Fannies and packies

I’ve been telling two highly embarrassing stories about miscommunications here in the UK, and people keep telling me I should put them in a blog. So I figured I’d write an entry about some of the difficulties of being an American surrounded by British English, which sometimes feels like a whole other language. Some are just minorly confusing, while others have caused big misunderstandings!

The first came just a few weeks after I arrived here. I was in the break room with a group of my coworkers and we were discussing a project that needed to get done. They were saying that a certain woman in the office needed to get to work on it because she hadn’t done anything so far. So I said,

“She just needs some pressure on her, give her a little kick in the fanny.”

The room went silent. They stared back at me with expressions of horror and disgust. And I left completely puzzled as to why it got so quiet after I said that.

It's tough being a cultural behemouth

Someone just reminded me that I owe you all, gentle readers, an entry about British television. What with the hustle and bustle of many visitors at once (Joel just arrived today) it’s plum slipped my mind. It’s downright peach, apricot and boysenberry slipped my mind was well.

I do enjoy opining about the differences I’ve noticed between British and American culture, mostly because Brits don’t seem all that interested in my insights. It’s not that they’re not interested, it’s just that they already know whatever I’ve told them. If I say, “Oh is that how you do it here? Like that? We do it like this,” I get a, “right, I know.” Not in a rude way, but they know all about American culture and customs already.

After all, we export our culture and customs throughout the world. Here in the UK they see how things are in the US daily. On TV, in movies, in music, and on web sites. What’s more, most of them have visited the US at least once. In fact I don’t think I’ve met a single person here yet who hasn’t.

London hoodies

Josh and I went to lunch yesterday, he's staying at the YMCA down the street from my office while he looks for a flat. We were sitting outside at a café at about the time schools let out, and of course, the madness began. Before long there was a deafening chorus of screaming adolescents, making noises reminiscent of something from Apocalypse Now. I turned to him and remarked, "welcome to London."

We both agreed that one of the first things you notice when moving to London is how obnoxious the kids are. I mean no joke, they're awful! Josh should know, he lived here for a year for school before moving back to New York in November, and now he's moved back.

There's a housing estate next to my office, and every day around 3 pm this cacophony of noise begins from the courtyard, bouncing off the prefabricated walls and pouring through our closed office windows. It honestly sounds like a village of women are getting raped and killed. For some reason, the teenage girls here enjoy screaming at the top of their lungs as if they're getting a red hot poker shoved into them. It's so bizarre.

The first time it happened at the office I jumped up and ran to the window, thinking someone was being attacked. I was so confused when the rest of my office just kept calmly sitting at their desks doing their work. They then explained to me that these were just the mating noises of the "hoodies," teenage hoodlums. Apparently everyone here is just used to it by now.

Ambition

People often ask me, “Dave, what would you say are the biggest cultural differences between young people in the US and Europe.” Ok, only one person asked me that, and it was my mom when I saw her last weekend. But I’ll pontificate on it in my blog for you all anyway.

The first thing that shoots to mind is the level of knowledge of the world. European gen X’ers (that’s my generation right?) tend to have a much more developed knowledge of geography, politics and current affairs than their American counterparts. They also tend to have a more nuanced view on the world, seeing complexities and shades of gray where Americans, even of my generation, see black and white.

So that was the first thing that came out of my mouth when my mom asked me that question. But my second answer surprised me, because it’s something I wouldn’t have said two months ago.

“Ambition,” I said. “Honestly, I really feel like there’s a huge difference in the level of ambition.”

Top ten American/British differences

I thought around this time it might be interesting to make a list of all the differences I’ve observed between the US and the UK so far. So without further ado, here are the top ten differences I’ve seen so far:

1) Laundry

Everyone in this city has a washing machine in their flat, but pretty much nobody has a drier. Weird right? You take your clothes right out of the wash and hang them up on these drying racks and wait two days for them to dry. This is strange to me because, in New York, it’s considered a luxury to have washing machines in your building, let alone in your apartment! And if you do have a washing machine, you will always have a drier to go along with it. I’ve never seen a washing machine all on its own before I came here. But everyone has them, and they’re always in the kitchen.

