on to many of the customs and traditions of their original homeland, they love America. I have a friend from Korea who recently became an American citizen and she was fervent in her gratefulness to America as a country - for what it offered her and for what it had, in effect, done for her. The film I was watching last night followed a group of Muslim Britons whose only desire seemed to be to blow up somewhere in Britain and cause havoc.

I found myself becoming more fervently British when I first got here, as I know many ex-pats do - suddenly you see Britain with rose-tinted glasses and fondly remember all its good points, while forgetting the bad. But now that we are actually going back, my enthusiasm for returning is waning. Perhaps it's the recent riots, perhaps it's the many tensions that seem to exist in the country at the moment, but I am almost dreading living there again. I'm sure that once I'm home I will slip back into my old life (with a few adjustments) fairly easily. But my attitude towards America has definitely changed, and I can see myself living here again. Not forever, I don't think - I am still too much of a Brit at heart (and couldn't cope with the healthcare system), but for a while, somewhere. Maybe when Baby A is 21 and we become eligible for a greencard we could all move out here for a stint. After all, I am the parent of an American citizen now!

Some ponderings

2011-08-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

I realise that my last post was all about feeling guilty for not having updated my blog for so long... and that was in March. It's now August and clearly, I have been remiss. A fact pointed out to me by my dear uncle who asked if we could have a few more blogs. So here I am again. Hopefully not having put anyone off by being silent for so long.

A lot has happened since my last post. I've had a baby for a start. And, in reply to Anonymous who seemed to think it was a bad idea to be having a baby out here, yes, my baby is American. Which I think is a fantastic thing! First of all, he actually gets dual citizenship (two passports: very useful), which means he's a Brit as well. He also automatically has a social security number and an official presence in this country, which means should he ever wish to study or work here, it will be very straightforward for him (it ain't easy being a foreigner in the States when it comes to official recognition). The Major and I both feel we've given him a great start in life by conferring Anglo-American status on him - who knows what sort of state America will be in in 20 years time, but if it's anything like it is now we would be entirely happy for him to head over here to university or to work afterwards. So hurrah to American citizenship!

The same blogger also suggested that American hospitals are very dirty. Well no, they're not actually. In fact, from what I've heard, they're more like five-star hotels than hospitals. And you get pretty good care.
That said, I actually chose not to have my baby in a hospital. They're pretty hands-on when it comes to birth out here, and quite hot on massive amounts of intervention, which I wasn't so keen on the idea of. I wanted my baby to arrive naturally, when he fancied, and preferably without large amounts of drugs in my system. So I sought out a midwife, and found an excellent lady, very practical and peaceful, who was fantastic. In fact Baby A turned out to be breech, which means had I chose to have him in the hospital system I almost certainly would have had to have a caesarean. Fortunately for me, my midwife has had a lot of experience with breech delivery, and was enormously encouraging and confident in my ability to do it naturally at home. He arrived on his due date, feet first, at home. I was standing up with my arms around the Major's neck, roaring like a lion (he said afterwards he thought he had probably been in more pain than I was at that point. Luckily he didn't say this at the time). By 10pm we were all three of us tucked up peacefully in bed together. It was lovely. And I don't think I would actually have had anything like as good a birth in England. I love the fact that you can get a home birth on the NHS, but because home birth here is so against the norm, the people practising it are really dedicated to what they are doing - determined that the mothers in their care should have a wonderful experience. And I did - it was an absolutely fantastic way to give birth and I'd do it again like a shot.

In reply to another commentator - Janet - yes, Kansas. My earlier posts explain that my husband has been posted here for his job, so it wasn't exactly that I chose Kansas. But we have had a fantastic time out here - the people are, as you rightly say, enormously kind and nice and we have loved our experience.

In fact, as I write, I am feeling a strange sort of sadness. Because our time here is actually drawing to a close, and earlier than expected. We were due to stay here until December, but the Major unfortunately has to go to Afghanistan when we leave here and they want him out at the end of November, which means we have to return in October. It is strange and sad to think of leaving our adopted homeland. I'm not entirely sure when my feelings about Kansas changed. I came out here prepared to hate it - and did find it all very strange for the first few months (even now). The slower pace of life, the sometimes amazing ignorance etc etc. But gradually, it has crept up on me that there are many things I enjoy: the space, the friendliness, even the slower pace of life. And of course, it is my son's new homeland....

On neglect and unions

2011-03-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

I am ashamed at how long it has been since my last post. And even more ashamed at the fact that I only realised I had neglected my blog for so long when an acquaintance emailed me with his thoughts on reading one of my posts. So apologies for those of you who are genuinely interested in what I have to say in this space.

It is March (just) and grey and rainy here in Kansas. Baby is due in four weeks time and I don't think I have got my head around the fact that I will shortly be responsible for a life in a way I have never been before. However, life is good. I recently took a flying visit back to the UK, for my goddaughter's christening, and was surprised at how eager I felt to get back to the midwest. Perhaps it was with the baby imminent that I realised that my place was here, with the Major, in the country where my baby will be born, but I felt genuinely relieved to be back. And since being back I have appreciated being out here in ways that I have never felt before. Suddenly the slow pace of life is relaxing, rather than frustrating. The Army Wife community no longer seems stifling, but supportive, and my teaching at KU genuinely fulfilling, rather than just filling a two-year gap on my CV. Perhaps I am softening at last, because despite the rain, Kansas feels like home - and those are words I never thought I would write.

I had meant to post a week or so ago, after listening to a story on the radio about the question of 'union-busting' in Wisconsin. Democratic leaders had 'gone into hiding' rather than vote on a bill which would have disabled unions further than they would have liked, and everyone was in uproar. But one comment really struck me. It was on the issue of whether unions should be allowed to deduct money directly from a person's wages, if that person had previously ok'd it. The person with an opinion was saying that he thought that public money - i.e. taxpayers money, which goes to pay the wages of public sector workers, should not go to unions in this way. But it got me thinking about the whole issue of public sector pay generally. At the moment, I am essentially living on taxpayers' money. My husband is paid by the British government. He is not a member of a union, because the Army doesn't have a union, but my mental question was, at what point does taxpayers' money stop being taxpayers' money and start becoming an individual's income, to dispose of as he or she pleases? I wouldn't dream of allowing any old random stranger to 'audit' our daily expenses, because as far as I'm concerned, that money is money my husband has earned and has every right to do as he pleases with. So if we agree that someone's salary becomes his own when it enters his bank account, is there then a problem with a deduction coming out to a union that person has decided to join? Or is the problem that the money comes out at the same time as the money comes in, so to speak?

It is a confusing issue, this question of accountability. I am in no doubt that the expenses which we are legally entitled to claim, such as help with utilities and rent, which the government allows us to claim as my husband is a public sector employee, should be open to scrutiny. But the rest - the sum which comes into our account as money well earned? I think at that point, it's our money, to do with as we will.

Perhaps the issue is whether you believe unions should be allowed within the public sector. Perhaps, as within the Army, they should not. I read or heard somewhere recently that the only employees who should be allowed unions should be private sector workers, to protect them from the greed of corporate employers. But I'm not sure I agree with this. Sure, if you sign up to work a government paid job, you know what you're signing on for, perhaps more so than with a big corporation. But I don't see why we shouldn't be protected from the excesses of government too, within a certain remit. Or, if not protected, at least allowed to have our say. After all, public sector workers are individuals too - just because you've signed on to work for the government means you automatically lose your voice.

On guns and things

2011-01-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

I have been pondering, over the past week, on the mass shooting in Arizona recently, when a man named Jared Loughner opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon outside a Safeways supermarket, hitting 19 people and killing six. Naturally there have been enormous outpourings of grief for the victims, who included a nine-year-old girl, as well as instant and vicious political sniping, mostly from the left, accusing the right of inciting violence through political rhetoric. The Major and I first heard the news in Detroit airport, where we landed after an 11-hour flight from Chicago. A marked contrast to the hustle and bustle of Sao Paulo international airport, our first thoughts were of how civilised a country America was, until we heard about Loughner's rampage, and Sarah Palin's crosshair targeting of key Democrats on her website, and instant political vitriol immediately spewing forth.

I still do not understand, however, how a country which is supposedly the world's leading superpower can still allow its states to licence guns so freely. The Second Amendment is one thing: I don't agree with it, but can understand the history behind it, and why people support the right to bear arms. What I cannot understand it why this right is not accompanied by the most stringent regulations. Guns are designed to kill: surely to own a gun, one should be subject to the most rigorous checks to ensure the maximum safety in doing so? Arizona passed a law last year which allowed people to carry concealed weapons without a permit - why, in heaven's name? Why does one need to carry a concealed weapon in the first place? And why should one be allowed to carry an automatic weapon capable of firing off multiple rounds in one go?

It reminded me of when I was in Arizona over the summer, as part of the Ford Fiesta world tour. My first tour activity took place at Scottsdale Gun Club, America's largest public indoor shooting range. I'd literally just got off the plane, it was about 7.30am, and I was being handed an array of lethal weapons to fire. They included a Smith & Wesson 500, a Heckler & Koch MP5, an old-school AK 47 and a full-on, military-style M249 SAW, which came with a belt of bullets and which you had to lie down on the ground to fire. I hated it. The adrenaline that surged through my body made me feel sick; I hated the smell and the kick of the gun against my shoulder and the fact that the targets we were shooting were shaped like people. Even more disturbing was, when we had all had a go, the way the gun club staff enthusiastically took up position to blast off the rounds that we hadn't finished. They took such pleasure in it.

But I could see how that could happen. I could see how the adrenaline could become addictive, how hitting the bullseye could be a thrill, how it could make you feel really hard, and cool. Which is what makes me even more worried: if we, as human beings, have the capacity to enjoy shooting things so much, surely we should be saved from ourselves when it comes to regulating our ability to do so? Perhaps I will be derided as a namby-pamby, nanny-state fan who could be accused of not taking ones' rights seriously, but it's not me I'm worried about - it's all those nutters out there who can, because of these so-called rights, get their hands on a gun and use it on real live people. What about those people's own rights to life? Oh dear, it all gets a bit complicated, but I guess Time magazine summed it up best: surely something is awry when we live in a place where you can't take a bottle of shampoo in your bag on a plane, but you can quite easily buy a gun and use it to go and kill someone.

Rich v Poor in Rio

2011-01-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met a man called Rambo who lives in a cave. Well, I said I met him, I really just said hello and shook his hand.

The Major and I were on a tour of a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These unplanned sprawls of habitation are greatly feared in big Brazilian cities, because they are controlled by drug lords, they are where the poor people live, and they have bad and scary reputations - go into a favela and you won't come out alive, etc.

Except it turns out they're not all like that. Certainly the one we were in wasn't. It is called Rochinha, and is home to the largest number of favela dwellers in Rio - 300,000 people packed into 54,000 houses, some little more than shacks, perched on a hillside overlooking (of course) one of the most expensive pieces of Rio real estate. We spent about three hours walking around it with our guide, a half Brazilian, half American man who was born and raised in the favela and loves it with all his heart, so much so that he has tattoos of it all over his body.

It was most enlightening. Like any good tourist, we had bought the Lonely Planet guide to South America before embarking on our month-long trip around Argentina and Brazil, and had been warned to keep our valuables closely about us while in Rio and to never ever venture unaccompanied into a favela. But actually, all the people we met were lovely - friendly individuals, all of whom loved living in this close-knit community where people look out for one another and know each other by name. To be sure, we spotted occasional shadowy figures patrolling balconies - the drug boys who were keeping lookout from their patch, but according to our guide, the live and let live mentality of Rochinha means that, as long as people don't steal, kill or abuse, everyone will be fine. And it seemed that this was the case. We met one man, a German, who has lived there for 12 years, and never locks his house or his car. And of course we met Rambo, a rugged hairy type who lives on the edge of the favela in his cave on the hillside, and prefers to keep it simple.

It's not all idyllic of course. By and large, people live in favelas because they can't afford to live anywhere else - they are the maids, the housekeepers, the cleaners for the rich, earning R700-ish a month - a fairly pitiful sum and certainly not enough to rent a house in a proper planned area of the city. As our guide pointed out, if you tore down the favelas, Rio would grind to a halt, because the people who live here are the ones who keep everything ticking. The educational prospects are poor there, the majority of children don't end up at university and sadly, many of them turn to the drugs trade because they can earn more that way - although, thanks to an informal agreement with the police, it means they can never then leave the favela, because once they do they will be arrested.

It made us both think. Of how lucky we are to have enough money to go on adventurous holidays, to live in a nice house, to drive a nice car, to be able to educate our children well. But also of, how in many ways, we are spiritually the poorer for it - we don't have the same relationship with our neighbours, we get hung up on our possessions and whether we have the latest clothes and whether our thighs are too fat. For a brief moment, the Major and I contemplated coming there to live for a while, to engage with the people around us, to learn the language, to see if we could get by. But then we returned to our cosy little guesthouse perched in pretty Santa Teresa with lovely houses all around and weakly, foolishly agreed that we might not be able to manage it after all. A shaming thought, especially after meeting Rambo.

Mind the bump

2010-12-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

Readers of my regular blog for the Lady magazine will know that I have prostrated myself upon the altar of the would-be family planners and am expecting a baby, due in April. Thus far, all has been well - no morning sickness, fatigue or any of the other discomforts that one is warned about. In fact, up until now I have pretty much been able to pretend I am not pregnant at all, as my 'bump' has just looked like the effects of eating a little too much. Now, however, it is starting to protrude - a fact that was made painfully obvious to me the other evening.
The Major and I were attending a Christmas extravaganza, and decided to fortify ourselves with caffeine beforehand. We bought our coffees, and were making polite conversation with the lady at the till, when she said, "so, you're expecting a baby."
We exchanged surprised glances and agreed that this was so.
It was most odd. I have grown so used to telling people I am pregnant and them expressing surprise and disbelief that this new evidence of my impending motherhood, despite being a natural process (pregnancy=bump after all) has come as a bit of a shock.
Now I am gearing myself up for yet more conversations centred around my stomach. I have been warned to expect random touching by strangers, comments as to the sex (we have decided not to find out) and unsolicited advice. Fine. But be warned, if anyone tries to stroke my belly without asking first, there will be hell to pay.

On parading

2010-11-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday was Veteran's Day, aka Remembrance Day, and there was a parade in Leavenworth. Naturally we went along to see what was happening.
I think, retrospectively, the key word was probably involvement. I don't know how many people were watching the parade, but I'm pretty sure more people were in it than observing. There were the army types in their uniforms, followed by the ROTC (junior army, scarily young some of them), then the Brownies and the Scouts and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Mayor and the State Representative, then more Scouts, then the high school Marching Band, complete with cheerleaders, then more Scouts, then more veterans, then a couple of random people driving old cars, then some more cars with fat people waving from inside, then some more veterans, on a truck this time, then a helicopter being towed along on a float, then a Masonic Lodge or two, then the Daughters of Job (junior masons), more veterans, some horses and finally the Fort Leavenworth Hunt. The whole thing went on for several hours, in the cold, with lots of people waving and occasional cheers.
What amused me most was the homespun-ness of it all and also the number of people who felt the need to parade in cars. Surely the point of a parade is to sally forth on foot? Or perhaps on a float or maybe a horse, but just to drive very slowly, waving? It didn't seem very parade-like behaviour.
I also missed the solemness of the British remembrance spectacle, with its people in mourning colours wearing poppies and serious expressions, and the last post and the two minutes silence. Veterans Day here is much more of a celebration, and a chance for everyone to get stuck in. Apparently Armed Forces Day is the more solemn occasion here.
Nevertheless, the whole thing provided an amusing spectacle, and then we were able to go and warm up with beers and fajitas in the High Noon Saloon, which is always fun. Do post further thoughts on the nature of parading...

Dyed in the Red

2010-11-03T07:10:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up to a state that is completely controlled by the Republican party. GOP candidates have taken all the major seats in Kansas, from the US Senate seat to the various house districts.
When I got to the University this morning, most of my colleagues were sunk into deep gloom at the news. Although, as one of them pointed out, at least now nobody can blame the Democrats when things go wrong. And we all took comfort from the fact that, while Kansas might now be dyed deep red, at least Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate in Nevada who referred darkly to citizens making use of their Second Amendment rights, wa beaten by Harry Reid, the longstanding Democratic incumbent.
Nevertheless, it seems strange, in a state that is largely blue collar, working class or agricultural, that so many people vote to the right. After all, the Democrats are ostensibly the party of this demographic, and their policies reflect the desire to help those less well off, with healthcare reform, tax cuts and so on.
But Kansans also like to be left alone, and don't like the thought of their actions being controlled by Washington, hence their love of 'no more big government'. As Sam Brownback, the new Republican governor of Kansas put it, "no more Obama way; now to the Kansan way" - whatever that means.
I've basically realised I can't talk about politics any more, unless I am in the liberal oasis of the KU environs. This was perfectly illustrated by a conversation with a friend the other evening, who describes himself as a "libertarian" and says that if government backed off, we'd all be in a better place.
The irony is, he works for the US Army, perhaps the biggest government-controlled machine out there. The base budget for defence spending in America currently stands at $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion. That's 19% of the entire federal budget. In fact, it's one of the biggest single expenditures of the US government. Surely reducing government involvement would have to involve cutting defence spending somehow - and then where would all these libertarians be?

