I really find the medical questions intrusive.

They say it's to know if you have any conditions they need to accomodate but in fact to me it looks like a reason to avoid hiring you if you would cause too much "trouble."

In America, the baseline is that any disability you may have canNOT be an excuse for not hiring you, unless in cases of things like if you're blind you can't drive, obviously, and you have to be able to "lift 50 pounds regularly" if that's in your job description. But if you have a bad back or a heart condition, they can't turn you down from some desk job - they have to accomodate you.

I also find the requirement of disclosing what I would call psychological conditions very bad. Where is the right to privacy?

Of course, in the US if you had some kind of pre-existing medical condition your employer found out about, and it could raise their insurance premiums, they might try NOT to hire you, but keeping that an unknown is all part of the hiring process, that they must not ask about "underlying medical conditions" so as not to prejudice your application.

The thought that I might be turned down for a job because of having high blood pressure, and of having to disclose my prescription medications to my employer, which IN MY MIND is only between me and my doctor, really boils my blood.

As another reminder of how uptight Americans are about drinking, we have this article saying the new Harry Potter movie glorifies alcoholism, and, basically, causes it. It's like a headline out of the British tabloid press. I realize Americans are shocked to see under-21 year olds drinking, but, seriously, isn't it maybe time the American Puritan attitude toward alcohol got in line with the rest of the world? Drinking and driving is one thing but I see no reason why 18 year olds oughtn't be allowed to drink.

Now, fixing the alcohol culture in the UK is an entirely other kettle of fish, but clearly it's not an issue with age (which is the same in France and Italy) but with other cultural factors (buying for your mates being one thing that comes to mind) and not something that higher taxes is really "fixing" (let's admit it, it's not reducing consumption, therefore what it's really doing is just raising more money for the treasury).

Anyway, back to work ...

Living over here, I find there are a few elements of American culture that just haven't translated very well in England and are a bit of a mystery - high school, "the prom," and our race obsession being three of them.

Read about all of them in this article in the New York Times.

Class? In America, we're generally not concerned about it. Race is still our big problem.

I think this article captures nicely what it's like to be poor in America.

English people: do you think it's different here? In what ways?

I think this list of puntastic London shop names really captures a cultural difference between here in the states. In this case, it's one I very much enjoy.

Note also the link to "Part One," in case you find yourself enjoying this and want more.

Just for the reference: if it says 12 people ahead of you on the phone queue, you can expect 27 minutes wait for someone to answer the phone.

Fortunately I can send of a fair amount of emails and such while I'm on hold.

15 MINUTES LATER: Well, the good news is that our council tax is going down by about £30 a month (from £88 for E to about £60 for C band, whatever that means), but the bad news is that we'll have to pay for three months all at the same time. Bleah.

I'm getting a real kick out of the article on what makes the British British, per the British, especially since I've often felt talking about the weather was a very Seattle thing ... and we're also known for being good at queueing.

So I wonder ... just what is "curtain twitching," anyway?

Also, the whole "being good at queueing" thing ... how does it explain what happens with EasyJet? First people fight to be near the front of the line, then people run off of the tram across the tarmac in a mad dash to the stairs going up to the plane! It's like a preview of what would happen if there was a nuclear apocalpse - or if a new Primark opened downtown.

I was very much caught up yesterday in this very long article from the New York Times Magazine about the variations in birth rates between different countries in Europe ... and in the US. It said that in countries where men help more with housework and childrearing, the birth rate is higher, but it's also true in countries where the state supports women substantially by, say, providing free childcare.

But then there was this whole other line of thought as they tried to examine why rates were relatively high in the US compared to places with better social support structures. And here, it seemed, the ability of women to easily return to work, or to work with more flexible hours, was key.

Ultimately, though, there was a very interesting link between having many children and being poor, and the fact that the high cost of living in these countries practically made it obligatory that women work after having children.

I am fascinated. Thoughts?

I believe the official Miss Manners' guide to party manners goes, "I invite whom I choose and whose company I enjoy. If those who are invited don't get along with each other, that is their problem and they are free to decline the invitation if they feel they are incapable of restraining their resentment for the course of an evening and for the purpose of showing their friendship with me - it's not my job to choose one or the other."

I need to get a copy of her etiquette book. It seems the questions she answers keep coming up a lot and I need a good reference!

So, in case you were wondering what Eurovision is (I wasn't, particularly), I'd like to give you the opportunity to see the best performance of the night. I'm sure, if you're American, every now and then you wonder about some of the stuff that becomes popular over here in England (such as the person they call "Kylie" here, but whom, as an American, I refer to as, "Who?"), although of course what with brilliant musicians such as Amy Winehouse there's not much to be said in general. This, however, is a whole different school - the school of "Europop." (In my mind it's what would happen if Adam and the Ants were going nowadays, something which I consider a very tasty idea.)


Musically speaking, I enjoyed best the contestant from Armenia (good voice, knows how to work her skirt) - but those Latvians, they were playing to the back of the stadium.

