OMT!!

Here is a random list of things that have changed in Britain in the five and a half years since we moved away.

It was 12-06 when we left. It was 06-12 when we returned. That makes it easy to remember for filling in forms. And it's tidy. I like life to be tidy. It so often isn't, that when there are little tidy things like this, it makes me happy.

Pharmacists can now dispense a decent level of medication. Yay. This makes total sense. It was being talked about when we left, I seem to remember, but now it's really happened. So I went and got some antibiotic eye drops for conjunctivitis, without having to prostrate myself in front of a doctor's receptionist, begging abjectly for an appointment. I just needed a few prompts from the pharmacist, who was helpful enough to give them to me. "Not sticky? Just red and itchy? Are you sure not sticky? How about first thing in the morning, when you wake up? A bit sticky then, perhaps? Yes..? Ah, it's sticky. It's just that that's one of the symptoms I have to hear." I love it when people beat the system.

A first class postage stamp is now 60p. What? Don't be expecting any birthday cards from me any more. If Amazon can deliver large, heavy packages for free, why does the Royal Mail need 60p to deliver a small, light card? They ought to be paying us, actually, for feeding those red boxes and keeping them in business. Just before we left, the Royal Mail changed the way they charge for packages. Instead of the simple weighing of a parcel, they'd introduced a system which required the counter staff to weigh it, measure it, see if it would fit through a slot, balance it on their head, do a cartwheel with it between their knees, and spin in on a 50p piece. It seemed a little over-burdensome to me. I hate to say "see, I told you so", but here we are, with a first class stamp at 60p. I only remains for me to make a joke about the Royal Mail and the front page of the Sun. Consider it made.

There are an awful lot of tv channels - more than you can shake a tv remote at. Perhaps there were in 12-06 and we just didn't subscribe to them. We weren't missing much. There are the five old favourites, and then several hundred others, which repeat what was on the five old faves, either a few hours later, or a few years later. I shouldn't complain really. It's quite useful for us. If we want to watch today's tv, we can. If we want to pretend we're in a time warp and have never been away at all, we can do that too.

Smartphones. They're rather good, aren't they? Husband and I have each got one. We didn't plan to, and the very thought of us owning one each had our children smirking and giggling. They felt rather protective of us, and wanted to come shopping with us, to help us sort out our phone needs. I think they worried that we'd be sold a tv remote at smartphone price, and come home proudly brandishing it, not realising we'd been ripped off. Oh they of little faith! In fact, we went to Tesco, got a fabulous deal, and came home rejoicing that there is at least one thing that is seriously cheaper in Britain than it is in America. Come to think of it, why isn't there an app that allows you to change channels on the tv with your smartphone? That would save you the enormous effort of having to put it down on the coffee table, and pick up the remote, and then do the same manoeuvre in reverse. You could save seconds. Valuable seconds. This is the 21st century. It does rather worry me, though, that the country is being run by Tesco, not the government. Which one, honestly, has more influence over our daily lives?

My waist. I used to have one. I definitely did. I remember it well. I don't now. It must be to do with climate change and air pressure, or something like that. Very odd.

There's one thing that hasn't changed. For this, I join the many-voiced chorus of Americans who have lived in, or even just visited, Britain. Oh, Mixer Taps!! Why don't we have them over here? How hard could that be? I can't tell you how backward it feels to have temperature discrimination in our taps, when you have been used to the unsegregated flow of a simple mixer tap.  O... M... T...!!

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Moving involves leaving. Who knew?

OK, so it's got to me.

Easter Sunday in church, the service ending with the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus, and me thinking that next Easter, I will be in a church which probably won't have that tradition.

Realising that I do like my house - now it's all tidy and clean!

Watching Michael Scott leave 'The Office'. Ah. That was the thing that got to me. Right under my skin. 'The Office' - the American version - has been a sort of backdrop to our time here. First, there was the transition from the English version to the American version, and finding that we preferred the American version (Husband can't bear Ricky Gervais). When we had cable, we often watched 'The Office' because we were bewildered by the obscenely huge choice of channels and didn't know what else to watch. Then when we gave up cable, we watched old episodes of 'The Office' because they're on all the time on the very limited number of channels we still get. And now we've worked out how to watch Netflix 'instant' instead of getting DVDs in the mail, we've gone back and filled in the gaps. It's the evening staple for me and Husband, when we're tired, and just want a glass of wine and 40 minutes of undemanding tv, to unwind before bed. And now, with tidy timing, we're finishing up the final season.