Leaves and things

2010-10-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

I drove past a man today who was blowing leaves off his drive with one of those electric leaf-blowing things - the ones that look like vacuum cleaners but blow instead of suck. Anyway, he would patiently blow a pile of leaves off his driveway into a neat little pile - but the problem was, it was a windy day, and no sooner had he blown his pile into place than the wind would come and mess it all up. I never actually saw him do anything with the leaves, apart from push them around with his blowy thing. Meanwhile more leaves were coming down from the trees all the time because, as I said, it was a windy day. Apparently one of these leaf blower things emits as much energy in one year as 80 cars. Do these people have nothing better to do all day than blow leaves around and pollute the atmosphere while they're doing it? (and I know, I was driving a car when I saw him) Such is life in the suburbs of America.

Psychotic American Politics

2010-10-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

A colleague said to me this morning, "I wish our right-wingers were more like British Tories." He has a point. Whether you're a fan of Cameron and his government or not, we remain relatively liberal in our politics in England - we may be carrying out one of the biggest slash and burn exercises in public sector jobs for a long time but our government and its acolytes does not exhort people to turn to guns to protect themselves, or rail publicly against homosexuality, or denounce those of the Jewish faith as "the antichrist".

Sadly this is not the case in America. The papers and airwaves have been full, recently, of the crazy things that politicians do to get themselves elected, in the run-up to the American midterms, where election fever has once again swept the country. Most of the press has focused on those extreme right-wing individuals who do and say ever-crazier things in the name of politics.

Take for example Carl Paladino, who is gunning for New York governor. He's the one who circulated an email with a photo of an African tribal ritual captioned 'Obama Inauguration Rehearsal'and who has attacked gays for supposedly brainwashing children. Or how about Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite in Delaware, who doesn't appear to realise that church and state are separate in the US, or another Tea Partier, Sharron Angle, the Nevada candidate, proposing that citizens consider "Second Amendment remedies" to "protect themselves against a tyrannical government." And let's not even get started on Sarah Palin.

OK, so these are extreme examples, but these are ELECTED people, for goodness sake. I read something recently which pointed out that the British public, for all its ostensible stupidity at times, is not completely without savvy when choosing its politicans. Most know which candidate is going to best for their constituency, and elect people who, on the whole, do an OK job. Admittedly we're in one of the worst recessions for decades, thanks largely to the last government, but let's face it, we all like to borrow money cheaply and spend beyond our means - it wasn't just them doing it.

But that's enough defence of Gordon Brown et al, the point is, deluded though they may have been, they weren't (I think), actual psychos. In America, most politicans seem to have a dangerously psychotic streak. At least that's what it appears every time I switch on the radio or the TV, where I see would-be leaders denouncing their opponents strategy, character and moral standing with all the dignity of a bully in a playground. It disgusts me - but what disgusts me more is that people are taken in by it - indeed they lap it up. Frank Rich (from whom I confess I stole many of the examples in this article) has written a very interesting piece on the whole thing in the New York Times, which you can read here. He says it better than I, but one thing Rich and I appear to agree on wholeheartedly: America is on a dangerous path if it continues in this way. Goodness knows what will happen next.

Miami Beach

2010-10-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

I went to Miami this weekend. It was so blissful: hot sun, palm trees, sea...
Admittedly Kansas is rather beautiful at the moment. The leaves are turning, the air has that glorious crispness to it and everything feels invigorating. But there was something rather lovely about being able to see the ocean, and not feeling totally trapped by land all around.
Plus, Miami is a very cool city. I don't know if I'm automatically predisposed to think everywhere else in America is cooler than Kansas (although it probably is), but Miami is especially rocking. I spent my first night there with some cousins; we cruised town in his 1978 Cadillac Eldorado before hitting the rooftop bar at the Gansevoort Hotel. Perfect.
The next day I chilled out on Miami beach, before hitting the road and driving down to Islamurada, in the Keys. Again, almost postcard-perfect, if you discount the sight of me in a bikini.
Could I actually live there? Well, yes probably. Ok, so it gets pretty hot in the summer, but you're on the coast, it's easier to fly to the UK, you can pop up to New York pretty easily, you get a great tan... And the people just seem to be a bit more on it than Kansans. They may not be as friendly, but they're bitchy, cool, smart and fun. Although I can't resist signing off with one particular comment which proves that even Floridians can be stupid - the conversation went a little like this:
Floridian: "So where would be your ultimate favourite place in the world - that you've been to or haven't been to."
Me: "Well, I've always wanted to go to India."
Floridian: "Oh no, you want to stay away from India. I mean, that's where the Taliban is, right?"

On freedom of speech - again...

2010-10-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about freedom of speech lately. Yesterday, the US Supreme Court began to hear Snyder vs. Phelps, a case which has raised the issue pretty starkly over here. Briefly, Fred Phelps runs a church here in Kansas, and organises his followers to picket military funerals with signs like 'God hates fags', 'Thank God for dead soldiers', 'Thank God for 9/11' etc. Pretty gruesome.

Anyway, four years ago, Phelps and his gang staged a protest in Maryland at the funeral of a Marine named Matthew A. Snyder - not gay himself, but Phelps et al basically do things like this because they think America supports homosexuality, especially in the military (hmmm - not sure about that one, given that the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is still firmly in place, but that's another issue). Understandably, Matthew's father was pretty aggrieved at this, and he has brought a case against Phelps, claiming that he invaded his privacy. It's more intricate than that, but they're the basics. You can read more detail here.

Part of the reason this has caused such a huge furore is because it brings into question the very nature of America's constitution. The First Amendment, which is oretty much sacred over here, states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There are those, in this case, who argue strongly in favour of Phelps and his right to freedom of speech - including many pretty major news organisations such as the New York Times, for example.

As I have said in this blog before, I'm not sure where one draws the line on this whole First Amendment thing. Then I was writing about Pastor Terry Jones and his proposed Koran burning on the anniversary of 9/11, now it's some psycho who thinks that picketing funerals is an acceptable thing to do. The attitude of both men disgusts me - that anyone, particularly someone calling himself a follower of Christ, thinks it is acceptable to behave in such a manner seems utterly unbelievable. But, freedom of speech - if you don't allow them to have their say, where do you draw the line?

I pondered the issue even more after reading a slightly out of date edition of the Spectator recently. This was the 'Thought Crime Special', which included various articles bemoaning the current state of affairs in Britain, where, at the other end of the spectrum, one can get the police turning up on your doorstep for merely asking whether they oould distribute Christian leaflets alongside a gay march. Which is better? I'm not sure. I, like many of the Spectator writers, despair of living in a country where so many things are now prosecutable, and agree with Matthew Parris, for example, that "without intensity or pasion, few great political or philosophical causes ever prevail." There is a place for righteous anger, I believe - as long as it does not descend into spittle-flecked, foaming-at-the-mouth, hatred-filled ranting.

But if you ban the latter, you come dangerously close to banning the former, and that is where the problem lies. Do I believe that people like Fred Phelps should be made to face up to the inestimable hurt and damage they have done to innocent people with their placarding? Yes. Do I, as Voltaire might have said, "defend to the death his right to say it"? Well, I'm not sure about defending to the death. And I'm not sure he should be allowed to say it in public. But, reluctantly, I have to agree that freedom of speech can't always be quantified. What the Supreme Court will decide remains to be seen.

Do you have kids?

2010-09-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

While I'm in a ranting mood, I might as well rant about another thing that particularly annoys me about the American psyche. Actually, I think it's specifically a Midwestern thing, and that is the assumptions that are made about children.

I recently met a (rather irritating) woman for the first time, who, after asking me whether I was married immediately followed it up with asking whether I had any children. No, I replied, whereupon she said "Are you planning any? Or have you decided no kids?" It was all I could do to smile politely and mutter something vague about not being entirely sure yet.

The fact of the matter is that I do want to have children, and hopefully in the next few years, but I find the outright questioning on the matter from complete strangers the ultimate in rudeness. I know it's meant as just an interested form of conversation, but for all this woman knew I could have been trying to have children for years, or I could have recently found out that I can't have children, or I might have just suffered a miscarriage.

What's more, when I gave my vague answer she went off onto a spiel about how if I wanted them, I really shouldn't wait too long, fertility rates being what they are. Now this REALLY gets my goat - I am perfectly aware that fertility drops off after 35, but quite frankly I don't feel it necessary to discuss (or defend) my childbearing plans with people who merely epxress an interest. Family planning is exactly that - family only, which means me and the Major in my book, or perhaps a couple of close friends to whom I might confess certain hopes and dreams. Basically lady, it's none of your f-ing business.

Healthcare - OUTRAGEOUS!

2010-09-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think that actually, I quite like America and might even be able to make it my home; at other times I am utterly baffled by it and realise how far from thinking like an American I really am.

One of the subjects that perenially raises this reaction is the issue of healthcare. The majority of Americans where we live think that 'socialised medicine' is a bad thing: that if you work, you can afford to pay healthcare, but why should you pay for anyone else's care? I had a long debate on the subject with it today with an acquaintance (a friendly debate, I hasten to add).

And yet every time I come across another example of the utter ludicrousness of the US medical system, I am flummoxed as to why anyone thinks the existing system is a good idea. A colleague of mine recently received a quote for health insurance. Not only would the deal include a $1,500 deductible (meaning that she would have to pay the first $1,500 of any treatment she received), but the insurance itself would cost her $600 a month AND she would have to then pay 20% of the cost of any treatment that the insurance would deign to 'cover'. Plus the cost of any prescription fees, of course. There were cheaper options - she could have opted to pay $110 a month - but that would have meant she would be liable for the first TWENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS of any treatment. I mean, what is the point of having health insurance in that instance?

As the Major pointed out, the problem with healthcare here is that the providers have a monopoly, which means prices go up and up and up. And the actual costs are by no means cheap. Recently, I had some pain and went to hospital where I received a scan, a blood test, a urine test and eventually two Tylenol (self-administered). The cost? TWO THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! It's absolutely outrageous. Personally, I don't care if every Tom Dick and Harry who doesn't have a job gets free healthcare thanks to my taxes, as long as it means I myself can walk into a doctor's office and get seen and treated for free. After all, in this climate we could all lose our jobs tomorrow.

Freedom of speech?

2010-09-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

The papers today have been full of the story of a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, who is planning to hold a ceremonial burning of Korans on Saturday, the anniversary of 9/11. Ironically, his church is named the Dove Outreach Centre. Hmmm. I'm not sure about his dodgy handlebar mustache either, but that's an aside.

Thankfully, the majority of people out there seem to condemn Pastor Terry Jones' actions. Hilary Clinton has publicly spoken out about it, and some in Gainesville are trying to thwart him, refusing him a burn permit. Half of his church has deserted him.

Needless to say, however, there are some nutters out there who support Jones. Some have apparently suggested he barbecue the Koran with pork, a meat forbidden by Islam.

It made me reflect, this morning, on the nature of free speech. America's constitution firmly defends it - the freedom of citizens to speak and believe what they want is written into the First Amendment. On the one hand, this is admirable: this is not a nation that represses its citizens or denies them the ability to speak out. On the other, however, there is the issue of respect - at what point does exercising ones' freedom of speech become an impingement of someone else's rights? Recently, there was the most almighty furore when Dr Laura Schlessinger, a 'self-help' (white) radio talk show host repeatedly used the word 'nigger' several times on air while giving advice to an African-American caller (who was actually calling to talk about her problem with racist terms including the word 'nigger'). Not particularly sensitive.

Unbelievably, however, there are those who support Schlessinger's insensitive comments and say she did nothing wrong. Well perhaps not in absolute terms - those of the first amendment, but surely to offend an interviewee in the way that she did is not at all right? You can read the full transcript of her rant here and decide for yourself. She has now resigned from her position, by the way.

In Britain, meanwhile, we have laws on 'hate speech' which arguably go too far the other way - even the mildest Irish joke could be said to fall under such laws. But I think, on the whole, that we should be aware that what we say may hurt others. Whether we legislate against it I'm not sure, but to allow people like Terry Jones and Laura Schlessinger to get away with their actions is surely not right in a modern, thinking society? Freedom of speech it may be, but burning the Koran smacks suspiciously of the very thinking which presumably inspired Jones in the first place - an intolerant attitude which allows for no deviation from its tenets. So who is right?

2010-09-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I've neglected my blog so shamefully. This time last week I had just got back to Kansas, feeling strangely relieved after the hectic eight days that was my stint on the Ford Fiesta World Tour. I was full of good intentions to blog at length and in detail about some of the crazy things we had seen, and instead I unpacked, took a long shower and flopped into bed. And then got cracking with Kansas life again. Oh dear. Anyway, there were a few highlights, which I thought I'd share with you here:

Visiting the Heidelberg Project in downtown Detroit. This is basically a live-in art installation in one of the city's poorest areas, dreamed up 25 years ago by an artist called Tyree Guyton who wanted to make a statement. And so he applied himself, and his paintbrush, to a rundown empty house on his street, decorating it with everything from random paint swirly to stuffed toys. Now, the street is full of these decorated houses (one has polka dots all over it), as well as random piled of what looks like rubbish. Except it's not rubbish, it's 'found objects' that symbolise like, loss and stuff. Hmmm. I couldn't work out whether I loved it or hated it, to be honest. We met the absolutely lovely executive director of the project, who had given up her Sunday - which also happened to be her birthday - to meet us in the blazing sun. She was so gracious - but when she introduced us to the artist, who was sitting with his posse on a deckchair under a tree, he told her she wasn't being 'respectful' in doing so. Well sorry mate, but it's your art, why don't you explain it, rather than expecting someone else to give up their day? Honestly, it annoyed me, and made me feel that little bit less charitable towards the whol affair.

Anyway, after that I flew back home, which was lovely. This week has been about catching up with life again, and remembering random moments from the trip, such as when the taxi driver I got from the airport asked me about what Susan Boyle was up to. Who knew she was so big over here?

In the meantime, it turns out that my feature for essentialwriters.com has been posted. You can read it here. I will post more often after this, I promise!

The craziness continues

2010-08-27T21:37:00.000-07:00

So since I last posted, we've done Dallas (so to speak - not in the 'Debbie does it' kind of way), met a cowboy poet, recorded a song in Studio B in Nashville where Elvis recorded all of his Grammy Award-winning hits (I'll be storming up the charts soon, no doubt), lost one photographer (not by accident, he was flying home), gained a new one and have now wound up in Indianapolis.

This morning, through, we met a complete nutter. He was called Tom, and was convinced that he was one day going to turn the rusting hulk of what was once a plane into a house. This despite the fact that he's had it since 2003 and nothing much has happened. "We live in our imaginations," his slightly creepy non-paid work buddy Tim told us, with a strange high-pitched giggle. Too right you do mate. Let's not forget that this guy is working on a lot right in the middle of a military base, where just down the road is a rehabilitation centre for mentally damaged soldiers. Bound to be a bit of paranoia flying round there. Sure enough, after about five minutes, he said, "so there are 82 Sharia law courts in the UK now?" "Er, don't think so," I replied. "But they want Sharia law, don't they?" "Well, possibly, but there's a big difference between wanting something and getting it." "That's good," he muttered. Argh! As I said, a bit of a nutter.

But I warmed to him and his crazy ideas, and I wish him luck on his venture. I'd love to see a plane that was a house, mounted on a weathervane like he wants to do. I fear I never will, but I won't tell him that.

Then we got to Indianapolis. Petrol head city. Full of crazy drivers. One of the first we saw was a bloke reading the Koran, while talking on his cell phone...while driving. One side of his car was completely bashed in, perhaps not suprisingly. Then we saw a pimped up SUV with a sound system so loud the whole vehicle was actually shaking. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

The road trip, continued...

2010-08-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

I've been on the the road with the Ford Fiesta World Tour for three days now, and already I've lost all sense of time. Ask me where I am and I probably couldn't tell you. Today when I was doing a video blog I had to retake it three times because I kept forgetting where I was filming from.

Nevertheless, it's actually quite fun. OK, so the 6am starts and midnight bedtimes aren't great, and driving for seven hours in a Ford Fiesta doesn't rank as one of the world's most orgasmic experiences, but I like the people I'm travelling with and we're forming a fun little team. As the only girl, I am like a little pet for the boys, and they indulge my slight tardiness in the morning, my need to pee frequently by the roadside and my constant requirement to eat with ease. I've also discovered that Anthony, the photographer shares my slightly dirty sense of humour which makes the long journeys rather more entertaining.

Plus, when we have a good story it's always good for a laugh. Today, for example, we were interviewing a guy who makes art on dirty cars. As in, he doesn't just write 'wash me' on the back, he actually spends time creating intricate artworks - which inevitably wash off moments later, which happened today. But before that happened, he had created the most beautiful drawing of two Texas longhorn cattle on the back windscreen of one of the Fiestas - I personally was gutted when it washed straight off when the storm broke. I'll post pictures later. Anyway, we all felt pretty jolly after we'd done the interview and there was a general high, which was nice.

Now we're on our way to Dallas, where tomorrow we're touring the Dallas Cowboys stadium. Two hours to go until we get there. Bring it on.

Guns!

2010-08-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

So, I totally abandoned my poor blog while I was in England, which was an absolute blast. Five days in Yorkshire, a lovely English summer wedding in Gloucestershire, five days in Cornwall and then three heady days in London, trying to pack in as many people as possible. I've come back to Kansas to relax - along with several commissions, which should help me pay the credit card bill I amassed.

