Big British Butt Ban

SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY, the Big British Butt Ban goes into effect!

From Jul 1 you will no longer be able to smoke anywhere indoors in England. I’m so curious to see how this unfolds. Having been in New York in ’02 when the smoking ban went into effect there, I’m interesting to see how this city’s reaction will differ. Frankly I’m surprised that they’ve chosen to do the switchover in the summer like NYC did, because that ended up causing quite a problem.

The first state in the US to start a smoking ban was California (which tends to be on the forefront of things like this). There it worked quite well, and there weren’t any problems during the changeover.

So when mayor Bloomberg passed the same ban in New York City, they expected it would go off just as smoothly. But they were forgetting on difference between New York and the main cities in California (LA, San Diego and San Francisco). Because of the warmer climate, many (if not most) bars in California have some kind of outdoor section or courtyard. In contrast, this is quite rare in NYC, as space constraints would make a courtyard very expensive and weather makes it financially impractical (why pay extra rent for a space you can only use 5 months out of the year?)

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.

Chav-bashing

It’s freaking cold here! The temperature dropped dramatically on Monday, ending what had been a very mild weather streak the past few weeks. I was actually lulled into thinking that was going to be how it was all the time. I had read that the average temperature here in January is 5 C (42 F), but this week it’s been consistently 0 C (32 F). I guess it snowed overnight because there’s snow on everything this morning.

Whenever the temperature changes I get a cold, so of course I’m now sick. Although this may have something to do with the ridiculous amount of alcohol I drank Saturday night in Cologne. It was fun but made for a miserable plane ride back.

I thought I would write today about this really interesting idea here of “the chav,” a concept which doesn’t have any direct translation in American English but has some close relatives based on regions. Chavs are sort of a euphemism for “the great unwashed,” low-income, ignorant people preoccupied with tacky designer fashions. The defining features of the stereotype include clothing in the Burberry pattern (notably a now-discontinued baseball cap) and other things such as tracksuits, hoodies and sweatpants. Ali G was a caricature of this type of person. Vicky Pollard from Little Britain is another example of such a caricature.

I suppose our analogous terms might be a “Guido,” or in New York, the “bridge and tunnel” crowd. However these terms only apply to people in specific regions of the Northeast. “White trash” might be another comparable example, but this term tends to be applied more to rural populations in the US, rather than chavs who are typically more urban.

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.

Europe

Note: Welcome to my Euroblog. This blog spun out of a personal blog I've been keeping for years. After I decided to devote a new blog to European politics, I took all entries from my personal blog from the last few years that pertained to Europe and brought them over here. Enjoy. New blogs written for this site exclusively began in June of 2007.
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Last night I went out with a friend, and during our dinner conversation we started to swap stories about our respective travels through Europe. I realized as we were talking how intensely I miss it.

My semester abroad in Prague was the best semester of my entire undergrad experience, and probably the only redeemable semester I had at NYU - the only one where I actually learned something. I remember when I left Prague to come back to New York to finish my last semester. I was so incredibly miserable.

Even the whole time I was in Prague I was having slight anxiety about having to leave eventually. I would keep having these dreams where it was time to leave and go back to the US, but I wasn't ready to leave. Then I would wake up in a panic, and realize that it was only October and I didn't have to leave for a long time.

But eventually I did have to leave, and it was difficult. Once the semester was over I went to Paris by myself for a week, but had a hard time enjoying myself because I was so depressed about my semester ending. My last semester at NYU was quite melancholy. I didn't want to be there, I was angry with NYU for having wasted so much of my time and money. And I just wanted to be back in Europe, where I had felt so excited and engaged.

So now I've been thinking, why not just go back? I had entertained the idea before, and I was planning on doing the "Global Journalism" quarter in my program, where I would work for a broadcast news agency in London or Dublin for a quarter.

However, now that I'm doing this fellowship with PBS, I feel as if it would be foolish to pay full tuition for a quarter of working unpaid, when I'm essentially doing that now here, paying no tuition and being paid. And I would just be producing at one of these placements, which is what I'm doing now.

Of course, I could do a print placement, work for the AP in one of their European bureaus, maybe even Prague. But, now that all my quarters have been pushed forward, I would have to do the global quarter in the fall and then come back to do my last quarter in DC.

My original plan was to do the global quarter last and then stay in whatever country I did my placement in. I figured I could either try to get a job where I was placed or use my time there to do some job searching. But, maybe instead of spending all that money for tuition, I could take that money and use it to just get a ticket to London, find a flat, and try like hell to find a job. Maybe I could even travel around Europe for a bit first, handing out resumes.

The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Europe is where I want to spend the rest of my life. When I think about my passion, the thing that I daydream about or maintain an affinity for, it's not really journalism, or filmmaking, or anything like that. My passion is really Europe. In my spare time I study Europe, I go into random chat rooms in Europe just to talk to people there, it's all I think about really.

The fact is I'm excited about where Europe is going, and I'm concerned about where the US is going.

I'm reading T.R. Reid's "The United States of Europe" right now. It's really fascinating the way he ties together all of the trends happening in Europe right now in a way that creates a larger picture of a new Europe that could potentially be on its way to becoming the newest superpower, a counter-balance to the United States. Since the most recent expansion in May 2004, the EU now has a larger population, higher GDP, and more trade than the United States. And it's a society which has a different moral orientation than the United States. It's a society that takes care of its citizens, provides a safety net. It operates a social model which I personally find more appealing than that of the US.

So I guess there's plenty of time to mull that over. But somehow I've got to make it happen. When I graduated college I had contemplated going to Europe and trying to find a job, but I wasn't ready. The idea of living so far away from all my friends and family was pretty daunting. But being in Chicago has, I think, prepared me for such a drastic move. We shall see.