Michael Scott leaves. No. How can that be? How can he leave? How can we leave? I love the way 'The Office' shows how a random group of weird, annoying, flawed, yet wonderful, individuals, can become a community. If the story of our time here in the Midwest has been anything, it has been a story of finding community. And don't be insulted by the idea of being "weird, annoying, flawed", because we all are, you know. And I did say "yet wonderful", in case you hadn't spotted it.

So when I watched the bit where his colleagues sing Michael Scott the ballad, summing up the 9 million minutes he'd worked in the office, it got right under my skin and into my left ventricle and even my tear ducts. I confess I got a paper and pencil and worked out how many minutes we've lived here (over 2.5 million - if you don't count the summers away). It wasn't just me. 14-yo (who is wired emotionally so like me) was moved too. "I don't think Michael should have left. Why did they write that into the series?" he's asked me more than once.

And now I just can't get that tune out of my head. It's melancholy, but kind of inspiring and fulfilling too. I love how music can do that - be a mix of emotions all at once.

So Michael Scott, you moved to Colorado and a new life with Holly. We're moving to Britain. You will be an indelible part of my memories of my time here.

Here is that song. I defy you to watch the video and not be moved. Moved and moving. How apt. And the word 'emotion' comes from the same root. Yes, very apt.

Different things

Over the past few days, I have been collecting a list of things that will be different about life when we’re in Britain. They are pretty random, so I will just spew them out, although I have made at least a little attempt at organizing them. They are in three categories. Three categories – come on, that’s pretty good. I mean, it’s not the kind of intelligent analysis that would get me to be where someone like Matt Frei is, but three categories is three categories. Don’t knock it.

Things that will be different

• There will be reassuring white lines at road junctions, so that I will know where I am meant to stop the car
• Stop lights will not swing about on their wires in the wind in that alarming way
• The meat aisle in the supermarket will be mostly chicken with a small section of beef, rather than mostly beef with a small section of chicken
• Children won’t call each other “dude” (or perhaps they will; we’ve been away 18 months and this could be a new fashion for all I know)
• Everything will seem very small, especially cars and houses. A friend of mine laughed when I told her we have an air hockey table in our basement playroom: “you have a playroom large enough for an air hockey table?”. I didn’t tell her we could fit 3 or 4 in that room, and that we have a choice of other rooms where it could go. And that our house is not abnormally large for a family of five
• Children in a park won’t ask their parents for an underdog (which is surprising, given we’re meant to be a nation that always likes the underdog)
• A grill will be something you put meat under, not on top of

Things I will miss

• A big fridge
• The lack of traffic
• Not having to spend time planning the hunt for a parking space
• Thunderstorms
• Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in a box (which, annoyingly and humiliatingly, is much, much more delicious than homemade)
• Mixer taps that actually mix the hot and cold water
• Seeing exotic food in my local supermarket (cactus leaves, buffalo meat) – or will Cadbury’s chocolate fingers and Wall’s chipolatas seem exotic now?
• Knowing it will be warm enough every day to wear flip flops (I find the relentless heat hard to cope with, but I do like flip flops)
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent

Things I definitely will not miss

• Obscenely large portions in restaurants
• Drinks served 75% ice 25% liquid (am I the only one who likes a drink to be something you can drink? am I the only one with teeth sensitive to cold?)
• When I order milk from a children’s menu, the waiter asking “white or chocolate?”
(Of course these first three are entirely hypothetical, since we won’t be eating out at all. Given the cost of living in the UK, we will be existing on bread and water – oh, but at least it’ll be delicious bread, not the compacted cotton wool that is marketed as bread over here.)
• Commercials on tv – their number, frequency, length, quality and medical content (I think that covers the gist of it)
• The word “ornery”, because I just can’t quite get the nuance of what it means – one of those words which has a dictionary definition, but whose usage depends on undefinable knowledge
• The word “flakey”, for the same reason (and is it “flakey” or “flaky” – I can’t even spell it)
• Chiggers
• Four-way stops (don’t get me started)
• Children saying “can I get…” instead of “please may I have…”
• People asking me where I’m from and saying they love my accent (and yes, that’s meant to be in both lists - I’m a bit complicated on this one. Sometimes it’s nice to be different and have an immediate talking point, sometimes it would be nice to blend in a little more.)