Except unfortunately I can't relax, as I'm off on the next trip - a week's journey across Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Indiana, Arkansas and Michigan as part of the Ford Fiesta World Tour. What? Well, basically Ford has just launched a new Fiesta, and I've been invited on part of an enormous global trek in one of them. A nes Fiesta is driving from LA to New York, another from Northern Ireland to Dubai, another across South East Asia and another across Australia. Along the way, meanwhile, there are many adventures to be had.

Mine started this morning when I got up at 4am to catch a 6.10 flight to Phoenix. By 7.30 I was cracking on with the first activity - learning to shoot a machine gun. Seriously. Arizona (although I had never realised it) is the gun state - one in 50 people carry one and they sure are trigger happy. We were introduced to Katie, the petite and perky marketing manager at Scottsdale Gun Club, who informed us that she carries her own weapon (a Glock 27 handgun) but that her favourite to shoot is an M249 SAW (semi-automatic weapon) - "it's a lot of bullets and a lot of fun." Argh. Five minutes later I am trying my own hand at it - shooting, variously, a Smith & Wesson handgun, an MP-5, an AK 47 and the aforementioned SAW, which is bloody terrifying - you have to lie on the floor to shoot it, it pings bits of hot metal all over you and hanging out of one side is a belt of bullets.

Having thought that perhaps, I felt more at home in America than I had previously thought (I now love country music, for example), I've realised that I'm never really going to fit in - I just don't love guns enough. In fact, they terrify me. I don't think they keep you safer, I don't know why anyone would willingly carry something that is designed to kill another person and the smell of cordite makes me feel sick. Ah well. It was an experience, to say the least....

2010-08-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

I am totally loving being back home, but certain things keep happening that jolt me and point out the difference between my new short-term home and the real one. Last night, for example, I went to the theatre with my parents and some friends, and we all met up for a Chinese beforehand. After we'd ordered a round of drinks, my father asked if we could also have a jug of tap-water. He was informed that if we wanted tap-water, we would be charged 50p a glass. Cue father getting outraged and me hiding my head in embarrassment.

Nevertheless, he had a point. In this day and age, it seems outrageous to charge for tap-water, particularly if you're eating a full-on meal and paying for it. And me made me realise how lovely it is in America, where whenever you arrive at a restaurant, they bring you a full glass of iced water the moment you sit down - and don't look at you as if you're some sort of inferior bug if you don't order anything else to drink.

Of course our Chinese was probably the exception rather than the rule; however it made me realise that sometimes, our friends across the pond do have it right.

Back in Britain

2010-08-02T07:46:00.000-07:00

The eagle has landed: I am back in good old Blighty. Air Canada was not the most luxury of experiences, but they got us in half an hour early. Oh but it was lovely to be on British soil again. I sailed through immigration at Heathrow (a first) and profusely thanked the passport man, whose flat London vowels sounded like music to my ears (I think he was a little confused by such effusiveness combined with an English accent). It was all so wonderfully, familiarly home – posters advertising things I had actually heard of, a WH Smith, a Boots! So comforting after Barnes & Noble and Walgreens. Heathrow was looking beautifully clean, and I jumped on the tube and steamed through the western suburbs of Greater London, feeling nostalgic as I saw terraced houses glide by. On an impulse I hopped off in Knightsbride – I had time to spare, and ended up having an impromptu lunch with an old girlfriend. I have known her since she was a gawky 11-year old with braces on her teeth; now she is impossibly glamorous and does a very worthy job raising money for the Royal Marsden. Refreshed, and in possession of an enormous pile of magazines and papers to read on the train, I hopped back on the tube and headed on up to Kings Cross, where I was catching a train to York, near where I grew up and where my parents still live.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the utter, pettifogging smallmindedness of British officialdom, a concept I was swiftly reminded of when I got to Kings Cross. In a fit of organisation, and an attempt to avoid the exorbitant costs of the East Coast mainline, I had booked my train ticket months ago. Because of Air Canada’s efficiency, I still had an hour to spare despite the impromptu lunch, so thought I would try and change my ticket to an earlier train. A mistake, as it turned out. I queued, reached the front, and was told to go and collect my ticket from the machine and then bring it back to them. Off I went. I put in my credit card, carefully punched in my reference number and...nothing. The bank, a while ago, cancelled my card because of fraud, so the numbers didn’t match up. Back I went to the queue. Got to the front, told the man what had happened. He told me I had to call East Coast and explain the situation. I got hold of a nice Geordie girl, who said that, just this once, she would put a note on the system to allow me to collect the ticket I had already paid for, “as a goodwill gesture”. If there is anything guaranteed to get my blood boiling, it is that phrase. I told her, very politely and assuring her that i knew it was not her fault, that this was ridiculous. Surely people must change their cards all the time? What would happen to them? There was an option on the web page to make changes if that happened, she explained. But what about me – who’s been living in America, landed this morning, has no immediate access to the internet and now just wants to collect a ticket? She had nothing to say to that. Eventually, I managed to get hold of the damn thing. I decided not to change to the earlier train, which would have cost me an extra £56, even with my railcard. The whole procedure took me 45 minutes. Good thing I wasn’t in a rush. I am resolved to write a letter of complaint.

The whole experience recalled a similar incident in America recently, which happened with very different outcomes. The Major had to fly unexpectedly up to Wyoming, to rescue his parents. They are out on holiday, and had gone up to Yellowstone, experimented with horseriding and fallen off. My father in law spent several days in hospital with a few cracked ribs and a very bruised hip, and both p's-in-law were rather shaken. Valiantly, the Major volunteered to fly up and drive them in their hire car back down to Kansas so they could recuperate at our house. I took him to the airport, where we stopped off at the car rental office to add him onto the insurance. We explained the situation to the kind man in the parking booth, who took us straight to the front of the queue to talk to the supervisor. “I’m not really supposed to add you on without the main driver present,” she told us confidentially. “But I’m going to do it anyway. Clearly you need to be up there and sometimes the rules need to be broken.” Quite.

British trains are much smaller than America trains. We took the train to St Louis once; it took five and a half creaking, whistling hours with many stops, but the seats were as wide as armchairs and there was plenty of room, because no-one with any sense travels by train in America – to drive the same distance to St Louis, for example, takes a mere four hours in the air conditioned comfort of your own car. East Coast trains are invariably packed to the gnunwhales, no matter what day of the week or time of day, and I’m typing this on a fold out table that’s smaller than my (very miniscule) laptop, elbows tucked in. They’re also prohibitively expensive – if it was £56 to change my ticket with a railcard (Forces, there are some benefits to being an Army wife), goodness knows how much it is if you don’t have one. The whole notion of flexibility comes at a cost. But for all their faults, the trains do run regularly, travel swiftly, and are generally roughly on time. Of course you have to put up with the overheard conversations of your fellow passengers – at the moment I am listening to an old man in a tweed cap twittering (not in the telephonic sense) about his journey to his hapless seat mate. Mine is due to get on at Peterborough – selfishly I hope he or she misses the train so I get the whole seat to myself. In a mere two hours I will have completed my epic journey (Kansas to Toronto, Toronto to London, London to York) and already America seems like a million miles away (which I suppose it is, but I mean metaphorically as well as physically). I feel as if I have woken up from a dream and it's wonderful. Whether I will be ready to get back after two weeks I'm not sure. I'll keep you posted.

In limbo

2010-08-01T18:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Toronto airport, having completed the first leg of my journey back to the UK. It's very peaceful here. Canada seems generally calmer than America, less brash, not so in your face (I have been here more than once before - Canada that is, not just Toronto airport; I'm not making a sweeping statement based on my experience of an airport). I quite like it, especially at 9pm on a Sunday evening with a seven hour flight ahead of me. But I do feel somewhere again, rather than nowhere. I am a little bit anxious about going back to the UK - home of work, friends, family.... I won't be able to hide any more. But I'm hoping to hit some editors with good features ideas and secure a few commissions. Bring it on!

Home sweet home

2010-07-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm going back to England on Sunday, and am feeling rather in turmoil about the whole affair. On the one hand, I'm uber-excited about seeing friends and family, whom I miss; on the other, I almost feel as if I am already suffering from London-homesickness in anticipation of leaving. I always did tend to see the negative side of things...
I'm also anxious about going back to the place where, before I left, I lived and worked hard - compared to now, where life is really rather easy and relaxed. Will it make me mourn my old life even more? Who knows. In the meantime, I'm sending emails, arranging coffee meetings and focusing on the getting excited part!

Furore?

2010-07-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

No comments yet on yesterday's post detailing the conversation between myself and a KC store owner who thought Australia was in the UK. However, I also posted it on Facebook and it seems to have caused something of a storm - whether one in a teacup I have yet to see.
I did wonder, when I posted it, if I would begin to offend my American FB friends (I posted another comment a few weeks ago, describing a group of Americans who said to a Kiwi friend who also moved here in December 'you know, your English has really improved since you moved here'). And sure enough one, my dear friend Olga (who is highly intelligent by the way) has retaliated. Herewith I reproduce the debate/various comments (excluding names, for privacy)...

That is amazing.

I too have occassionally been assumed an Aussie, but thankfully canadians are a bit more geographically blessed!

Genius. Your response?

Classic!

wow

My sister once got her haircut in an american salon, and her conversation went as follows:
Hairdresser: So you speak, like, really good English, where are you from?
Sister: England
Hairdresser: Oh, so do they, like, speak English there?
Sister: No, a variant of Russian.

My Grandmother lived Stateside for a while. After having her hair done one week she said to her Hairdresser that she would see him in a Fortnight. Hairdresser: Whats a fortnight? Grandmother: 2 weeks. Hairdresser: Cool! see you in a couple of forts!

aaaaa ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!! keep em coming!

I've got a good one. When I told a girl in America I was from England, confused, she asked, 'how come you speak such good English?'.

You asked for cutlery yet? Good luck with that one.... when we were last visiting Chicago a year ago, I accidently got out a £20 note to pay for some fudge, then realised I had made a mistake - the guy was genuienly perplexed that in other countries they use different money!

Hey! I'm offended, we're not ALL morons! I can see you're getting annoyed Luce with the area, Kansas is Kansas.

Please don't be offended Olga, It's a very bad British trait but we tend to mock every nation so pelase don't take it personally!

ha i was wondering when the americans would begin to fight back. I do think 'Fall' is a lovely name for Autumn - sort of basic but beautiful. That's it though. Oh and popsicle is good too. The rest is utter slaughter of our lovely tongue.

Haha, no I'm not truly offended, being facetious does not translate well on FB but thank you for the polite apology. That's why I love you Brits.

From me: Ok, so I was wondering at what point my transcriptions would start to appear rude... in the spirit of fairness, I think all Brits should equally post comments of anything thick fellow Brits have said!

I'll see if Private Eye's Dumb Britain is online as well... it's astounding the level of stupidity they unearth... mainly from the weakest link

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A TEN-YEAR-OLD?, SKY ONE
Dick or Dom: What is the suffix in this sentence? "Milhouse was hopeful that he would get top marks in his exam."

Contestant: I’m not exactly sure what a suffix is. This is embarrassing. I work for a national newspaper.

Dom or Dick: Which one?

Contestant: The Guardian. I think it’s “exam”.

Quote myself when reading a list of speakers attending a conference. "Wow, Panel (pronounced 'Pan-elle') must be a really famous speaker, they're know by just one name. I wonder who it is" (I then googled who 'Panel' was). I love America and love Americans so much. I think they are gorgeous people. I also am regularly outsmarted and educated by the ones I know.

Olga So glad you are not really offended, should have read your facetiousness in the inflection of the ALL. By the way I am not actually even British. I Zimbabwean .....cue the American question. How come you're white? And Do you have lion's in your back garden?

So... you can see that the Brits are now trying to make up for it - glad to have provided such entertainment!

Correction

2010-07-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Just had a call from the Major's father. Apparently his father (the Major's grandfather) wasn't sent out to Fairmont during the war, but just after it. Apologies. At least someone reads my blog....

Conversation with man in a shop today

2010-07-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

Man in shop: So where are you from?
Me: the UK
Man: So when you say UK, where do you mean exactly?
Me: London
Man: No, I mean the UK - does that include Australia?

A weekend in Minnesota and the search for Amalgam

2010-07-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Bill Bryson, in his book The Lost Continent (it's brilliant, and very insightful - I recommend it) talks about his search, on his travels through America, for the town Amalgam - not a real named place, but some small town which is the perfect little small town of his past. He comes to realise that it doesn't exist, but he picks a piece of this town and something from somewhere else to try and create it.

Well, I think I might have found a contender for Amalgam. The Major and I spent this last weekend in Fairmont, Minnesota. The Major's grandfather, who was sent there during the war, is now buried there, and we were having a sort of family reunion around his newly planted gravestone. In the meantime, we got to explore the place, and very nice it was too.

Fairmont is centered around five lakes, which make a pleasant sort of hub for the town, the main part of which is pretty compact, if you discount the ugly sprawl that has started to leach from the edges in the form of Pizza Huts and Travelodges. There's an old-school high street, a fine county courthouse, complete with cupola'd roof, and streets full of pretty houses, many of which face onto one of the lakes. We spent Saturday lazing by the water, baking ourselves then jumping in to cool off. In the late afternoon, we moseyed to the Channel Inn, a modest sort of place on the water's edge, where we saw a bridal party straight from the wedding. The bride, still in her white dress, had donned cowboy boots and was knocking back a beer on the jetty. It was that sort of place. We stayed for dinner, and had burgers and fries and set the world to rights.

I'm aware I probably sound as if I'm drifting off into some kind of idyllic daydream where I'm imagining relocating to Fairmont and sitting on my back porch watching the sun go down. But back to reality: as one distant relation put it, Fairmont is a three-day town. It's fun for the first 48 hours; after 72, you're pretty much ready to get out of there. Because once you've sunbathed, swam, possibly had a boat trip and eaten at the Channel Inn a couple of towns, you're pretty much done. The nearest big city, Minneapolis, is a two and a half hour drive away, and the only big stores are a strikingly ugly JC Penney and a Wal Mart. We all wondered where everybody worked: the answer is that the majority of the population are retired. Most of them are Iowa farmers.

So... not the Amalgam for me. Perhaps I'll start searching for my own. I think my criteria are a bit different from Bill's though. For a start, my Amalgam, at this stage, is probably a city rather than a town. It needs to be walkable (and have residents who walk), have nice architecture and a sense of history. Good restaurants - they don't have to be fancy, but just with decent food - a smattering of independent boutiques as well as the high street stores (I need Gap), a few coffee shops, hosts a decent farmer's market. On water would be nice, and a university or some other intellectual centre is a plus. Culture - an art gallery, theatre, cinema. As I'm writing this, I'm picturing Seattle (still my favourite American city), although admittedly Seattle is rather cold. I'm not averse to rain - I consider it rather good for the soul, in fact, but I'd like it to warm up in the summer if possible. Accessible without being super-expensive. Not too hectic - but not too laid back either. The people need to be nice - without simultaneously being simple. I'd rather not be asked whether I'm from Australia every other day (happens more than you might think), so a sprinkling of cosmopolitanism is a definite bonus.

I'm going back to the UK in two weeks and know I'm not going to be able to check out any potential Amalgams before then - unless you count Toronto, where my plane goes via, which you can't as it's in Canada. Anyone with any suggestions, please make a comment. I'll keep you posted...

The complications of living abroad

2010-07-13T11:42:00.000-07:00

I'm in the middle of a phone call to my father about our flat in London. He's rung off to find a bit of paper and I thought that in the meantime I'd update my blog.

Just occasionally, running what is still basically a British life from the other side of the world gets a bit complicated. There are the postal addresses to be changed, the British credit card bill still to be paid - and, like today, the flat to be dealt with.

We rented out our London flat for the two years we are over here, to a very nice couple of about our age who seem to be happy living there. We've got a nice handyman on speed dial who has a set of keys and comes round to fix things when they need fixing, and on the whole it all works well.

Except for today, when it transpires that my father has received (and paid) a bill for something that I know nothing about. He is the on the ground manager of these affairs, you see, and the bills get sent to him and he keeps me posted. So at the moment, he's trying to find whatever it is he's paid, and I'm gearing myself for a long and complicated telephone battle, to be conducted by Skype over the next few days with whoever it is who is mucking us around.

Of course, it might be a perfectly legit bill that needed to be paid and is all fine. But I have a feeling it's not going to be. Sigh. Whoever said living abroad would be easy?

Mosquito bites and fun blogs

2010-07-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

Spent most of today generally doing nothing very much/drinking tea and browsing the internet, not even reading anything in depth but jumping from one web page to the next. I'm distracted by the insane number of mosquito bites on my legs and feet, deposited there on Saturday night, which was mostly spent at various friends' houses drinking wine outside, far too near rivers, from whence the mosquito came. The Major took pity on me this afternoon and conveyed me to CVS, where I piced up hydrocortisone cream and antihistimane, which the pharmacy lady said would help. Time will tell. Even she was impressed by my lumpy legs. They are truly gross.
Anyway, I came across some fun sites when I was browsing, which made me determined to make this blog better and more linkable etc etc. So that is my new mission. Fingers crossed. In the meantime, I was enjoying reading the shoe ramblings of an old acquaintance I studied with at Cardiff University's postgraduate journalism school - Tiffany Wright blogs about wearing a different pair of shoes every day. Quite fun. Then I found this site, which I am going to join and hopefully it will provide inspiration. Then I chanced upon this one, which is lots of fun and I am going to send them a recipe for courgette cake, which is the latest recipe in my attempts to use up the enormous number of courgettes that my vegetable patch has produced. For more on this, click here to read my Lady blog on the subject!