2) Heat

And speaking of appliances, also in everyones’ kitchens are these big gas heat contraptions which turn on and off to eat the unit (they look very scary, there’s fire inside!). Everyone has gas heat here, which I’ve never had before. Many people have their thermostats on timers, so that they turn off overnight and during the day while they’re at work. That’s right, turn off, not even a lower temperature or anything. “Why heat an empty house?” they ask me. “But…then it’s all cold when you get home!” My addled American brain tried to wrap itself around the concept. I suppose turning it off during the day makes sense, but overnight? It’s freezing!

3) Public Drinking

It’s allowed, and quite common. It’s so strange to me to be sitting on the tube and see the person across from me sipping a beer. Not that I’m complaining! I’ve fully taken advantage of this wonderful custom.

4) Corner Shops

And speaking of corner shops, they leave much to be desired. They’re kind of the equivalent of “delis” in New York, except that there’s no actual deli so you can’t really call it that. While in New York there’s basically three on every block, here they’re not nearly as common and you can end up walking for 30 minutes trying to find one. For that reason, I can’t really pull my legendary beer trick here. Not only because it would take too long to go from the club to the deli, but also because the delis/corner shops cant’ sell beer after 11 because of...

5) Blue Laws

Probably most of you are familiar with the fact that London has these ridiculous licensing laws, what we would call “blue laws” in the Northeast. Basically there are three different licenses. One allows you to serve alcohol till 11, another till 2, and another till 4. All of the pubs close their doors at 11. Some bars (a “bar” here is basically a fancier “pub” where you can’t wear sneakers) continue to serve after that but don’t let anyone else in, and legally they have to pretend you’re just a “guest” in their “private establishment” so they can’t “charge” you. But they do. If you want to go anywhere after 11 it’s going to involve a long wait in line and a cover charge. So fun right?

6) Language

They use funny words here! A few notable examples that have tended to confuse me: “brilliant” is used here as an exclamation of approval, like “awesome” in the states (but if you say “awesome” here people laugh at you). I was quite confused when I handed someone at work a stapler and they said “brilliant!!” as if I had just discovered the cure for cancer or something. Trucks are “lories”. You don’t go to the bathroom, you “go to the toilet” (something that sounds a bit too specific to me!). Instead of saying “how are you?” you say “Are you alright?” which tends to unnerve me because in the states you would only say that to someone if they looked unwell or upset. And finally, British people have this tendency to add “isn’t it?” at the end of their sentences for no reason at all. As in, “It’s right cold outside isn’t it.” It’s not as a question, it’s a statement of fact.

7) Politeness

Everyone here is very very polite to each other, almost eerily polite (at least coming from New York!). There’s greater civility in daily life. But at the same time, people are much more blunt here than they are in the states. I like this combination of politeness and directness, it seems to me to be the ideal way to interact.

8) Customer Service

Customer service here is a constant gripe, and its high quality in the US is continually praised by Brits. After living here a month I can see why! It’s truly abysmal, at least from an American perspective. Most everything closes at 6pm, phone numbers for troubleshooting things are hard to find, and everything is done by appointment. All in all though it’s really not a big deal.

9) Voicemail

Europeans have some kind of distrust or dislike for voicemail which I cannot understand. Most people don’t even have it set up on their mobiles, and many people don’t have it set up on their work phones either, which really frustrates me at work. They all send texts rather than leave voicemails. In fact, people call me and if I don’t answer, rather than leave me a voicemail (which I do have set up) they hang up and then send a text message with whatever they wanted. Weird right? I think I’ve been left one voicemail the whole time I’ve been here, and that was from my grandma! I even got a text from my liason at the bank to tell me my account had been opened successfully. And at work, people answer my phone if it rings and I’m not here, and then leave me a note. Why?? I can’t understand it. It’s so much easier for me to get the voicemail because then they can leave exactly what they wanted. A written message only has their name and number. And, having someone else take a message for me is needlessly involving someone else in the process who shouldn’t be bothered.