A few of you have talked with me about class in America and the difference between class perception and identity in the US and the UK. I've found it a very intersting topic: for example, no one in the US ever uses the phrase "middle class guilt," as far as I know, and I think if I tried to explain it, my American friends would dissolve in giggles.

A report has come out that's generated two major news stories in the last week and addresses some of the assertions I've made rather directly. First, do Americans really feel like they can "work their way out of poverty?" Per this report, 60 percent of people born to what I think they call the "working class" here (but we call "the poor" in America, or more often these days "the working poor") move into the middle class. To me, that means there is in fact a great deal of mobility, so my belief that people think they can go up if they want to is not so much based on being fed a line but on actual reality.

The sad thing is that one of the very best ways of pulling your butt out of the trailer park is education, and a college degree is becoming increasingly difficult for the poorest people to get. (Is there a correlation between rise in the cost of college prices here?) The study also showed a strong correlation between your race and your ability to graduate from college, or, for that matter, start going in the first place. The good news is if you're [white] trash like me and graduate from college, you have "a 19 percent chance of joining the highest fifth of earners in adulthood and a 62 percent chance of joining the middle class or better." (BTW a big callout to my sister for joining me in clawing our way out.)

So good public education can make a difference, but ... hearing that "[t]he small fraction of poor children who earn college degrees are likely to rise well above their parents’ status" is not much consolation when so many other people are out there who won't. And head in the sand morons are saying that the poor aren't really poor because they are able to spend beyond their means. I still say class identity in the US is weak, but reading this article makes me want to quit my job and go work as a high school guidance counselor. "Studies show that many poor but bright children do not receive good advice about applying for college and scholarships, or do not receive help after starting college," and I think that has a lot to do with why they don't graduate. I wonder how I could make a difference?

Shall I get my sweetheart the gift set with "Sally Bowles" green nail varnish or traditional black? (Seriously, who is buying this crap for Christmas? Is 2007 "dress like a hooker" year and did I miss the announcement?)

I went to the butcher's shop after work to get some stuff for dinner and the weekend, and while I was there, I thought it was a good time to ask about ordering a turkey.

"Just let us know a week in advance," the butcher said.

"A week?" I asked. "Is that all you need? I like to know there's a bird out there waiting for me."

"I'd like to have a bird waiting for me, too, but I think you'll have better luck than I will!" said the butcher. ("Ho ho ho" said the studio audience.)

Anyway, me and my lambchops are going home now for a very quiet night at home, which will involve doing laundry, eating the above plus some kind of pasta with pesto, and the ever popular, "is it or isn't it going to give me cancer" bacon/garlic kale recipe, and probably playing Puerto Rico.

So at work today we were dealing with a tricky localization issue. Basically, in Swedish, if you enter 20,00 (ie $20.00), our program strips out the comma and reads it as 20000, which causes the user to get a message along the lines of, "You don't have enough money to do that." There are all sorts of side errors associated with this and other problems, and we spent a lot of time today trying to work out the variations of it, the locales where it reproduced, and the method to fix it.

Asking my boss about how plans to deal with this issue, I said to him ( puns ahoy ) And there were groans.

In other news, I'm reading the fourth Harry Dresden novel, and I find it extremely ironic that I'm using a Metro Transit Authority card as my bookmark.

For my American friends who need laughs: there's this comedian, Catherine Tate, that someone sent me a video to last week. Here's a sample of her stuff. I think she's supposed to be what they call a "chav" here but I'm not quite sure as I don't have the different local slangisms down quite right. She's definitely playing this character as trashy and poor. I can't quite figure out whether or not she's funny, but I do really get a hoot out of the way she and her comedy co-stars talk.


I get really irritated by her going off on her "I'm not bovvered" bit - how sad to be a comedian with a catch phrase! - but I did get a laugh out of the first four minutes of the wedding skit (Amber, you must watch this) and the cheerleading one. Anyone want to explain who finds her uniformly funny, and why?


Work has been very dull otherwise but I don't want to pollute you all by complaining about it. I'll just read my silly novel and call this a night.

The lead developer from our new Romanian development outpost is in the local offices today.

They took him around to meet the team.

I held out my hand for him to shake, and he kissed it.

I am so revolted. I would barely tolerate this from a friend of a friend, much less a peer in a business environment.

I'm tempted to corner him and tell him it's inappropriate behavior, but I didn't want to do it right in front of my boss, whom, I assume, was also creeped out. Or not. It's hard to tell around here.

Yuck.

I finally have understood the mystery that is the Sunday Pub Roast. Why, I ask, would people be eating a big-assed, meat-filled dinner between the hours of noon and four on a Sunday? Who would want that much food at that time of the day, ever? What about brunch and bloody Marys?