2010-07-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

Forced to make a firm phone call to the British Embassy in Washington this morning. I have a subscription to the Spectator, you see, which gets sent out, via our BFPO account, to Washington. They do postings twice a week, so in theory, I should receive my mag weekly - albeit perhaps a week out of date. But no, this morning a package arrived containing not one but two Spectators, dated the 19th and 26th June. It is now July 7th. I accept that, if I am too cheap to pay the inflated overseas subscription fee, I can expect to receive my reading matter a little tardily. But for the Embassy to simply save up my post and send it off in one go slightly defeats the point of reading a news magazine. Any suggestions?

Scaremongering

2010-06-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

So now I'm on a roll, and I have to write about a TV programme I found myself watching last night. It was after the Simpsons, the telly was still on and I was painting my toenails. The host of the show, a Dr somebody (I'm pretty sure the Dr was a spuriously gained title) was busily engaged in putting the fear of God into a incredulous audience who should have known better. Not literally the fear of God, as in, I wasn't watching a televangelist, but this guy was talking about all the terrorist threats out there against ordinary, hard working, God fearing Americans.

Anthrax is the biggest scare, he told us, in hyperbolic tones. Easy to manufacture, easy to drop. Wipes out whole cities. The US military are vaccinated against anthrax, but the general population needs to be too. Forget the recession, this is a matter of the highest urgency.

Then he brought on the rats. Two of them, big brown ones in a cage. The audience shuddered. "Bubonic plague!" he pronounced dramatically. "Wiped out half the population of Europe in the 17th century! It's us next!" It's the government's fault, of course - they are putting sufficient time or money into developing a vaccine. And on it went.

Now, this was prime time TV. I actually couldn't believe that they would schedule this kind of stuff to appear at all, let alone then. It was pure scaremongering, delivered by an opportunistic presenter to an audience who were lapping it up and should have been at home. If I were a terrorist contemplating an attack and watching that programme I would have been tempted to drop a load of anthrax on the studio. I'll probably get taken out for saying it, but there we go. The Land of the Free, right?

The humblest of apologies and a few thoughts

2010-06-29T08:36:00.001-07:00

Oh my poor blog. I am so ashamed of how I have neglected it. There I was, fully intending to update it every day with tales of my travels, and I was utterly useless. But, I am not going to give up. So, a few succinct thoughts on California in general and the differences between California and Kansas:

California is an unbelievably cool state. I always knew I would enjoy going there; I hadn't realised quite how much. It's so varied - in its terrain, in the cities, in the landscape. You can be in San Francisco or LA one moment, then a couple of hours later driving through the arid desert, where the temperature's 112 and there is literally no life, apart from the eerie Joshua Trees, winding up through the sand. We wound the coastal highway through towering redwoods and misty fogs that rolled in off the Pacific, and we hammered along baked highways where the sun shimmered off everything and it seemed as if we were underwater. Incredible.

The people are so refreshing. We struck up a few conversations with strangers - in bars, by the side of the pool - and almost immediately were talking politics, international relations, gay rights... out here (in Kansas), most of the time I am trying to keep my mouth firmly shut on any of the above, because I know that a) the person with whom I am talking is quite likely to hold a diametrically opposed view and b) that they are unlikely to even listen to an opposing point of view and accept that person might have a point. Not so in California, where we had genuine debates on topics with utter randoms. Of course I'm being sweeping in my generalisations, but it definitely made an impact.

The food.... oh the food. A farmers market in every small town you went through, often on a Thursday night when the whole street would be closed off and families would stroll along in the gathering darkness, eating from stalls, doing their weekly shop and hanging out with friends. Restaurants serving right from the sea seafood. A choice in restaurants - not just burgers and grilled chicken sandwiches, but fresh, flavourful, seasonal food, made from local ingredients. The most amazing wine. Not cheap, mind you, but delicious. And available.

The sea - or rather, the ocean. California's got it, Kansas 'aint. Can't beat that I'm afraid....

British Columbia: strangely like England

2010-05-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

So...there's quite a lot to catch up on from my last blog, which documents a time which already seems far more than just five days ago. I'm writing this sitting in a Seattle coffee house, drinking exceptionally good cappucino, surrounded by hot, intellectually bearded men (apologies to the Major at this point, but they are). All around me are my goods and chattels, which have mysteriously expanded over the past few days. The bearded man to my left (mac laptop, ipod, book, fedora next to him on the table, making complicated looking calculations on a piece of paper) just looked over and raised his eyebrows as I pulled off my outermost layer to add to the general chaos.

I've just got off the boat after an overnight stay on Vancouver Island. A solo trip, characterised primarily by my overwhelming exhaustion, brought on by a 6am start and one of the worst nights sleep I've ever had in the stinking fetid hole of a dorm room in the Green Tortoise hostel. Olivia, you see, had skipped town to attend the wedding which was her primary reason for coming out here, and I was left on my tod for a few days.

So, after an afternoon spent in this very cafe, enjoying the atmosphere, the warmth and the men, followed by a whistlestop tour around Seattle's underground and a quick trip to the art gallery, I eventually laid my plans. I would get up early on Saturday morning, tootle down to the docks and try and get on the 7.30am journey to Victoria, returning on Sunday.

Accordingly, I staggered to the ferry port and hopped on.

British Columbia is totally unlike Seattle, and more totally unlike America than I would have expected. Admittedly I was only there for a day. But other than the cars on the right of the road and the dollar currency, it was almost exactly like being back in England. I spoke to the Major on the way over and told him where I was going. "Oh right, what's that like?" he asked. "I'm not entirely sure," I admitted, "but I'm expecting it to be a bit like going to the Isle of Wight."

And I was pretty much right. There was the harbour, filled with sailing boats bobbing perkily in the breeze. There was the imposing grand hotel, the Empress, overlooking the harbour. The weather was about the same as a nice British summer's day: sunny but cool. There were union jacks everywhere (British Columbia, remember). And later on that evening, walking back from the cinema (Robin Hood, moderately ok), it was just like any British high street on a Saturday night. All most peculiar: not entirely unpleasant, but made me realise how little, actually, I miss England.

Anyway, tonight we're off to Portland, and I still have to write about the bears but that will have to wait, as we've got to go and pick up our hire car. Over and out....

California here we come

2010-05-21T15:56:00.001-07:00

I wrote this blog four nights ago, but haven't had a chance to post it yet. So here it is!

It’s 10.30pm. I’m not sure what the exact temperature is, but I can’t feel my left forefinger and I can see my breath. I’m sitting up in bed, wearing my leather jacket zipped right up to my neck, pyjamas and thick woollen socks. The only thing protecting me from the elements is a canvas roof and a tenuously strung canvas curtain. Outside, my food: cheerios, milk and tea, bread and peanut butter, is locked into a bear proof cabin.

I am in Yosemite National Park with my friend Olivia. We are possibly the worst prepared campers ever. All around us are groups of people bundled up in high tech outdoor gear, sitting around campfires which they have kindled themselves, probably by striking a flint on a rock. Mostly, they are sitting at special camping tables, eating hearty meals with proper cutlery.

We have the aforementioned bag of breakfast provisions, and two plastic spoons, which we nicked from a petrol station at the bottom of the mountain. We have no special camping gear. We have no frying pans, no bowls, no kettle in which to boil water for our tea. We don’t even have enough clothes to keep us warm, which is why we are currently huddled up together in the quite small double bed.

Nevertheless, we are on day one of an exciting road trip, which will last two weeks and take in the sights of northern California. I hope to be updating my blog daily with our exploits. That’s if I don’t die of hypothermia overnight.

2010-05-14T15:25:00.001-07:00

I believe I have blogged on these pages about the High Noon Saloon: Leavenworth's premier night out, complete with micro brewery and karaoke. Anyway, it was my birthday two days ago, and what better place to celebrate? I will say at this point that I never meant to get up on stage three times; once should have been enough - but give me a microphone and a stage and I'm off.

There are always some interesting acts at the Noon. It has its regulars - some good, some not so. There's the skinny Elvis impersonator, who always turns up in a full-on, rhinestone encrusted white Elvis suit, apparently oblivious of the fact that, at approximately 90 pounds, he's not really beefy enough to fill the King's shoes. But he croons away, and isn't too bad, actually. Then there's the sweet older lady, who must be well into her sixties, who clutches the microphone as if she were drowning and warbles out old time favourites in a slightly off-key manner - endearing, but painful. Last night we saw one of my favourite performers. He seems to be channelling a mixture of Jesus and anarchist for his look: he is immensely tall, immensely skinny, and has a moustache and beard and long hair which he always wears tucked up into a slouchy beanie. He usually sports jeans and a hoody which hang off his lank frame, although last night he appeared in a full suit: charcoal grey, complete with waistcoat and brown shoes. His girlfriend, meanwhile, is generally in some kind of retro getup from around the 1940s - last night she was wearing a floor-length ballgown, with a long evening coat over the top. Her breasts always spill abundantly out of whatever she is wearing.

Anyway, the beardy one, after mooching round the bar for however long, will always, when it gets to his turn, leap athletically onto the stage, grab the microphone and start bellowing out some hardcore heavy metal song. Last night it was something which had the lyrics "fuck the president, fuck the president" repeated many times. His girlfriend, meanwhile, stares adoringly from the floor, mouthing gently along with whatever lyrics her love is belting out. Afterwards, they repair to a side room where they play cards - I like to think it is some old-fashioned, Victorian-style game. They are quite adorably in love, and have, on occasion, performed a duet, clutching each other all the while, and singing something retro and schmaltzy. I believe he is the son of some Army major out here, who obviously kept far too tight a rein on his son, who has now broken free of the parental chain and is pursuing his own path. And good on him, say I. I don't feel scared around him: he's clearly getting all his anger out on stage which is much healthier than taking a gun and shooting people.

2010-05-14T15:23:00.001-07:00

Having neglected my blog for several days, we have now got to the point where David Cameron is the new PM. Nice. Even nicer that he is supported by Nick Clegg, my personal politician of choice. I think.

Anyway, it is interesting to see the American reaction to the British election. While most of my Facebook friends seemed to be bemoaning the ridiculousness of the British system, hung parliament, it'll never work, etc etc, I heard a news report yesterday, from a political commentator holding up our system as an admirable demonstration of democracy: two parties working together and "quietly getting on with it". It made me quite proud to be British.

2010-05-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Woke today, groggy, to a hung parliament. Stayed up until after midnight last night watching the BBC, hoping to go to bed to a new governmental situation. Needless to say, we didn't.

Yesterday was a fairly eventful day. We had decided to hold an election party and invite various Brits, plus interested Europeans round for a barbecue and to watch the elections via iplayer plugged into the TV. At 12 noon, we arrived home from a provisions shop to find a note stuck in our front door informing us that our electricity had been switched off because we had apparently failed to pay our bill (n.b the backwardness of the situation here means that even if you make an online bank transfer, it doesn't go straight through - instead, the bank sends a physical cheque to the intended recipient for them to pay in. It's not exactly a swift process). Cue a long, frustrating telephone call involving not being able to speak to a human being and having to hand over my credit card details to an automaton. The Major took over the situation, and eventually managed to make human contact. Would our electricity be switched back on today? Only if they could manage to get someone out, he was told. This was unlikely, and we would probably have to wait until tomorrow afternoon (i.e. today). 17 people coming for dinner and no electricity. Mon dieu.

Luckily, I am married to a quick-thinking man who spun them a story involving untruths I won't detail here. At 4.45pm, someone turned up and switched it back on. Ad hour later, the first of our guests arrived.

We were hoping, as I said, to be able to watch the whole thing and toddle off to bed. But when, by 12.30am, no definitive result had been made, we gave up.

This morning I am feeling a) exhausted and b) increasingly irritated that I am apparently one of the many overseas voters 'denied' their vote. I sent off for my ballot paper weeks ago - a fact I wrote about here - but didn't get any sort of communication through until the end of last week - far too late to get my vote in on time.

If the powers that be want a genuinely democratic government, they're going to have to get a bit more organised. Be prepared for queues, for one thing, and organise some sort of system for Brits abroad that doesn't involve relying on the vagaries of international postal systems. We have secure online banking, surely there must be some way of setting up online voting? It might help at home too - the so-called apathetic youth of today might simply find it too complicated to take half a day - or an entire day - off work to go and queue at their local polling station. Open to fraud yes, but at least everyone with an internet connection could vote, and the wonks would have to think of some way round the fraud aspect.

Most Americans round here seem to be oblivious of the furore currently going on in the UK. They're more concerned that the Dow dropped almost 1000 points yesterday because of the Greek fiasco. Interesting times.

One man's trash...

2010-04-24T13:41:00.001-07:00

Final post for today, and this concerns our morning activity: the great Yard Sale. In the next month or so, our litle community will see great upheaval as this is the major personnel-moving time, where families shift around the States to new postings. So every year at about this time there is a huge yard sale (read car boot sale, only from your garage instead of your car) where everyone sells all the stuff they won't be able to take with them to their next posting because of weight restrictions. They have it on the military base, where hundreds of people live, and visitors come from as far as Nebraska, hiring coaches and coming in parties to try and get their hands on the stuff people want to be rid of: everything from washing machines to furniture. Although it officially started at 6am this morning, some eager beavers were on the hunt last night poaching the best stuff - we have British friends who were selling things at one of their friends houses and got there at 6am this morning to discover they were already about $20 up.

I was hoping for some nice outdoor furniture for our litle garden, but we didn't arrive until 8am, by which time most of the vultures had swooped. I did, however, manage to pick up some DVDs and a pair of brand new riding boots for $5 - bargain! It was highly entertaining to watch - people driving around in their enormous Kansan trucks with the flatbed part full of random things, like blow up boats and pushchairs. Our friends only had a couple of boxes worth of stuff to get rid of - books and some clothes and things - and they made $120. Brilliant. This time next year I'll be out there with a stall of my own.

A murderous night

2010-04-24T13:35:00.001-07:00

I'm not over for the day yet. Because yesterday (and today) were eventful. After buying my chickens and cream and milk and eggs from Dana, I went home to prepare for a dinner party.

It might sound frightfully old school and 80s, but dinner parties are pretty big out here - in fact for us and our friends, they are pretty much the entertainment staple. There are several reasons for this:
1) Going out to eat round here is a) not that cheap and b) not that tasty (unless you trek into Kansas City and frankly, who can be bothered?). It's much easier to all get round to someone's houe, crack open a few bottles of vino and enjoy some good chat and good food.
2) If you go out, someone's got to drive. If you go round to someone's house, you can usually stay over if you have too much to drink (we all live in ridiculously large houses, so there are plenty of spare beds). If you host, you can just roll into bed at the end of the night.
3) We've pretty much exhausted the options of properly going out locally. There's always the High Noon Saloon, but Thursday nights are the best (karaoke night) and you've still got the driving problem.

So we all pretty much pile round and take it in turns. Last night I decided to mix things up a little. Lingering on our bookshelf was a Murder Mystery party kit that I had been given as an 18th birthday present (yes, it really has been hanging around for 11 years). What better time to make use of it than on a rainy night in a strange place with a bunch of good mates? So I issued invitations and everyone duly turned up in full costume. It was great fun - we solved the murder adequately enough, everyone had plenty to eat and drink and we all retired happy. Roll on the next one.

Eating healthily...or trying to

2010-04-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of my blog on The Lady website, you may have read my latest blog for them, which details the difficulty of eating healthily out here - despite living in one of the major agricultural states (Kansas is the number one wheat producer in America). Not only is it difficult to find organic meat and un-messed about with milk (unless you go to Whole Foods) but I'm convinced that the alternative - artificially altered dead animal and 'vitamin enriched' milk - is actually making me fat.

So I was overjoyed when a friend emailed me about Bryant Family Farm, which strives to produce "Christ-centered service in all areas of our lives and business." The bit I was excited about was the organic, free range chickens, beef, milk and eggs that they sell - not to mention goats milk and local honey.

So I took a trip. And it was so fun.

We (I took a friend along) were greeted by the garrulous Dana, a rosy-cheeked, smiley woman who is the matriarch of the Bryant family and mother to Sarah (18), Nathan (14), Jonathan (12), Rachael (10), & Samuel (8), all of whom are home-schooled and carry out the chores, which including feeding the baby goat kids, making pens for the chickens and collecting the eggs. We saw the baby kids, their mothers, chickens in various stages of development and happily munching cows. Then I bought three chickens (dead, to eat), a gallon of goats milk, some honey and some eggs. And Dana, bless her, threw in some home-made goats milk feta (powerful stuff, good on baked sweet potatos) and an enormous jar of cream, half of which was whipped into a pavlova and the other half of which is sitting in the fridge, waiting for me to make butter with. Yes, butter. Apparently it's really easy and all you need to do is bung it in the food processor and blend it for a bit, and it turns into butter. Dana gave me a piece of muslin to rinse it out in afterwards. Then you salt it and shape it and presto, homemade butter.