10) Commercials

This cracks me up. International companies will take American commercials and run them here, but they’ll dub them over with a British accent. If it’s something that requires a good deal of on-screen actors, they’ll actually remake the exact same commercials except recasting with British actors. So right now Mac is running British versions of the “I’m a Mac” ads they’ve been running in the states. Now the ones in the states, starring John Hodgman and Justin Long, are hysterical. The British ones have one key difference: they’re stoooopid! They’re so not funny. Maybe it’s just because they’re using the same dialogue from the US versions, but these two actors are just not as funny. Here, watch one and judge for yourself.

Ok I could probably go on all day with this but I’ll leave it there.

New flat

At long last I’m in my own flat. Well, my own room at least. So far it seems ok, although it is quite a bit louder outside than I thought it would be. It faces a courtyard, but it’s a courtyard where everyone enters and the noise really echoes. So right now I’m listening to a chorus of slamming doors, door buzzers, a howling dog, and airplanes flying over head. Hopefully once I get a loud fan it will drown out the noise. The planes are really loud flying overhead, I must be under a flight path. Oh, if only I wasn’t so neurotic about outside noise! Maybe I can train myself. At least I didn’t sign any kind of long-term lease, so I can always move if it gets to be too much.

I did make it to Benedict Arnold’s grave yesterday, after a long pilgrimage with Francis. It’s at this random church in Southwest London, nowhere near any tube stops. And it’s just this relatively unextraordinary grave in the cemetery next to it.

First week - made it!

I’ve made it through my first week in London. Work was good, the people in this office seem generally nice. A lot of new people are actually starting this week, so the whole office went out for drinks Wednesday night. It was fun - got to know a lot of people – although after I had had a few the conversation of course veered into politics and I was probably a little too virulent in my rhetoric. But people seemed interested by my take on Europe and the UK, even if they did disagree with it. I think a favorite hobby of mine here is going to be challenging the Brits’ perceptions about the world and their place in it.

Interestingly Tony Blair just gave a big speech on the subject yesterday. Speaking to an audience of defense experts and military personnel in Plymouth, he said Britain faces a choice, continue to participate in international military intervention or cease. He warned of the dangers of the former. But the problem, as many military experts here have pointed out, is that the UK doesn’t have the money to increase its military budget to the degree needed to continue the kind of military intervention its engaged in in the last six years. Britain will shortly be withdrawing 1/3 of its troops from Iraq, and internal government sources are saying by the end of the year they will have withdrawn their entire force there. It is widely understood to be an acknowledgement that the Iraq misadventure has failed.

But in my mind there is an obvious solution here. If Europe were to band together and form a pan-continental army, there would be no need for any country to increase its military budget. In fact, many countries, such as France and the UK, could decrease their military budget. But that’s never even posited here as a legitimate option.

And when I asked my coworkers if they really thought it was a tenable position to be reliant on the US for protection in the 21sy century, they insisted they didn’t need the US’s protection. Oh really? What’s going to protect you? Trident? NATO, they insisted.

I hope that people who don’t know me here don’t think that my harping on the fact that Europe depends on the US for military protection is because of some sort of jingoism. Obviously, readers of my blog will know that it’s not. Still, one of the first things I’ve been struck by here is the naiveté with which many Britons perceive their place in the world, particularly their future place in it. It’s interesting to me. The jist of it is they don’t see military power as being all that important in today’s world. Maybe they’re right, and maybe I'm approaching the issue from an outdated geopolitical perspective. But my gut tells me they’re not. Perhaps I will explore this issue more in the future.