Well, now, at last, I get it. The point of the roast it to have something for all of that liquor to land on that you're drinking in the afternoon on a Sunday. On a nice day like today, that's exactly what you want to be doing, sitting out at a patio bar, working you way through pint after pint or, better yet, a jug of Pimms (unless the bar you're drinking at is, sadly, out).

The other big option is to be napping. I did that today, too, after my brilliant debut at noon. Look at me, I am a power sleeper! My napping was from about 2:30 until 3:30, which meant no tube journey to the Southbank Center's grand reopening party, no trip to Cambridge to listen to Fretwork play evensong, no excursion to some beer/cider festival in the hinterlands. No sir, my grand outing for the day was to walk a mere half an hour down the river bank to The Crabtree, favored pub of my coworkers, where I was amazed by the glory of the many Sunday roasts being consumed by my fellow Sunday afternoon tipplers - with half a chicken sitting on a pile of potatoes, carrots, and cauliflower, with a "Yorkshire Pudding" (microscopic puffy batter thing) holding a puddle of gravy and a scoop of stuffing on top of it all, it was more than enough for the two of us to split. Yum.

Anyway, J and I came home to a wechsler, who was up for a round of Citadel (I won), which was, I think, improved by the Pimm's based alcoholic beverage I was tossing back. Now we're all feeling tired and (me) lazy. I've been blowing my nose constantly for the last half hour, and while I'd imagine it is allergies, fact is, there's no new pollen since yesterday and I fear this is actually a cold. Plus my body is a bit achy, more than it should be. Bah. Here's hoping it gets cleared up before tomorrow. And still, all in all, I think this was a good, lazy Sunday, and a very nice weekend.

1. I have stopped having cereal with milk for breakfast.
2. I am frequently getting up and not making tea before I leave the house. (I do make it at work, though. And the Red Peach Keemun has run out. I'm sad.)
3. I don't read the newspaper over breakfast anymore.
4. I eat more eggs.

Please explain to me this pancake day thing. Where I come from pancakes are thick and flat and served as a breakfast item only. I figured since I didn't have pancakes for breakfast today, I missed out. (Thin ones are called "crepes" and as they are fancy French food you are allowed to eat them for any meal.) What is pancake day about (other than Shrove Tuesday, which is something I also don't do or get)? How do you "celebrate" it? Are these pancakes or crepes, and are you supposed to roll them and/or fill them?

Me, favorite pancakes are blueberry with real maple syrup. Yum!

Ah, the solstice at last, and I'm happy to say I'll be sleeping through sunrise tomorrow. Woo! Second item on the agenda (after sleeping in) is going to the pub up the street that has "Full English Breakfast 2 Pounds," which is what I'll gain eating it. Then I suspect home for a bit of deboxing, then we'll do a museum or something. shadowdaddy is going to have an early night as he'll be pulling a midnight-8 AM shift at some theater somewhere (this just a one off gig), but wechsler will entertain me, I'm sure.

Dang, it's late.

I had a great night at Sadler's Wells with spikeylady, bathtubgin, itsjustaname and wechlser watching handsome shirtless men dance around stage with leather pants on. Er, I mean, with feather pants on, at least in acts one and three, as this was Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake. Something about the production seemed to leave us all very ... energized. Not sure how to put it really, but I do think "festive" captures it. Talk about getting in the spirit of the season! What is it about watching actors die on stage that could possibly be so cheering? At any rate, I end the day in a very good mood, which I must frankly admit has a LOT to do with it being the start of my Christmas vacation. No work until January 2nd ... WOOOO!

I'm thinking of maybe starting a tradition of Christmas tacos. I can have duck here anytime, but how often can you have tacos? I can do a Mexican Christmas in London, I'll be the only person who does it, and for me, it will be the flavors of the old country. MmmmMMMmmMMM! And I can make enchiladas, too, since we've got lots of sauce and it would be yummy.

No games on Saturday - was hoping to get two or three but can only get one, so ... I guess we'll go see Meet Me In Saint Louis at the Riverside Studios or something similarly silly.

I caught myself using "blagging" instead of "BSing" this week. What's next, I say, "Cheers!" when someone holds the door open for me and I start spelling theater with the R and E transposed? Good Lord. I'm going native.

At any rate, I am still holding out and drinking LEAF tea, without any filthy milk or spoiling sugar added to it - and today I'm doing this sitting in front of my living room window, looking outside at what is already a very nice day and writing some thank you cards to some nice people I know, getting ready to do more unpacking.

I had a good laugh last night while reading A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down, which has a chapter on "How Other People Make Their Tea Wrong Unless They Make It the Same Way You Do" or something along those lines. It ends with these words of wisdom, entitled "Our Tea Policy:

"Well, the thing about tea is that everyone just drinks it the the way they like it. Generally, we make it in mugs, one tea bag - PG Pyramids - for every two mugs. Put the hot water in first, then give it a bit of a stir before adding the milk. Simple. Oh, and we don't add sugar.

If you drink any other sort of tea, that's fine. Just so long as you know it's wrong."