I left feeling inspired and hopeful. My total shop at Bryant's cost me less than $50 - significantly cheaper than it would have been to buy the same amount of food in the local supermarket, and worth ten times more for knowing that what I was buying hadn't been messed about with in any way. There are people out there doing it, you just have to find them. And then you go home and make butter. Simples.

Flying the Flag

2010-04-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

I think I may have put my foot in it last night. The Major and I were round for dinner at a new friend's house. She runs a stables, he is something to do with defence - lovely people, lovely place.

Anyway, post-dinner and over coffee we got talking about 'yard art' - how some people seem to think it's really classy to fill their gardens with life-sized sculptures/statues of all and sundry (c.f. the giant, malevolent-looking blowup Grinch I spotted in one yard over Christmas). All very funny and we were having a good laugh, but then I said - "and round us, some people have full-on flagpoles with spotlights to light the flags up at night!"

Silence.

It turns out that in America, if you fly a flag outside your property (which most people round here do, mainly being the patriotic ex-military types), you either have to lower it at sundown or make sure it is lit - legally. If your flag gets old or tattered meanwhile, or accidentally gets dropped on the floor, you have to burn it.

America is serious about its flag. You have the pledge of allegiance in schools, the aforementioned legalities concerning the flying - and of course, those who fly the flag upside down if they're protesting against something, which always causes a great furore.

I find it all faintly amusing, not to mention quite ridiculous, but think from now on I'd better shut up on my views about flags. Along with religion, politics, sex.... Not a lot I can talk about these days.

On blame and recriminations

2010-04-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

My mother didn't make it, but the aeroplanes are at least starting to fly again. As I write, hundreds of stranded passengers are being returned to the UK and Europe by means of through the night flights and 24-hour train services.

But inevitably, the recriminations have already begun. You would have thought that an erupting volcano was truly an Act of God - and admittedly no-one as yet seems to have come up with any conspiracy theories (it was Al Quaeda what dunnit, innit?) - but nevertheless, the blame has already started to fly in earnest. It chiefly seems to be aimed at governments, for failing to get everyone flying again soon enough. Many airlines are saying they will be asking for compensation.

Understandably the airlines are pissed off. After all, the aviation industry was losing some £150m a day while planes were grounded, and some airlines are apparently now perilously close to bankruptcy as a result.

But governments were only following the instructions of plane manufacturers, which specifically said if there's ash, don't fly. Imagine if they ignored this advice. Imagine if they'd just said, hang it all, let them fly - and a plane had gone down? Then we'd be in a whole lot more trouble.

It's a tricky situation - human being always want someone to blame. But this is a crazy situation. When I first heard on the news that Ryanair was planning to fly in the face of EU law and not reimburse passengers for anything more than the cost of the flight, my first reaction was disgust at Michael O'Leary's penny pinching ways. But on reflection, although I feel nothing but pity for those who were stranded, it's not the airlines' fault either. And if you get on a plane, you accept you are taking a risk. Hmmm. tricky one.

Competitive Hospitals: Good or Bad?

2010-04-21T09:04:00.001-07:00

One of my greatest pleasures out here, and a small link to the motherland, is a subscription to The Spectator, given to me for Christmas. I don't consider myself a raging Tory, but there are always some thought provoking articles to be found, and although I sometimes shudder at the overtly partisan nature of the politics, I forgive it nevertheless. Of course we are grossly behind because the magazine gets sent out, via our BFPO address in Washington, from England, which means I am currently reading the April 10 edition, which is a little frustrating. But getting it sent out is a lot cheaper than paying international subscription rates.

Anyway. Despite usually taking the more strident political articles with a pinch of salt, I was a little disturbed by something in an article in the aforementioned April 10 edition by Michael Heath entitled The Case for Cameron. Heath refers to the Tory offer of independent education for all, specifically allowing anyone to set up a school. "...it is encouraging that Mr Cameron would adopt this model more generally," writes Heath. "Under his government, public sector workers would be allowed to stage what is, in effect, a management buyout of their own division. They could operate for a profit, offering services to companies as well as government. There are increasingly hopefully signs that this will be adopted in health, too. As Oliver Letwin recently put it, 'Hospitals compete for patients, schools compete for pupils, welfare providers compete for results in getting people out of welfare and into work.' Such a vision is nothing short of revolutionary."

Well actually, it's not entirely. Because the one part of that statement that worries me the most already exists here in America: the part about hospitals competing for patients. Over here, it is not uncommon to see giant billboards at strategic intervals along the motorway, advertising, say, Lawrence Memorial Hospital as the place to go for cardiovascular experts, or Children's Mercy Hospital as the best place to take your sick child. On the radio there is a particularly odious ad featuring a syrupy sounding woman talking about how much she loves playing with her grandchildren - but how she nearly didn't get a chance to after a heart attack several years ago. Luckily she was taken to the Blah Blah Hospital with its expert cardio care and her life was saved, etc etc etc.

I find such adverts distasteful in the extreme. Perhaps it's my NHS upbringing (my father is a doctor and yes, he does do private work but the bulk of his patients are NHS) but I have a firm belief that a certain level of care should exist at all hospitals, and that the most important thing in an emergency is to get to the nearest one, not worry about telling the ambulance men as they load you up that you want to go to xxx Hospital please, because it's got the best surgeons. Of course there are some doctors who are more skilled in their particular field than others, but to advertise the fact seems unnecessary, somehow - not to mention playing on the fears of the often worried well - because after all, if it really is an emergency you probably don't care where you go. But over here, healthcare is a business - and a pretty dirty one at that. To contemplate the NHS going the same way is fairly horrific, not least because it is a slippery slope to some of the horrors that exist within the American healthcare system: doctors recommending surgery because it means they can charge a higher fee, or inducing babies so they can get back onto the golf course. I exaggerate, of course, but there's a truth to it. Oliver Letwin should watch what he says about free markets when it comes to healthcare.

Frustration, frustration, frustration

2010-04-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Kansas, I've been to the gym already and am all set for a day of goodness. Except I'm all of a twitter, and can't settle my mind to anything.

This is because tomorrow, my mother is due to fly out to the U.S. to come and stay for a week. Except she might not be able to, because a volcano in Iceland is currently spewing ash into the air and all UK airports are on complete shutdown.

Naturally this has caused chaos - for those of you who have been living in a black hole for the past five days, the airline industry is losing some £130m a day and there are roughly 150,000 Britons currently stranded abroad, according to the BBC.

Of course my mother is only one of those facing travel chaos, and her situation is relatively unstressful - she is still at home, at the time of writing her flight has yet to be cancelled and she is not about to get married, attend a funeral or be at the birth of a baby, like many of those stuck. But it is frustrating nevertheless - and I cannot settle to anything until I know for sure whether she is coming or not. Cue frantic scouring of the web to see if I can find any sort of definitive information whatsoever.

There is a part of me that simply holds up my hands and shrugs. Because there is nothing that we can do about all of this. Despite the desire to point the finger at someone (note the rising chorus of airline bosses pointing the finger at Europe's governments for continuing to allow airport shutdown when they say it is actually safe to fly), but in reality, we cannot stop the volcano spewing and nobody actually wants to risk passenger safety without very good reason.

So I sit and wait, unable to settle and checking, checking, checking. I'll keep you posted....

On Vehicles

2010-04-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

Not long after we arrived here, the Major and I concluded that we needed two cars (you'll remember our search for a vehicle back in January which involved test driving ex-police cars - we finally settled on a fairly ancient but serviceable Acura). Let me explain: he goes to work every day; I go to work two days a week and the other three working days don't really fancy being stuck at home with only a bike for transportation (anyone who tells you that Kansas is flat is lying). Eventually, after a week or so of me grumpily getting up at 6am to drive him to work in order to have the car, we were given an antique Chevrolet which a fellow Brit and his wife had bought for their daughters to learn to drive in. Her name was Marge, and she coughed and spluttered and farted like an old woman; her brakes didn't work properly, her windscreen wipers were even less reliable and the handbrake was null and void. Nevertheless, she did for us, and although after one particularly hair-raising drive down the I70 at night I would never take her on a highway again, she got us around.

Alas, however, Marge eventually became too decrepid to even get the Major to work and back. We were left vaguely muttering about getting another car and desperately coaxing Marge to life every morning when one day, the Major came back from work in a zippy little Jeep. Looked pretty good from the outside: a nightmare to drive. You could feel every bump and pothole, and cornering faster than 10mph would have had you tipped over onto the side. I was not a fan.

But guess what? The Jeep is now ours. Marge has disappeared (I think the Major just left her somewhere) and we now have the choice of smooth Japanese engineered comfort or rough and ready American bumpiness (did you know that Jeep stands for Just Enough Essential Parts? I've been longing to use that little gem of a fact for ages). Initially, I picked the former over the latter any day, but now the sun has come out, and the Jeep's true potential is beginning to emerge: because the doors and the roof come off. Bring on the summer tan.

Growing things!

2010-04-09T16:38:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung! It is delightful. The sun shines almost every day (apart from when it's thundering), and suddenly there are people everywhere - walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, waving at me when I go by. It's so Wisteria Lane. I love it.

So, now that everything is in bloom, I have vowed to grow myself a garden. I am not a natural gardener. In fact, most plants I touch seem to die. The only thing I have success with are those peace lilies, the virtually indestructible ones, which droop terribly and then you water them and they perk immediately up again. However. Despite my obvious lack of green fingered-ness, I'm going to give it a go.

I've already started, in fact. Last week I planted a bunch of sees - courgette, tomatoes, coriander - in little pots, ready to transplant, and they have sprouted! It is very exciting. Now I just need to remember to water them.

Alas, with gardening comes hard work - I need to dig over the soily bit and also do a fair bit of weeding. But I hope to become almost entirely self sufficient this summer (cue visions of me wafting outside to pluck a few sprigs of mint in order to whip up the perfect mint-flavoured something). Whether this will, in fact, work out, remains to be seen. I'll keep you posted.

2010-04-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

Just returned from a weekend in NYC. Arriving there on Thursday evening, straight into the heart of the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, was like waking up from a drug-induced haze. It was so cosmopolitan. So alive. There were people walking, running, talking, shouting, laughing. No-one asked me where I was from, or commented on how much they loved my accent. Nobody looked at me strangely when I strolled down the street. We sat outside in the sunshine, at cafe tables on the edge of the pavement and people-watched. It was fascinating. So many different shapes, sizes, colours, races. It was wonderful.

Would I want to live in Manhattan? Yes, yes and yes again. Although only if I had enough money. The friend we were staying with lives in the heart of Soho - in a one-bedroom apartment that is about the size of our bedroom, bathroom, walk-in wardrobe combination. His sitting room window looks onto a wall. His kitchen is almost small enough to be able to touch all four walls at once. And it's bigger than his old apartment. I found myself feeling almost smug about our enormous bedroom, plentiful spare rooms and spacious garden.

But I did love just being able to pop out - to a cool bar, or a great restaurant - and being able to walk around the city and explore. Not once did I wish for the car. Not once did I miss the slow pace of life.

We arrived back to a flooded kitchen floor (the tap had been knocked by something propped against it) and a clean--up operation that lasted until midnight. My brain was buzzing when I finally flopped into bed, so I did pop a sleeping pill. Today I'm back into the drug-induced haze again. How much of it is drug induced I'm not sure. But it is rather restful to be surrounded by green fields again (in our absence, the world seems to have turned green), and to hear birds, rather than cars. Am I turning into a country girl after all?

So, that hot tub...

2010-03-26T13:59:00.001-07:00

... Well what can I say? There I was expecting my life in America to be all housework and homesickness, with everyone expecting me to grow up and cease being childish. But then I found myself last night line dancing, microphone hogging and hot tubbing. How did that happen?

The line dancing was an 'International Wives' event. Sounds terrible on paper; the most fun without alcohol I've almost ever had in real life. Our teacher, a lady in middle years with more than a bit of a bulge got onto that microphone and worked her booty showing us how it was done. She really knew how to move. Two hours later, we were all yodelling, swinging our hips and sashaying round the dancefloor.

Onto the High Noon Saloon, possibly Leavenworth's most dodgy establishment (primary clientele: soliders and prisoners), but definitely one of the most fun. Several beers and a massive burger later we were on the dancefloor showing off our newly learned moves and dancing dangerously close to a 60-year od man with a long ponytail and a penchant for head to toe denim. Excitement. Karaoke. Shots. Back to Mrs Williams' house for more drinks. Into the hot tub. 'I have Never'. Champagne. Wrinkeld skin. Weeing on the lawn because we couldn't be bothered to go into the house. Finally we climbed out. 5.30am. The sun was about to rise. The Major must have been getting up as I finally flopped into bed. Today: massive hangover. Stinking of chlorine. Gearing up for the next International event tonight: the Spring Food Fair. Who knew Kansas would be this fun?

On the differences between American and English students

2010-03-26T12:37:00.001-07:00

I write this, pondering, with a monstrous hangover. Last night was a lot of fun, and involved line dancing, karaoke and a hot tub until 5.30am. A separate post. But now I am in front of my computer and replying to anxious students' emails about the assignment they are due to have in by 5pm today.

Is it just me, or are American students a lot more conscientious than we Brits? One student had emailed me last night (when I was on the lash), hoping I would get back to her by a certain time as she was working most of today. Another of my students only has two evenings a week free, because she works every other night. I teach an 8am lecture. All the students are there. There are no obvious signs of hangovers and they all pay attention and participate. When I was at university, no lecturer would have been foolish enough to schedule an 8am lecture. Even when a lecture began at 10am, barely half the students would turn up because most of them were still in bed, sleeping off the effects of the night before - or getting back on it. Since arriving here I suspect I have had more hangovers than my students have.

Of course this is partly down to expectation. They get graded for their attendance record - so missing a few lectures could end up in being points down. They have several assignments to turn in per week, so have to keep on top of it. And of course they pay - thousands - which means they often have to work just to feed themselves after paying tuition fees.

But their expectations are different too. American students are graded on a cumulative GPA (Grade Point Average) score - and out here, a C is a fail. Which means they are all desperate to do well and can't rely, like we did, on cramming furiously the week before finals and scraping a 2:1.

I'm not sure what I think about all of this. On the one hand, I love how involved everybody gets at Americna universities. I spent four months on a study abroad scheme at the University of Illinois when I was a student and did more in that four months than in practically my entire three year university career: joined a choir, sang in an opera, wrote for the student newspaper, attended extracuricular lectures, voluntarily spent time in the library. At American universities it's not considered sad or geekish to get involved and work hard, which to me, with my geekish tendencies was a joy.

On the other hand, strange though it may sound, so many of my more formative university experiences were as a result of having a bit too much to drink - and I don't mean the 'hilarious' chundering stories and cringeworthy snogs, but the philosophical discussions, the morning after hangover bondings, the sense that, we would never be able to be this free again. I think it's sad that American students can't have just a little more taste of this - although out here, unless you're 21, you can't even get into a bar, let alone drink it dry.

Oh I'm sure I'm romanticising a little - there are tales of wild fraternity parties and outrageous fake IDs. But nobody seems to slope off down to the pub post-lecture, or enjoy the afternoon discussing the meaning of life over a few cheeky beers. And I think that's sad.

On the other hand, I'm 28 years old and still in my pyjamas at 2.30 in the afternoon. But I did spend until 5.30 this morning in a hot tub, discussing the meaning of life. Rock and roll.

I've just realised this is a title bar...

2010-03-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

...which is brilliant. Seriously I am the most analogue person ever. I really want a iphone, but know that if I had one, I'd never get round to actually putting more than about 10 songs on it, and would mostly use it to text and phone, just like I currently use my crappy, piece of plastic American phone which doesn't even have a camera on it.

I realised that I never wrote about a day last week where I was so ridiculously monstrously hungover that I didn't get dressed until 5.30pm. I just lay on the sofa all day, groaning quietly. Me and the Major, groaning together. He actually got up at 7am, showered, shaved, dressed and was just about to leave the house when he had to double back and be sick. It was horrible. I haven't felt that bad for years.

We'd been to a cocktail party at the Major's place of employment. I was expecting it to be grim, and for me to have to do Wife behaviour, and consequently drank far too large an amount of Pimms Number 1 (or whatever the vodka one is), on an empty stomach, while also shunning the canapes. A foolish mistake. The end of the cocktail party saw me making wisecracks to the Major's boss (moderately bad idea); the end of the evening had me doing karaoke, barely able to stand up, in front of 200 people in the High Noon Saloon (terrible idea, although also retrospectively makes me feel strangely cool and want to laugh). We left shortly afterwards. I went to sleep with one eye open, because to close both eyes made me feel as if I was about to vomit.

Obviously this post would have had more impact if I had written it actually in the throes of the hangover. But I wanted to mark the occasion a) to prove that, even though I am now a Wife, I can still have "fun" and b) to use it as an opportunity to talk about the evils of American alcohol. Seriously, they put some weird shit into the booze here. The beer all has strange preservatives in it, as does the wine, which is also so sweet (unless you fork out upwards of $15 for a bottle of something imported) that is gives you a major sugar high. All of which means terrible hangovers.

Sp I'm blaming it on the booze. Just for a change. Although I reckon if I'd had an iphone I would have been able to post photos of the night on this site. Yeah right, whatever.