Tagged!

I’ve been tagged. Now, it’s very naughty of Reluctant Memsahib to tag me, as she knows full well that I’m on blogging sabbatical. I don’t really like tags, but this one got me thinking, and once I get thinking, wittering is only a small step further on. The tag invites me to witter on about what I’ve been reading, listening to, watching and surfing in the past few days, and I couldn't resist it.

Reading: I’m in a book club, and we’re doing Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Haven’t finished it yet, and can’t decide whether I like it or not. I can see that it is funny and well-written, but you need to have chemistry with a book, as with a person, and I'm not sure it and I have exchanged glances across a crowded room yet. I have also read Just for you, Blue Kangaroo every day, and sometimes more than once a day, since Christmas. It’s just as well I like the story, as 3-yo does, obviously. A lot. A big lot. Considerably more than me, actually. Pity there isn't another one in the series called Enough is enough, Blue Kangaroo.

Listening to: Alas, I hardly listen to anything these days (no Radio 4, you see) apart from the cd of choice in the car, which at the moment is some ghastly Winnie the Pooh compilation. I only ever hear the first track, at the end of which 3-yo insists “that one again, that one again”. On the school run, I claim that it is the boys’ turn, and then we have Radio Disney which is a mind-numbing experience, but I have to take my respite where I can. 'Listening to' is not where it is happening for me in this particular chapter of life.

Watching: I have to confess to watching almost no American tv at all, and because I don’t want to sound smug and superior, 'not wrong, just different' being my philosophy and all, I’d better not go on about it, but really, it isn’t good. I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend. The only show that Husband and I do enjoy is Family Guy, which is like a ruder and darker version of The Simpsons. Hilarious. On BBC America, I watch Matt Frei giving an hour of news at 9.00pm (it’s like having the old Nine O’Clock News back again – oh joy). I am particularly enjoying the fact that the journalist they’ve sent off to Antarctica to track the Japanese whaling fleet is called Jonah Fisher. Marvellous BBC humour. No-one has made any reference to it, but it's just there as a shared joke. When I think of what I miss from Britain, it all tends to be the lovely gentleness and understatement of the place, like that joke for example. Or leafy green lanes, the fountain-like chatter of ladies meeting in tea shops, the soft colours of bluebells and cow parsely, the fine art of conversing without saying what you mean. Intriguingly, the programmes I enjoy most on BBC America are Top Gear and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. But that probably says more about the selection on offer than my homeward yearnings.

Last, but not least, surfing: Well, there are the blogs, of course. I love you all. Then there’s Weatherbug.com, which I like at times of the year when we have extreme weather. Just how hot/cold is it today? In the last week, we’ve had temperatures down to -13 celsius. This actually makes very little difference to life, as buildings and cars are well heated, and you only ever have to walk between them for 30 seconds. Most people wouldn’t actually bother with a coat if they were going to the supermarket. Nonetheless, I like to think that when we return to Britain, and people are complaining of the cold, I’ll be able to be reverse-smug and say “oh yes, well of course we got used to temperatures of -13 celsius when we lived in America.”.

Then there are the news pages, which keep me in touch with world news when I’ve missed Matt Frei at 9 o’clock, or deserted him for recorded Jeremy Clarkson or Gordon Ramsey (sorry, Matt, don’t take it personally). I watched a lot of BBC news online after the BA flight from Beijing crash landed at Heathrow. Plane crashes are always gruesomely fascinating, but I followed the aftermath of this one with particular interest, as I was at primary school with Peter Berkhill, the pilot. I emailed a friend, to ask if it was indeed him, and she confirmed that it was. We pondered together how the names of primary school co-pupils are forever etched on one’s memory (and I know I’ve spelt his name wrong – just don't want to turn up in too many google searches). The story is a little tarnished by the fact that I got excited when I watched the flight crew arrive at the press conference in BA’s headquarters amidst cheering ranks of BA staff, thinking to myself “yes, yes, I recognize him, that’s him, that’s Peter Berkhill, definitely him”, only to discover when they were introduced, that I’d been looking at senior first officer Tom Coward.