They think about the future in other ways here, certainly. They are, for instance, single-mindedly fascinated by global warming at the moment. Every newspaper on Tuesday morning had an article which started with some variation of “The effects of global warming left New Yorkers sweltering in the heat Monday…” I mean you seriously can’t get away from it. But there’s a lot of frustration too because Britain, and the rest of Europe, is doing so much to reduce its carbon footprint, but in the end it will make no difference if the US, China and India don’t cooperate.

Anyway I’d better head out, I’m hoping to do some proper clubbing tonight, even though it means an agonizingly long trip home on the night bus. I cannot wait to move into my flat on Sunday! Then I can stumble home whenever I want to.

Observing pop culture

I’ve arrived here in the UK just at the start of the fifth season of “Big Brother,” a wildly popular reality series here in the UK which I believe existed in some form at some point in the US but never really caught on.

I’ve written about the show before, me and Pierce were perplexed by it when we visited London two years ago. The premise to the series is similar to many of our reality shows, a group of people is selected to live in a house and have every moment of their lives recorded. Each week the British public decides who they would like to “save” in the house. Whoever gets the least amount of votes has to leave. And the person who’s left wins some sort of cash prize.

Sounds fairly standard right? But here’s where it gets weird. There are not one, but two “live feeds” from the house, two channels that provide two different live broadcasts of whatever is going on in the house at that exact moment, which is usually people sitting around eating or sleeping. And people actually sit around and watch this, riveted!

Flat hunting

Day three here in the UK, things have gone ok so far. I looked at some flats Friday and Saturday, and have settled on one in a pretty cool area right on the cusp of Clerkenwell and Holborn. There are a ton of bars and restaurants around, so it should pretty much be the polar opposite of Roosevelt Island! It’s a good location because it’s a 15 minute walk to work and a 15 minute walk to SoHo, basically right between the two. So no having to take the tube ever!

I looked at an apartment in the Barbican that was truly amazing. The Barbican is sort of like Roosevelt Island, a planned community with its own stores, a movie theater, arts center, etc. It was a gorgeous 4-bedroom apartment with some amazing modern amenities and a huge balcony. The other rooms were three guys. The only downsides were the room faced a fairly busy street, and it was the kind of deal where it was clear it would be heavily dependent on me getting on with my roommates. This other one in Holborn, on the other hand, is a very big bedroom in a 3-bedroom flat with no living room. So it will be kind of like my studio in Chelsea, sort of like having a studio with a shared kitchen and bathroom. The owner is an older Eastern European guy, and the other renter is a girl about my age who is also a finance journalist, and she seems nice and says she hardly ever sees the older guy. This other apartment also requires no long-term commitment, so I’m free to go at any time. The Barbican one required 6 months.

Land ho!

Well I'm officially here! They let me in and everything. I am now officially a UK legal worker, like a green card holder in the US. I wish the UK cards had some kind of cool color. Alas, they don't.

I narrowly missed catastrophe this morning when I was on my way to JFK Airport in a car service, and sudenly got the urge to check my info to make sure I was indeed taking off at JFK. I came to find out I most definitly was not, my plane was actually leaving from Newark. So I had to scream "Newark!! Turn around!!! It's Newark!!!" and we had to race through the tunnels, through Manhattan, over the NJTP, it was a mess. But, thanksfully, I made it. Thank god I checked otherwise I'd still be in New York tonight!

It's 3am here and I can't sleep. I felt bad that all my tossing and turning for the past 2 hours has been keeping Aaron, who I'm staying with, awake, so I just took an ambien and went into the living room to write a blog while I wait for it to kick in. Jet lag is tough.

Tomorrow hopefully SOMEONE will show me their flatshare, noone has been responding to me. I must not be selling myself very well, is it the American thing? Maybe they don't want to take on a foreigner. Maybe my search radius is just too small, but I really want a flat in Clerkenwell, where my office is. Maybe I just need to have a little patience.