2010-03-22T12:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, the Major and I took a trip to Cabela's, which is billed as one of Kansas's primary tourist attractions.

Yet Cabela's is not a scenic beauty spot, nor a historic site. It is a shop. A hunting, fishing and camping emporium to be precise. Nevertheless, round here, that is a major attraction. Despite heavy snow, when we went, the parking lot was almost full - mostly of trucks, drive by lumberjack-wearing farmers, eager to kill things.

As you go into Cabela's, you are confronted with three enormous statues of antelope. The Major whispered that if they were that size in real-life, the people around here would probably try to bomb them. And having visited Cabela's, I have to concur.

The first thing I saw as we walked in was an eight-year-old child with a dangerous-looking crossbow. The child was fat. He had a murderous gleam in his eye. His father was pushing a shopping trolley piled high with hunting and sporting equipment. He too was fat. Oh the irony.

We pushed on into the aquarium area. Bored-looking fish glided around in their tiny enclosures. One was an extraordinary looking specimen, with various bulbous protruberances emerging from his face. But he wasn't as extraordinary as the girl who was pointing at him and laughing. Bulbous is not the word. Or rather it is, but on a far larger scale than the fish. The horror.

And on it went. Through the speedboat section, where you could spend thousands of dollars on a state of the art model in which to go fishing. Into the apparel area, where camouflage junkies could get a serious fix - full body suit with built-in waders, anyone? Into hunting, which started off with decoys and hides and segued on to guns - lots of them - row after row of rifles, crossbows, shotguns - anything, in fact, that you could load up and kill with. They had quite a few pink models, presumably to cater for the female hunting population in Kansas.

To be fair, there were less killing-related sections - like homeware, where you could buy a toothbrush holder shaped like a labrador or a fake bearskin rug for the sitting room. But that area was fairly deserted. The main action was all in the killing sections.

It was an insight into the Kansas way of life. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against killing animals per se - I'm not a vegetarian and can appreciate the joys of a day out in the fresh air pitting your wits against a wild duck, or some grouse or whatever. But I do have a bit of a problem with the American way of doing things, which basically appears to be, lure the animals in with lots of food, sit in a hide and then blast the hell out of them. Where's the sport in that? And seeing an eight year old with a lethal crossbow is frankly, terrifying. Especially if shooting said instrument isn't even going to give him any exercise. Perhaps we should all start hunting fat children instead...

2010-03-17T09:35:00.001-07:00

We are looking after a friend's dog for a couple of days and it is amazing how British it is making me feel. I can go for walks now, and it almost feels like being at home. I'm trying to shun the lead, which means that admittedly there is still the terror that she will run into someone's garden and get shot or shouted at (no fences around here), but she's a well behaved little creature and comes when called. I think the cars that passed me were very impressed by the way she sat still at my feet when told until they had gone by. And I haven't seen the neighbour - or his cats - since she arrived...

2010-03-16T09:55:00.001-07:00

Went to see Bon Jovi last night at the Sprint Centre in Kansas City. 15,000 fans, mostly middle-aged women, many fat. Bon Jovi seems to have aged better although I'm fairly convinced he has had significant amounts of Botox plus an eye lift. And maybe hair implants as well.

2010-03-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Our next door neighbour just let himself into our back garden to collect his cat from under the fir tree. Why do people have cats and not let them roam around outside, unless they live in a flat? So confusing. Poor cats. And poor me - I feel violated by his constant intrusions. I would rather have the cat than him.

2010-03-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

In defiance of car culture I've decided to stop whinging and start cycling. I did it in London (10 miles a day, three times a week at least, to get to and from work) but although I brought my bike out here it has been languishing in the garage.

Until now. Yesterday, I decided to cycle to quilting class. And it was lovely - truly wonderful - to feel the wind on my face and be out in the fresh air. Admittedly I got some strange looks from drivers, and the hills were something else (I seem to have misplaced my bike fitness) but from now on, I'm getting on my bike and riding. After all, distances round here are pretty similar to what I used to do in London - four or five miles to a friend's house - and while I can't hope to cycle to university (23 miles would take me all day), I can do it in the meantime. And there are fewer lycra-clad lunatics round here, which makes the whole experience more pleasant (I don't do lycra: I ride a Pashley - upright, very ladylike, basket on the front). Today I'm feeling the burn quite pleasantly; tomorrow I'm going to cycle to the gym. Bring it on!

2010-03-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

I'm about to (when I finish procrastinating by writing this blog) go for a run. I will have to run along the edge of the road and risk getting squashed by various bad drivers, but it's worth it to be outside. It's been a while.

I hadn't realised, when I moved out here, how dramatically my lifestyle would change - not just in the obvious ways, but the more subtle ones. But my ballooning waist and ever-tightening jeans are reminding me.

In London, I was on the move all the time. I cycled or walked to work - five miles there, five miles back. Even if I caught the tube, I would walk to the station and walk the other end. On top of the general activity, I went to the gym, swam, played touch rugby with my friends.

Out here I have joined the gym, it is true, but that's not cutting it. Because other than going there, I don't move around, at all. I drive, because I have to (walking to work - 23 miles - would probably take me at least a day, and would involve trekking down the highway - not a good idea). Meanwhile, even getting from house to car doesn't involve going outside.

It's not a good state of affairs, and I would love to walk and move regularly, but here it's hard, because walking is an anomaly. For a start, there are no public footpaths - no footpaths of any kind. Cross a farmer's field and you risk getting shot. And if you try and incorporate walking into your daily tasks, as I did last week, you come up against something. Last week it was a drive-thru ATM (yes, they have those here, along with drive-thru pharmacies). I was doing some jobs, which happened to be in the same place. I needed some cash. So I trotted over to the ATM. Only it was a drive-thru. Undeterred, I withdrew my cash and continued - after being stared at by every passer by, all of whom were amazed that someone was actually using their legs.

We have some friends who, shortly after they arrived here, were invited to a neighbour's house for dinner. It was about half a mile away, so they decided to walk. And were stopped by no less than four people, checking to see if they were alright and needed a lift.

Despite the open space, the miles of land, you can't move here - at least not under your own steam. So my waist grows ever larger, and I contemplate the misery of road running. Sigh.

2010-03-08T05:51:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of bad botox in this town. Yesterday I sang in a concert with the KC Chorale and one woman caught my eye. Her forehead was so rigid that I couldn't tell if she liked what we were performing or not - she just looked permamently alert, and a little bit surprised. In the aisle across from her was a man with a suspiciously smooth forehead (he was well into his fifties) who was similarly inscrutable.

Now I'm all for a bit of scientific trickery when it comes to making oneself look good, and I haven't ruled out the prick of the needle should it come to it, but something grates when I think about not being able to actually show any expression. To me, the best faces are the ones that have a twinkle - and that usually means a few laughter lines around the eyes, or a face that's at least capable of screwing up with laughter. I can see it's a slippery slope - just a few little injections here and there and before you know it you end up like forehead lady. Admittedly she looked pretty damn good for what I assume was her age - sort of tight and bright - compared to some of the similarly aged ladies in the audience, most of whom looked Sunday afternoon kanckered. But worth it for not being able to laugh? I'm not so sure.

2010-02-22T21:01:00.001-08:00

Afghanistan - stick or twist?

Should we pull out of Afghanistan? Is America doomed either way?

A conversation with the Major suggests yes. He posits this theory: that by pulling out, America will once again demonstrate its inability to win, even against a seemingly less substantial force (c.f. Vietnam). Everyone will think they are losers, despite their manpower on the ground in troop terms. Result: America is doomed as a superpower.

They stay in - troops are killed, innocent civilians are killed, but they do not feel able to pull out for the reasons demonstrated above. All their economic power goes towards keeping the war going; in the meantime, Russia and China creep up and beat them to the top in the superpower stakes. Result: America is doomed as a superpower.

It's simplistic, but he has a point. What is the solution to Afghanistan?

2010-02-22T20:49:00.000-08:00

The taxi driver, the lesbian and the following of rules

To St Louis, as I mentioned in my earlier blog, where I encountered three people who left a lasting impression.

To invert the order of my title, I'll start with the lesbian, because she came first (metaphorically speaking). We were in a bar - pretty rowdy (it was Mardi Gras); I was enjoying my first martini of the night, still huddled in my furry coat because it was bloody freezing. She came up to me and started stroking the coat. She complimented me on my choice of drink. Then suggested a martini was like a woman's breasts. I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right, so smiled and nodded. We grooved a bit. She stroked my arm again and left. A minute later, I saw her kissing another woman.

I felt pretty chuffed. This woman was hot - great hair, figure, clothes. If I'd been that way inclined I'd have gone for it. Do I just have a massive ego, that i can now say I'm fanacied by women as well as men? Or was she just drun?

To the taxi driver. He was from Nigeria. Still had a strong African accent. We chatted - about the city, how long he had been here, whether he liked being a taxi driver. He was noncommital but explained it allowed him to pay for his children's college educations. His daughter was at Harvard, he continued.

That taxi driver summed up the American dream - that whatever your station in life, or wherever you came from, you can go anywhere. Nice to see it in action.

Next day, we visited the impressive Gateway Arch of St Louis - apparently the tallest national monument in the U.S. at 360 feet. We decided to watch an excellent and beautifully produced (by National Geographic) film depicting Lewis & Clark's intrepid expedition from St Louis tot he Pacific.

It was a beautifully large auditorium; plenty of room for everyone, cupholders in every chair. Although we were informed, once in, that all food and beverages were strictly prohibited. Anyone who had come in with something to consume could leave now. The lady in the row in front surreptitiously slipped her latte into the cupholder and covered it with her coat.

About a quarter of the way in, she decided to have a cheeky slurp. Big mistake. The lady in charge came marching over to her row. "Out, now," she hissed, pointing (and ruining my view in the meantime). The lady meekly obliged and the attendant marched back to her place.

Why? I can sort of understand the imposition of such draconian rules (although not, then, the addition of cupholders to seats), but surely there's room for a little flexibility? The woman had a lid on the cup for goodness' sake. She was an adult, not a messy toddler. Couldn't the attendant have turned a blind eye? But no, that is not the way it is done in the Land of the Free. Rules must be abided by. Thank heavens I'm only here for two years.

2010-02-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

What, no books?
The Major and I took a trip last weekend, to St Louis. We went by train.
I like train journeys. I like that you don't have to concentrate on the road, that you can stand up and walk around, and visit the friendly people in the dining carriage for a hot chocolate and a burger (calories don't count on trains). I like that you can look out of the window and daydream.

But most of all I like the opportunity to read.

I love reading, in fact it is possibly my favourite thing in the whole world. If I was told I couldn't read any more I think I would actually die. So for me, a five and a half hour train journey is the perfect opportunity. I couldn't do any of the niggly, nitpicking jobs that take up reading time normally (like cleaning or washing up) and I didn't have my computer, so I couldn't blog.

I had taken books with me, of course, but another of my favourite things to do on trains is to catch up - and I mean really catch up - on some news and comment. So I will buy a selection: a newspaper, The Spectator, Private Eye - maybe a copy of Vogue for some light relief - and read them from cover to cover. It's my train treat.

We arrived in St Louis in plenty of time - almost an hour early. The perfect opportunity to buy some reading material - maybe even a new book. But although we searched high and low, there was not one place to buy such a thing.

We were in Kansas City, a sizeable city, with an enormous and impressive station, a hangover from the golden age of train travel. Lots of trains come in and out of Kansas City - it's right in the middle, after all. But although we could have, should we have chosen, purchased a fancy bodum cafetiere, a variety of African artefacts and every sort of food type under the sun, from sushi to bagels, we couldn't buy a book. Or a magazine. or a newspaper that wasn't the Kansas City Star and wasn't several days old.

The bookstore, we were told, had closed down a few weeks ago.

It is beyond me how anyone about to embark on a potentially long train journey (and they are mostly long in these parts, they don't have high speed rail yet) would not want to furnish themself with some reading matter.

Perhaps the travellers in America are all very organised and buy in advance. But surely half the joy of a journey is agonising over which magazine to buy, and coming out of Smiths or wherever with a fat carrier bag under your arm? I just don't get it.

2010-02-17T08:01:00.000-08:00

A call from someone at the gym:

Gym man: "I'm just calling to confirm your appointment at 7pm tonight"

Me: "Yes that's fine. Is there any chance I could come a little earlier?"

Him (seriously thrown by this): "Errr, I'm not sure, I don't believe so."

Me: "So you can't see the schedule?"

Him: "Yes that's right."

Me: "You mean you can't see it?"

Him: "Yes that's right"

Me: "Can you see the schedule, or can you not see the schedule?"

Him: "Oh no. I can not see the schedule. I'm just the guy who calls people."

Sigh......

2010-02-17T07:45:00.000-08:00

Am in the process of filling in two forms that will shortly be winging their way to the American government.

Form number one: one page.

Form number two: four pages.

Total number of pages of instructions to fill in the two forms: 18.

And they have the gall to pompously announce a"Paperwork Reduction Act' on the last page of the instructions....

2010-02-08T11:17:00.001-08:00

I'm now blogging for The Lady magazine - check their website out here.

2010-02-07T12:43:00.001-08:00

There is one thing here which really gets my goat, and that is tax.
Ok, so tax, or taxman are pretty dirty words whatever country you live in, but here the problem is more than just the yearly return to the Inland Revenue. Specifically, tax here is the VAT imposed on every single thing that you buy - except, unlike in the UK, it is not built into the price. Instead, each state, and each area within each state has its own rate or tax, which is then added to the total of whatever you buy.
This morning, the Major and I went off to the gym to sign up, thinking it would be a good idea to try and burn off some of the excess calories from the enormous portions - and besides, we had heard that this particular gym did very good deals for military folk. The total for the remaining ten months of this year would be something like $457 for the two of us. Bargain, we thought. Only, we had forgotten about the tax - so the actual total was something over $500.
It's like this everywhere. You think that something is an incredible bargain at $2 or whatever, but forget about the tax. It's made more complicated by the different rates in different places, so you can't just do a simple sum in your head so as not to get such an enormous shock at the check out (although admittedly, I'm not very good at simple sums, and even less so when the figure is something like 1.756%). It's pretty disappointing, particularly when you're already having to do mental arithmetic to work out how much something is in pounds (although I'm sure that will fade eventually).
What I have yet to discern is whether Dollar General (the US equivalent of the pound store) figures tax into its prices, or whether everything is actually more than a dollar. I'll keep you posted.

2010-02-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

If you'd told me, six months ago, that I was going to take up quilting and become really rather excited at the prospect of sewing, I wouldn't have believed you.
Nevertheless, it has come to pass. Quilting is pretty big stuff round here, and in an effort to produce some material for this blog, I decided to go along to a free class. What I hadn't expected was to b quite so seduced.
After an hour or so of learning about the different terms and what works in terms of colour, we all (there are about five of us in the class) sped off to a little quilting shop in Eudora (one horse town, feels like you're in a wild west movie). A sign in the window proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, and the background music was primarily worship music, of the syrupy variety. Nevertheless, there was a ot of lovely fabric. I had intended to stay 40 minutes at most. Two hours later I walked out, dazed, parted of cold hard cash and clutching a pile of material. I vowed to complete the quilt and tick it off the list.
Yesterday, I found myself outside a fabric emporium in another town. I am now in posession of two sets of different material. That's two quilts. Perhaps I have a new career ahead of me.

2010-02-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

I forgot to write about something really rather fabulous that the Major and I did last weekend.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have joined a choir since arriving over here. Indirectly through this, we ended up spending last Saturday singing with prisoners and raising money in the process.
It's all through a brilliant charity called Arts in Prisons, which pretty much does what it says on the tin. They decided to have a singalong fundraiser, where anyone who could read music could come along for the afternoon, rehearse for a couple of hours and then warble joyfully under the expert guidance of Weston Noble, one of America's top conductors (in his 80s, but he's still got it). So we did. And it was wonderful. The men's choir - the East Hill Singers - were particularly wonderful, and really moving. A note in the programme quoted one of the inmates, who pointed out that when you're in prison and used to being told that basically you're a shit, to get applauded at a concert is completely life affirming. So we applauded them, loudly, and they applauded us. It was all rather jolly.

2010-02-02T13:25:00.001-08:00

I was thinking today about my initial dread of coming to America, and my terror at what seemed like a blank, open, empty life stretching before me, bereft of all the things that shaped my daily life back in London: going to the gym, travelling to work, working, seeing friends, the necessity of doing housework, of cooking - all the while having at the back of my head an awareness of what a fabulously rich culture London has to offer in terms of theatres, lectures, art galleries, historical sights and all the myriad of things that make up its teeming, bustling kaleidoscope of a microcosm.

Today I realised just how much of my time in London was spent in trying to fit everything in - friends, laundry, cooking, gym etc etc. The nature of London was such that everything became exhausting - yes, I could pop down to the shops when I needed a pint of milk, as opposed to here, where I have to get in the car and drive, but everything equally took so much longer. I lived in Clapham, and if I wanted to go and see a friend in Fulham, it would often take me the best part of an hour to get there, despite it only being a few miles away. Then I had to consider the last tube home, or trying to find a parking space when I got there, or remembering the lights for my bike if I was cycling. Meanwhile trying to fit everything in meant that I always felt on the back foot - guilty that I hadn't seen a friend with a new baby for weeks, short changed that I hadn't been able to spend long enough at the gym, hassled and stressed that the laundry was never ending and always had to be fitted in between the breakfast toast and trying to leave the house on time for work. As for taking advantage of the culture - forget it. Occasionally I would get to an exhibition - and leave feeling guilty that it was something I didn't do more often, wracked with that emotion rather than the pleasure of simply enjoying what I had seen and learnt.