I'm passing the tag on to Laurie, Elsie Button, Dumdad and Ms Wiz.

More on Emily Yeung

Letter to Managing Director
Marblemedia Production Company
Toronto

Dear Sir

I believe you produce This is Emily Yeung. It’s very good. She’s very good. I hope she has a future in television. It’s an imaginative programme. Kids like it because it is very much on their level, and adults like it because they picture their child doing the activity that Emily is doing, and being much more cute and clever than she. Don’t get me wrong. Emily is very cute and clever. It’s just that parents are smitten with their own children. You knew that already.

I like the theme music too.

This is Emily Yeung
She’ll score a goal, play pretend,
Make a bunch of brand new friends.
Learning laughing sharing smiling
We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Emily Yeung.

I’m afraid that, being English, the “bunch of brand new friends” creates a bit of an odd visual image. We don’t say that, you see. I see her with a clutch of Barbie-like plastic people in one hand, like a bunch of flowers or a bunch of carrots. Still, I suppose if you said “a lot of brand new friends”, as we would do in England, your North American audience would visualize an auction room with groups of children awaiting their turn amongst the drab second hand furniture. I like the tune too. Very jolly, with a reflective bit, almost like church music, in the middle.

You do what I was going to call a sister programme: This is Daniel Cook. I’ll have to call it a brother programme. He wears Emily’s trademark orange t-shirt and blue pants. He is very good in front of the cameras too, quick and intelligent. I think Emily, with her natural curiosity and ease with people, might become an investigative reporter of a soft kind. Daniel has more of the political interviewer about him. His adult companions don’t get away with any loose explanations, and he interrupts them shamelessly if he is ready to move on. Today he told the nice lady who was helping him recycle paper that pulp should be called pawater. A mixture of paper and water, you see. It’s a clever word. The nice lady had to agree that it was a better word than pulp.

I like This is Daniel Cook too. I have just one quibble with you. Cook doesn’t rhyme with fun. Didn’t anyone notice? You’ve changed the words to the theme tune, but you stuck with the last couplet:

We’ll have lots of fun [pause]
With Daniel Cook.

It doesn’t rhyme at all. Actually, Yeung doesn’t really rhyme with fun either, does it? We’ll give you that one though. It’s near enough, although you’re aiming at a preschool audience here – you ought to be more careful with your phonics, since schools all seem pretty keen on them. However, we’ll let that one pass, since the theme tune overall is so very good. But I’m sorry, I just can’t overlook [pause] Daniel Cook. I could forgive the lack of effort here if he had a name that was particularly challenging in the rhyme-finding department. Daniel Defoe. Daniel Fortescue. Daniel Molyneux-Cholmondley. These would present a challenge. Let’s face it though. Cook. That should have been pretty easy.

Come and take a look [pause]
With Daniel Cook.

There you are, you see. Easy-peasy. If you don’t like that, how about this?

Resistance he will not brook [pause]
Not Daniel Cook.

No? Well, I suppose it is a bit literary for the preschool audience (although you shouldn’t underestimate them, you know). Actually, Cook is a bit of a gift if you want to do some subtle merchandise advertising. I’m surprised you didn’t come up with

Watch the show, then buy the book [pause]
Of Daniel Cook.

There you are. Lots of ideas for you. I’ll be watching out for the next series to see if you’ve incorporated any of them. Don’t forget to credit me. Doesn’t have to be anywhere prominent – just a little nook.

We enjoy your shows, 3-yo and I. If you ever want to do an episode This is Emily Yeung in the Midwest then please do contact me. Or I could do something suitably English if you like: This is Daniel Cook baking scones. We’d be happy to host a production team here.

Yours faithfully

Iota

PS Since drafting this letter, my Canadian media informant has told me that in fact Daniel Cook preceded Emily Yeung. I just can't believe that. Do rhyming couplets mean nothing to you people?