Here the same daily tasks apply - there is still washing to be done, we still have to be fed. But, in the absence of so many friends, and living in something more akin to a wilderness than a big city, life becomes pared down somewhat - simpler, less stressful. With that comes an opening up of horizons. With fewer demands on my time in the form of having to make money (I am very lucky in that I don't have to have a job out here) and fit in a hectic social life, I am discovering that the world is my oyster with very few boundaries on what I can and cannot do.

Of course there is still a tension - there is so much that I want to do that I feel the familiar guilt creeping up every so often - that I have not spent long enough reading the text for my next writing class, or that I wish I could spend longer writing this blog, for example. But surely that tension is what makes up the joy of life in some capacity? After all, what I was dreading was a surfeit of time - an existence spent solely doing those menial tasks that so quickly become unsatisfying in their very repetitiveness - the laundry, the cooking, and so on. I am one of those people for whom life needs to be full in order to achieve anything - if I have very little to do I end up doing nothing at all, whereas if my day is so jam packed with things that it seems there is not enough time to do anything, I manage to achieve much more, and, arguably, an output of far higher quality. If I did not have a full calendar, for example, I would have nothing to write about in this blog, other than the daily view out of the kitchen window. The joy of moving to somewhere outside of your comfort zone is making something meaningful out of life. I had forgotten what that was like. I was so comfortable in my daily routine of stressfully trying to fit everything in that I had failed to reach out and try the new things - there simply wasn't time.

I'm not sure if I'm making much sense here, but perhaps I can make an analogy through landscape. London is a series of villages. Despite living in one of the greatest cities in the world, its inhabitants tend to stay in their own areas and rarely venture out into new areas of the capital to explore. There's no need, after all - everything is on your doorstep. And so we settle into that comfortably full routine of trying to fit everything in and not stretching our horizons.

America, by contrast - or certainly Kansas, is huge, vast - a wide open expanse of rolling hills (yes, hills, it's not all just prairie). And you have to travel to get to certain things - I drive 40 minutes twice a week to get to Lawrence, where the university is; we drive the same distance the other way to get to Kansas City. You have to do it - there's nothing where we are. And, as you drive through the landscape appreciating just how huge it is, you get a sense of possibility, of the vista opening up. It is intoxicating, this feeling of being able to do anything, be anyone. Having foolishly dreaded being forced out of my comfort zone, I have come to appreciate it enormously. I highly reccommend it.

2010-01-31T21:11:00.001-08:00

I've been feeling a little inattentive to my poor blog recently - mainly because I've been so busy in the past few weeks. Far from a life filled with idle contemplation - of the view from the window, the many channels of our new TV or simply the rest of the bed, I have, in fact, become inundated with daily tasks. Since arriving here, I have:

1) Started teaching a class in journalism at Kansas University

2) Started taking two classes myself, in Feminist Political Theory (scary) and Non-Fiction Writing (wonderful)

3) Joined a choir, the Kansas City Chorale

4) Joined a gym and started taking yoga classes

5) Started skiing regularly at Snow Creek, a small and hilarious 'resort' close to here

6) Hosted my first dinner party - and made pastry by hand.

On Wednesday, I start quilting classes.

So, plenty of food for writing - but so little time to write. Terrible excuse. I will do better. I also notice that my critical edge seems to be softening. Perhaps, dare I say it, I am becoming acclimatised to the American way of life? I've noticed it no longer frustrates me so much to drive at the cripplingly slow speed of 35mph, for example. Horrors. I need to discover my inner bitch again, immediately. Perhaps quilting class will help. I'll keep you posted.

2010-01-25T14:13:00.001-08:00

I'm beginning to get seriously annoyed about something: specifically the packing of my groceries in the supermarket.
Granted, they do it for you here, which makes a nice change from wrestling with your wallet while trying to squeeze everything in to the least number of bags possible to carry home, all the time conscious of the beady-eyed woman behind you in the queue with the mountain of family pack-sized shopping and three squealing children.
But oh, the waste. Everything is double bagged - but everything, even if it's just the lightest of items. Today I was handed a double-bagged portion of kale. That was it - two bunches of kale in two plastic shopping bags, one inside the other. Another double bag held a single frozen pizza. And so on.
It's symptomatic of the general waste to be found almost everywhere in America - the fuel-guzzling cars that do 12 miles to the gallon, the endless packaging on everything you buy, the enormous plates of food to be found in every restaurant. It is the least 'green' place I have ever lived: you can even still buy tungsten bulbs.
Admittedly the vastness of the U.S makes you feel that perhaps it doesn't matter quite so much, this squandering of natural resources. It's hard to worry about your fuel consumption when the nearest shop is a 15-minute drive away, or bother that you're not painstakingly recycling everything when your garage comes equipped with three huge wheelie bins to bung everything in.
But surely that's why America is such a culprit as a nation, when it comes to making commitments to living a little more lightly on the earth? It's very easy to forget the damage we do, when the world around you seems so vast that you are little more than an insignificant ant crawling around on its surface. I know I leave lights on with more impunity here, turn the heating up higher (it is bloody cold after all) and don't feel the least bit guilty about jumping in the car at every opportunity - there's no public transport so basically no other way of getting around, other than walking, which is impractical on such a large scale, or cycling, which again, would take an age. But I do demand fewer bags in the supermarket - that, I will take a stand on.

2010-01-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

This morning, I went to a gym class. "Morning stretch and tone", the blurb promised. It started at 7.30. Envisaging a group of dynamic, thrusting young things eager to get their daily exercise in before starting work, I hauled myself out of bed.

Oh what a shock I had. Instead of a group of twenty and thirtysomethings, I encountered a motley crew of what can only be described as Silver Surfers. Had I inadvertently missed something? Apparently not. The work people go to work earlier - 7.30 is far too late for them.

So I was left to the ministrations of Tina, the instructor. Again, something of a disappointment. Not a stretchy, life, inspirational being in figure-hugging lycra, but a middle aged woman with one of the largest arses this side of the Missouri. Into the CD player went one of the least energising CDs I have ever had the misfortune to listen to and off we went - on the dullest routine known to man. Excuse the superlatives but it really was that bad. Clearly if I want a pumping gym class, I'm going to have to get up an hour earlier.

2010-01-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

Last night, our doorbell rang. I was sitting at my desk and couldn't see who was there. My first thought was 'Jehovah's Witnesses'. But no, this is America. It was our next door neighbours, come to say 'Howdy' and bring us a plate of home-baked goodies (disgusting, utterly sugar laden, but strangely addictive).
"Are you Australian?" they politely enquired. Clearly, in this part of the U.S., anyone else who speaks English must be antipodean. They were anxious to assure us of their neighbourly support in any matter. They have tools, they have cats, they have maps and local knowledge. Maybe next time I won't be so reluctant to answer the doorbell when I don't know who's there. Oh boy, I really am a long way from London.

2010-01-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

Positive thinking: good or bad?

A very interesting article in a recent edition of The Times here. Barbara Ehrenreich is an American who has just brought out a new book on what she terms the 'cult' of positive thinking. Diagnosed with cancer, Ehrenreich was bombarded with messages of 'positivity', urging her to envisage herself not as a victim but as a survivor, which sparked off a train of events that let to her writing the book - something of a counterbalance to say the least.
Have I encountered a cult of positive thinking since arriving here? Possibly not to its fullest effect yet. But the theory makes sense - it ties in with the get ahead, do it yourself mentality that seems to be the prevailing mood of most Americans. The Major has been prescribed a book to read, called American Ways. In it, the author discusses this attitude held by many Americans, that our destiny is entirely in our hands, and nothing to do with economic or sociological situations or backgrounds. A good way to live? Yes, to some extent - but it can go too far. Yesterday the Major took a tour around Kansas City with a group of colleagues. They were shown by their guide an area which had been at the bottom of the food chain, economy wise - until local authorities decided to raze it to the ground and build a brand spanking new shopping centre on the site. Their tour guide apparently then started something of a diatribe against poor blacks in America: that they have no-one to blame but themselves, that they are lazy, wanting to rely on a welfare state that doesn't exist.
Sure, people should take responsbility for themselves. But the fact remains that some people are born with more disadvantages than others: whether it's because their parents are poor, they live in a socially deprived area, or one where the local schools aren't so good. As Ehrenreich is quoted as saying in the article, when discussing an Oprah Winfrey show: "she [Oprah] made some comment on the show about how it was all just a matter of attitude whether you get ahead in life and I just said, ‘No! I think that’s victim-blaming’.”
"Isn’t Winfrey, the prototype self-made woman, entitled to hold such an attitude?," the article asks. “I think it’s the most wonderfully selfflattering thing to believe, if you are rich and famous and successful, that ‘I did it. I did it all by myself, through my own essence.’" replies Ehrenreich. "I can imagine it would be a good thing to feel. We don’t as Americans tend to acknowledge interdependency. The debt you owe your parents, free public education and so on. It’s all ‘me’.”

Possibly all a bit full-on for a Thursday afternoon. But having just started teaching an undergarduate class in journalism at the University of Kansas, it will be interesting to see to what extent my students feel that their destiny is in their hands, and how much of it they owe to others around them. Once more, I'll keep you posted.

2010-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

Today I really felt as if I was in a foreign country. And it all came about because of a trip to the post office.
Granted, visiting the post office in England can feel a bit foreign at times. Fine if you're going to buy brown paper, or string, or any of the myriad of small but useful things they sell. A nightmare if you're trying to work out whether to send your parcel special delivery, registered post, next day express - ad infinitum.
And so it is here. I had a number of things I wanted to do, from posting some thank you letters to sending documentation informing the Inland Revenue I had moved abroad. I dithered for ages by the rack containing different sized envelopes, typed with different things. The handy chart on the wall was no help at all - it might as well have been written in Icelandic.
"Excuse me, but could you tell me which of these envelopes is cheaper to send?"
The man looked at me as if I was a freak. "There's no difference at all," he said, before hurrying away from this mad Englishwoman who clearly couldn't even read.
Finally, I managed to select the right envelope. Then there were forms to fill in, my name to write over and over again and finally, money to pay - lots of it. Counting out the quarters and dimes, squinting at the writing on the coins, I couldn't have felt more foreign if I'd tried. Truly, I am in a different place.

2010-01-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

In America, as in Britain, when something electrical breaks down one has to spend inerminable hours on the phone, listening to pre-recorded messages, pressing various random buttons and finally, maybe, managing to get through to someone who inevtably will not be able to help you.
Out here, it is common to buy packages for your TV, phone and internet from one provider. Only one number to call, yes, but when one thing breaks down, chances are the other two will as well.
The cable box that sits under our brand new, shiny TV, has been on the blink for days. Today, I finally got round to calling the company. Cue interminable button pressing. Only in America, it turns out there are different issues at stake.
1) When you finally get through to them, they can't understand your accent. Which means you have to speak V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. Which makes the whole phone call take twice as long.
2) Whereas in England you're likely to be speaking to someone either based in India, or in the darker reaches of outer Birmingham, here you do at least get to speak to an American. Although this means the whole conversation has that added spice of American positivity. So even though you are patently not having a good day, because your TV has stopped working and so you can't watch the re-run of Dallas on channel 305 that you had been so excited about, you have to put up with all the false cheer and bonhomie.
3) Americans are not very good with silence, which means that despite the fact that there are lengthy pauses in the conversation, where you wait for the result of the unplugging and re-plugging scenario to kick in, they feel they have to fill them. "Why do you keep say 'Okay'?" I asked the woman on the end of the phone, after she had made the utterance for about the fifth time. She muttered something about wanting to know what was happening. What's wrong with waiting for me to tell you?
On the positive side, I now have a specific appointment where someone will turn up to fix my TV, on Friday, between 11am and 2pm. What's more, they will call to tell me when they're on their way. Beats sitting at home from 7am to 7pm, as some British companies expect you to do. Just means I'll have to put off my channel 305 watching for a few more days. Sigh.

2010-01-13T07:58:00.001-08:00

I'm now blogging on a regular basis for The Lady magazine - England's first and finest weekly. Check out their website here.

2010-01-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

If ever I was inclined to follow in the footsteps of Desperate Housewives' Gabrielle and have myself an affair with a sexy young gardener, today was probably my opportunity (albeit with an electrician, rather than a man of the soil - cue electric/sparks flying etc etc jokes). What's more, my electricians came as a pair, which meant I could have chosen between Luke (younger, clean shaven) or Lance (bearded, intense in a curiously sexy sort of way). Naturally I am desperately in love with the Major, which means I am not going to translate the antics of Wisteria Lane into my own life, but it is strange how a TV show which I never even really watched seems to so spookily parallel my new life (or at least it surroundings). Let's point out the similarities:
- Cast: 5 women, plus a narrator. Well I'd be the narrator, natch, and am sure I could pull together a motley crew of women complete with attendent neuroses, no problem. It's only a matter of time.
- Setting: suburban bliss in small town America, complete with white picket fences and chocolate-box houses. If you came to my new home, you'd be doing a double take. OK, so there are marginally fewer picket fences (they don't really go into enclosing their land round here), but my neighbourhood is like a Barratt Homes executive director's wet dream.
- Themes: suicide, floundering marriages, sexual infidelity. Well I can't say I'm experiencing any of the above myself as yet, but it's only a matter of time before I discover other people who are.
Erm - that's about it really. Perhaps not as identical as I'd first thought, bar the suburban setting. I'll keep you posted on the rest.

2010-01-11T18:38:00.000-08:00

Sitting at the kitchen table, in slob clothes, drinking tea, checking emails...and listening to the Today programme via the web. I MISS John Humphreys. It's just not the same faking it in America.

2010-01-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

The day we nearly bought a cop car

One of the great things about living over here is BBC America, ergo unlimited access to Top Gear - and not just the ones you don't want to watch, but the ones where Jeremy Clarkson et al have a laugh at the expense of the Yanks.

Anyway, to cut a long (and drawn out story concerning one particular episode of Top Gear involving the team buying cars for less than $1000 each), we discovered that it is possible in America to buy former government cars at a fraction of the cost of one from a regular dealership.

There are only a handful of licensed ex-government dealerships in the country, but luckily there's one in KC. So we got ourselves down there, pronto.

The first car we tried out was a sweet, long, low, lean black and white machine, with the words 'Wichita Police' still faintly visible on the side. Inside was a birds nest of tangled wires where the cop radio had been detached - but it still had 'the cage' in place for criminals - a thick perspex screen securely bolted between front and back seats - and if you were sitting in the back, you weren't getting out of there.

Next to it, however, was a complete beauty - a white Police Interceptor, which came complete with flashing lights on the roof and fullly equipped radio with two mikes. Of course if you really tried to stop someone using the loudhailer, or test out the siren you'd probably get arrested, but it would be pretty fun.

Of course we could have bought the crappy car and kitted it out. Inside the dealership were piles of radios, lights - the works. One man was in there with his two sons. He owned a former detective car, which he'd bought directly from a cop. He was going craxy - buying lights, an antennae - the works - for his car, which presumably he was planning on cruising around in posing as a policeman and frightening all his friends into obeying the speed limit.

To be honest, he was pretty scary - and, tempting as the cars were, we didn't want to turn out like him. So we left - sadly just before I spotted the full-on plice van standing in one corner...

2010-01-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

Baby it's cold outside

It is bone crunchingly, ball achingly, head freezingly cold. As I write, it says on the BBC website that the UK is bracing itself for what could be the coldest night of the year, with temperatures set to plummet to -20 degrees. Well, in Kansas City it’s -40. The snow has been here for a while already – we’ve already suffered one of the worst blizzards to hit the Midwest for over a decade, where at least 17 people died (on Christmas Eve, nice). Since then, the temperatures have been plummeting almost daily, and now the wind chill factor has kicked in, hence the super-minus temperatures.

I don’t walk anywhere any more, I scurry, in a hunched-neck, rigid posture designed to get me from the car to the nearest indoors as quickly as possible. My face has become reptilian, such is the damage the wind and cold has done to my delicate epidermis. My nose has a constant drip hanging from the end of it (again, nice), and the handkerchief I tossed into my handbag just before leaving England has seen more action in the past two weeks than in the last five years since my mother placed it lovingly in my stocking, since when it has mostly lain crumpled at the bottom of my sock drawer.

Earlier today, we decided to go and look for another second hand car - of course - what else would you do when it's cold outside? The garage owner said he had already worked his way though several spare car batteries as they were dying in the cold weather. This was amply demonstrated when we decided to test-drive one car - which promptly died on us when we tried to turn it around. We had to be rescued.

Prior to that, I went to the gym - as much as to try and warm up than anything else. A hardcore bicycle did nothing to de-thaw my toes, so I decided to hit the sauna. Twenty minutes later... I still had cold toes.

Right now I'm sitting in my warm room, about to hit the hay. My feet are still freezing. Tomorrow, I'm staying in bed.

2010-01-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

To Waldos Antiques, where the proprietor, David - or Dave as I now like to call him - has become my number one fan thanks to my English accent and knowledge of all things ancient. Never mind that the knowledge is confined to a hazy notion of what is Georgian and a knowledge of when said thing is, in fact, reproduction Georgian (determined largely by the price tag) - Dave is convinced by me. I've already bought a desk from him - reduced for me from $110 to $85.

We're furnishing our new house, you see - and although we have some basic furniture at our disposal it is lacking in a few elements. Today I spotted a couple of nice lamps and a beautiful (although, once more, repro) Georgian sideboard which would look just perfect in our new dining room.

Tomorrow we're going back to look at some side tables we spotted just as we were leaving. I foresee myself spending quite a lot of time with my new mate Dave.

2010-01-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

A further thought on my earlier post: this time on the subject of tips, and so indirectly related.

In the U.S., tipping is an innate part of the culture, so much so that to offer anything less than a 15% tip ina restaurant signifies that you were actually mortally offended by the level of service you received. Accustomed as I am to the rather more stingy attitude of the Brits when it comes to tipping - i.e. 10% if they were particularly attentive or if you fancied the waiter(ess), this has come as a severe shock to the system.

Nowhere is the custom more adhered to than in restaurants. The common assumption is that this is to make up for the abysmal pay per hour - understood to be about $3. Tips, then, go some way towards making a pay packet that makes it worth taking home at the end of the day. So you are showered with the aforementioned blandishments, and, rage of all rages, enquired as to whether you require change when you leave your payment - to which the answer is generally understood to be no, you don't, but that you have left a generous tip for them.

However, in the interests of research, I have just discovered that the minimum wage in Kansas (it varies from state to state) currently stands at $7.25 per hour, or £4.50. OK, so it's not quite the £5.80 an hour that British workers over 22 enjoy, but it's significantly more than the £3.75 than under 18s are entititled to. Which means that either Kansan restaurateurs are paying their employees illegally low wages, or else said employees are actually cleaning up quite nicely, thank you. Given that eating out here is not all that cheap, it becomes quite galling to add an extra 20% on top of the already hefty bill one has been presented with.

One English friend simply ignores the custom, and tips as he would in Britain - i.e. not at all most of the time, and 10% if he feels like it. I am tempted to follow suit. Which means, having established British standards in one area, perhaps I can re-establish them in others - again, see previous post - ?

2010-01-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

The upbeat attitude of seemingly all Americans everywhere is beginning to seriously irritate me. A brief foray into a shop today to browse through the discounted lingerie in the hope of sexing myself up a little had me gritting my teeth with barely suppressed rage after about 10 minutes. All that "how are you today?", "can I help you with anything?" and, even worse, if I dare to mutter out a negative, "oh I love your accent" makes me want to swear ferociously and even spittingly, up close, and in their faces. Honestly, the next time someone comes out with some bland and patently false enquiry as to my general well being, I might actually punch them.

Back in England, I was able to sate my periodic (actually, make that pretty much permanent) bouts of hatred towards coyly gushing members of the human race, aka PRs, by dint of my job - as journalist and therefore necessary continuation of their livelihoods. On being asked by some hapless press officer if I had received their press release on, say, anti cruelty to hamsters week it gave me the greatest pleasure to ask them, in icy tones, if they had ever actually read the publication they were calling, and then to inform them, in even more glacial terms, that it was something we were not, and would never be, remotely interested, before cutting them off abruptly by putting the phone down. My inner bitch received lessons in the art of PR handling from an occasionally stunningly abusive colleague, whose put downs had reached legendary status in the office.

Out here, however, the inner bitch has had to be firmly leashed. Because, not only am I no longer in my previous position of power, but I am an ambassador for my country, a virtual flag-bearing embodiment of all that it is to be British. And while one could argue that a fierce bout of rudeness would not be an inaccurate representation of the standard Brit, I have to live here for the next two years, and feel that at this stage of the game, to earn myself a reputation as a foul-mouthed harridan would not do me any favours. Not to mention the fact that the Major gets cross with me when I'm rude, and as I am currently reliant on him for cash, I would do best not to irritate him either.

So I am stuck with grinding my teeth as quietly as possible, looking into anger management lessons and maybe trying to learn a few lessons from our friends across the pond about politenes...expect gushing blandismhments next time you see me.

2010-01-02T19:23:00.001-08:00

Have just returned from the first genuinely delicious meal I've had since coming to America. By delicious I don't mean that initial, gorge yourself sugar rush of a crisply coated donut hole, or the satisfying first mouthful of a plate of bacon, eggs and home fries. I mean a meal where you come away having genuinely savoured flavours, rather than everything just being coated in a sticky, sugary, overly seasoned gloop.
The cause of the celebration? An Italian restaurant called Lidias. Lidia is the doyenne of Italian cookery around here, and her reputation is well deserved. Lightly seared octopus over a warm salad of potatoes, onions and olives, followed by delicious lumps of gorgonzola, the freshest, pepperiest rocket and the sweetest pears. Mmmm.... beats Wendys, Mcdonalds, brunch at the local cafe and everything else I've eaten out here into a cocked hat. And the portions weren't even too big. I'll be going back.

2009-12-30T12:54:00.001-08:00

Buying a car in America is a tricky business.

Ric Gianino, "senior" (his quote marks) sales associate at Country Hill Motors is keen to sell us a vehicle. He shows us a Nissan, a Saturn and an awesome, retro, 1987 Jaguar. Unfortunately for Ric, none of them work properly. In fact he can't even get the Jag to start. This, my friends, is the seedier side of the American car industry.

We very nearly make a deal with Eric at Jay Wolfe motors, who wants to sell us a 1997 Acura - the upmarket Honda brand. Only one owner, pretty clean service history, black, sleek - a pretty pimp ride. It's on the forecourt for $5,700. We go in with a punchy offer of $4,000. Eric wants $4,800. No deal, unfortunately.

Joe's got cancer. Joe's mate, who's built a house in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in Kansas, wants to sell his MG, which has only done 20 miles in the last 20 years. So, he gives it to Joe to put on the front lawn of his apartment block, so as to get better attention from passers by.
Is any of the money from the sale going to help Joe pay for his cancer drugs? Who knows, but Joe, who's pouring liquid food down a tube directly into his stomach doesn't look as if he's going to live long enough to see the MG sold anyway. Thank God for the NHS.

2009-12-27T14:03:00.000-08:00

Oh so much to write in the last week! I feel dreadful for not recording everything as I have experienced it. My rather pathetic excuse is that everything has gone by in a whirl.

Following on from my last post, we made it to Washington, finally, and proceeded to head out for dinner with a friend. Well, my observation that all Americans were uber-friendly was swiftly dashed when we met one of the most unhelpful people I have ever encountered at the metro station. Not having used the metro before, we were both (my husband, the Major, and I) regarding the ticket machine like aliens from another planet, trying to work out exactly where to put our money in. Upon asking the man at the information desk how to get to Friendship Heights, he simply pointed at a handwritten sign. "The red line" he intoned impatiently.
"I'm sorry, I've never used the metro before, and I don't know what to do."
"The red line!" - this more impatiently.
"But I don't..."
Luckily help was at hand in the form of a nice lady who took pity on us, and proceeded to actually buy our tickets for us. Perhaps the majority of Americans are friendly after all.

The next day, after a briefing at the British Embassy (the Major is extremely important, natch), we took a little trip to the White House. Which was beautiful, in the snow, but remarkably small. Most surprising. Not quite as surprising as the police cars parked next to it, however. "United States Secret Service" they said on the side. Extremely secret, then.

Finally, on Monday evening, we flew out to Kansas. My first impressions of the natives - i.e. the other passengers on the plane - did not exactly fill me with confidence. Overweight, dreadful haircuts, high waisted blue jeans, sparkly white trainers. It was like stepping into a Wham video, but with less attractive characters. I'm a bitch I know, but that's how it was. It was a relief to finally get off the plane, three hours later (for some reason, the pilot was trying to get the air hostess to do the chicken dance - luckily she refused) and be collected by friends, who presented an oasis of normality in the maelstrom of foreign-ness.

Waking up the next morning (we're on to Tuesday now) was another matter. "For better, for worse" was the phrase running most clearly through my head. Wouldn't it be yours, when faced with a suburban scene straight out of Desperate Housewives, only with fewer white picket fences and hot gardeners? I donned my trainers and went for a run, which put me in a better mood. I saw deer leaping across the fields, and the trees reminded me of England. It was only when I got back that I was informed it was probably best not to walk or run in the fields out here - unless I wanted to be shot by a redneck farmer.

Luckily, Kansas City itself was something of a sophisticated relief. Having stocked up on Arm & Hammer toothpaste, Laura Mercier makeup and Marks & Spencers cardis (I was envisaging something like Stalinist Russia, I think) it was a joy to behold a Mac makeup store, Apple shop, Barnes & Noble bookshop and numerous others. I embarked upon spending the Major's money with glee.

All else - Christmas (major blizzard - for details, see the BBC website), Boxing Day (walk in the deep snow) and the rest I won't go into. Suffice to say there was much eating and drinking all round - so fairly standard. I'll endeavour to keep you all updated more regularly, so as to avoid having to wade through paragraphs of boredom. Next up - a road trip!

2009-12-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Logan Airport, Boston. Three minutes to one on Sunday 20th December. Snow is falling outside. I'm in the Virgin upper class lounge, enjoying the free internet facilities and trying to forage for crisps. What happened?

Well, about 24 hours ago I should have been in Washington (long story - suffice to say I'm being eased into U.S life gently, going via Our Nation's Capital before being transplanted to the cornfields). But the biggest snow storm in decades (according to the BBC website) thwarted our plans, diverting us to Boston, where we're now waiting for a connecting flight. On the plus side, we were upgraded, which I could seriously get used to - flat beds, free champagne, aaahhhh.

First impressions of America? Well, snowy, obviously. Very clean (although that could be the snow). Very friendly. But all I've really seen so far is airports and the Sheraton hotel, so that's not a lot to go on. Further updates later. The fun really starts on Monday, when we get to Kansas. Bring it on!

2009-12-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Nice to see that Harrods is on my wavelength...

2009-11-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

My respected and revered editor at the Sunday Times, Peter Conradi, chanced upon my blog yesterday and pointed out the the title of this online tome was, actually, his idea. So here it is - an acknowledgement in print. Thank you very much.

2009-11-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

Absolutely nothing to do with Kansas or moving there, but in my current, slightly hungover and workshy state I thought I would amuse myself, and maybe you too, with a list of things that irritate me beyond belief:
- People who use a picture of their children as their profile picture on Facebook. It's ok if they themselves are in it but utterly irritating if it's just the spawn.
- Wires: because they always, always get tangled up into a huge, hellish ball that takes ages to get out. (We have a whole 'wire drawer' in our house. I think when we move I will just chuck the whole lot out, and not bother trying to untangle it).
- Baby on board stickers. I know it might seem as if I'm on a bit of an anti-parent rant, but it's not like that, I promise.
- Call centre people who refuse to divert from the script.
- Delivery companies who will only deliver something during working hours, and can only commit to a 'morning' or 'afternoon' slot.
- Nick Griffin. No explanation needed.
I will probably think of more. I get irritated very easily.

2009-11-11T05:38:00.000-08:00

Does anyone have any advice on moving country? I've suddenly realised how much we have to do, and how little time we have to do it. The shipping people may be booked and the storage people alerted, but I still have to decide what to take with me and what to leave behind - not to mention packing everything up in the meantime.

Unfortunately, moving across the world is a fairly big job. Which means that if I leave my favourite casserole dish behind by accident I can't just pick it up next time I come home - several months wait aside, it would probably add considerably to the weight of my luggage. The only thing to do, I have decided, is to make a list.

I love lists. The satisfaction of ticking things off as you get them done - the knowledge that everything you need to do is on there. Trouble is, this one keeps growing. Not only do I have to write up the aforementioned lists of things to take and leave behind (take best china, I have decided, leave telly behind - sadly - US voltage means it won't work anyway), but there is all the admin to get through as well. Changing ones address at the bank, for example, or diverting post, or arranging to pick up six months worth of contact lenses from the optician, or getting the cat jabbed so we can take him with us. Then there's the deep cleaners to book for the flat, our own cleaner to alert, and get the spare keys back from, telling the Inland Revenue I'm moving country, arranging to pay my tax return from a US bank account. The fact that Christmas is fast approaching and we have to do the rounds of parties, not to mention dual early celebrations at both parents houses (arrgh, I'm going to hate the sight of turkey come December 25th) and get seriously organised when it comes to present giving, doesn't make life any easier.

Honestly, I think I'd rather be packed up and shipped off myself. In a box, no-one to know I'm going, someone else can do all the admin. Any takers?

2009-11-06T04:37:00.000-08:00

Further to my post of this morning I just read this very interesting article on the Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/06/penelope-trunk-tweet-miscarriage

For those of you who can't be bothered to click on the link it's essentially a riposte from a woman named Penelope Trunk, who last week tweeted that she was in a meeting, suffering a miscarriage "Thank goodness, because there's a fucked-up three-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin." Needless to say, there was a fairly horrified reaction to this when it hit the national press, courtesy of one of Trunk's 10, 135 followers.

One of the most interesting things about the article was reading the responses from readers below, which varied from justification of her actions - that anyone who signs up to someone's Twitter feed has no right to then complain about what is subsenquently tweeted to them - to disgust that anyone's reaction to a miscarriage could be so relaxed as to inform the world - or at least her "followers" - of it in less than 140 characters.

What I quite enjoyed was this one response:

"If hell is other people, then twitter is its roaring flames and freezing ice. Is everyone really so convinced that their own banalities are groundbreaking revelations?"

Which was basically what I was trying to say in that earlier post. Although at least Twitter means the Guardian can add to its features list every so often.

2009-11-06T03:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm not in Kansas yet, but in the meantime I want to keep my hand in, so you'll just have to put up with some inane mutterings until then. I'll try and keep it vaguely America-related.

That said, however, today I'm going off-message to get something off my chest, and that something is Twitter. For those of you who have been living in a hole for the past few years, Twitter is, according to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as "tweets". In March, the Nielson.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in its Member Communities category, with a monthly growth of 1,382 percent.

I'm ashamed to say I probably added to that percentage increase. Ashamed because Twitter really, really annoys me. I joined because I felt that, as a hopefully cutting-edge journalist up to date with the latest methods for getting my opinion out there, I should do so. However, as I am clearly analogue, when it comes to technology (as evidenced by the fact that I have only just started this blog), I just can't get to grips with Twitter. Every so often I log onto the site, in the hope that I might learn something useful - but no, the other 54, 376 followers of Stephen Fry received his erudite words of wisdom at exactly the same time I did. Moreover, despite trying to link it to my phone, I never know when people are tweeting, apart from when I log onto the site. And for goodness sake, it's bad enough trying to be witty and interesting using a blog, let alone when you're limited to 140 characters. The amount of crap that people come out with - "I'm off to the shops", for example - I mean, who cares? I have 25 followers on Twitter, apparently, which is 25 people who are going to be very disappointed that they decided to do so, seeing as my last entry was three months ago.

I know that this blog entry will probably come back to bite me, as the last time I was this anti-technology was when Facebook kicked off a few years ago - and I am now a devoted aficionado. That said, however, I do try and refrain from informing people of my every movement. Stephen Fry, take note...

2009-11-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

In six weeks time I am moving to Kansas. How did that happen? Well, it's a long story, but suffice to say it wasn't where I'd imagine I'd spend the next two years of my life. However, after a period of time spent railing against the unjustness (of giving up my job on a national newspaper, leaving my friends and family behind and most importantly, potentially sacrificing all attempts to have an ironic conversation for the next 24 months) I am starting to get just a teensy bit excited.

Much of the excitement comes from actually having a place to live out there. Have you ever tried to rent a house without actually being in, or even having visited the place to which you are moving? It's a bit of a shocker.

Luckily for us, help was at hand in the form of a dear English friend, who, handily, happened to be an estate agent in her former life.

So there I was, trawling through endless lettings sites trying to find the potential home of our dreams. I don't know if you've ever been onto an American estate agents website, but let me tell you, Foxtons is a dream by comparison. Wonky photographs, taken of extraordinary parts of a room (one site had no less than 4 pictures of the same piece of skirting board), no floorplans, no map of where the property is - precious little at all, really. And when you've become quite accustomed, thanks very much, to nicely presented properties - neutral decor, decent kitchens, tasteful bathrooms - the reality of the midwestern taste in interiors hits pretty hard. Think pine kitchens circa 1982, complete with electric hob (I mean electric! Who uses that nowadays?), plastic bathtubs that look as if they would barely fit a mouse and the most hideous dark brown carpets. I was freaking out, I can tell you.

Luckily, thanks to the help of the dear English friend, who patiently drove out to locations far and wide and gave us her honest feedback on the various internet links I emailed to her, we seem to have landed ourselves with one of the only tasteful properties in the entireity of Kansas. I'm only going on the photos she sent here, but we've got a nice open-plan house, light interiors, wooden floorboards and a back yard that - get this - actually needs a ride-on mower to keep it tidy. Ok so there's still an electric hob and a plastic bathtub, but I'm looking forward to being able to spread myself around, if you know what I mean, in our new four-bedroom abode complete with wilderness lawn out back. Gosh I'm even starting to sound like an American. Sigh...