Emergencies

Emily Yeung was visiting the 911 call centre. I don’t think they call it a call centre, actually. That’s something else. Something you wouldn’t really need in an emergency. Or at any other time. Anyway, emergency control command operation central centre, center, whatever. That’s where Emily Yeung was. Ah. You don’t know who Emily Yeung is? She is one of television’s best presenters. She is charming, intelligent, probing, polite, and very natural in front of the camera. She is 6 years old (and therefore “a big girl”) and she goes and does interesting things, or even everyday things, along with a film crew. It’s then edited into a very good 5 minutes of television for children. “You said that American kids’ tv is rubbish” I hear you say. I know, I know. Well, I’ve found another little nugget of good watching amongst the relentless cartoons. And actually, Emily Yeung is a Canadian production (I mention this because if I don't, some other smart alec will; a smart alec or a defensive Canadian).

Anyway, Emily Yeung was at the 911 place, and I started thinking to myself whether I wanted 3-yo to know about 911. She might get bad ideas. After all, Emily Yeung made it look rather fun. You get to pretend your teddy bear has fallen off a swing, and the paramedics come and play hospitals with you. Hm. I must remember to keep the phones out of reach.

This brings back memories of 10-yo, who loved the phone, and the times he dialed 999. Times. Yes. Three of them. But this is the sneaky thing. It was from three different locations: our house, and once from each grandparental home. So I avoided getting on the “very bad mothers who let their children play with the phone” register. In his defence, he didn’t mean to dial 999. Of course 999 was invented when dialing meant dialing, not pushing buttons (although we still say “dialing”, which must be rather confusing for the younger generation). It's clear that 999 would never have been chosen in the push button age. It is too obviously the combination that a wobbly toddler, pulling himself to stand at a desk on which a phone sits, and patting happily away at the buttons, is most likely to hit. That and the speaker on/off button, so that when his mother comes into the room, she is confused by the voice that is coming, seemingly out of nowhere, “Is Mummy there? Is anyone there with you? Where’s your Mummy?” Most disconcerting.

Yes, 911 is a much better number. Well done America. By the way, for those of you who have a phone-obsessed toddler, and want to know what happens if he dials the emergency services by mistake, don’t go out to a call box to try it. I’ll tell you for free. They confirm that there is no reason for the call, and then say “this is a service for emergencies and you are using valuable resources; please keep your child away from the phone in the future” which is totally fair enough, and you deserve to feel as small as you do. Don’t ask me what happens if they know your child does this repeatedly. That’s one for the public call box. Or we might find out if Emily Yeung ever visits a maternal correctional facility.

Answers

Well, you got them both. Well done to Dan who was first with Olbas Oil, and Someonesmrs who was first with Savlon. Intriguingly, these are both people who know me from my pre-Iota UK life. I wonder if that gave them a head start. I didn’t have either of them down as the kind of people who would snoop in other people’s bathroom cabinets, so maybe it’s coincidence, although it does also cause me to reflect on the way we come to know people. Am I more obviously an Olbas-Savlon type if you meet me in person? Or is it just easier to guess these kind of details from the picture of someone built up and fleshed out over years rather than weeks?

So glory and smug feelings to you, Dan and Someonesmrs, but I loved some of the other answers. Oatcakes, oint ment, oxo cubes and ooo marmite – very creative. Lucozade (welcome, Strickley, and I’ve enjoyed your pictures of Cumbria this morning) does indeed always make me feel better – it’s another of those childhood comfort memories. We only drank it as a very special treat when ill and in need of building up our energy (although I later discovered that my mother used to keep a bottle of it hidden away for herself for secret swigs, which was definitely not fair play). Slimfast is a good guess, Beta Mum, and boy, could they use some of it here, but that’s another story. But cod liver oil with added malt? No. I can live without that. (Do you really like the taste? Have you seen anyone about that?) As for Sudocrem, another good guess, although sadly, I am pretty much through the Sudocrem stage. I am always tempted to spell it Pseudocrem anyway, so that would have been a P.

I did promise to tell you about the Savlon alternatives here. The leading brand is called Neosporin, but, along with the others on the shelves, it isn’t an antiseptic cream, it’s an antibiotic. Call me lax, but I really don’t think my children need antibiotic treatment every time they graze, bump, cut or otherwise mutilate themselves (by scrubbing a tattoo off their cheek with a facecloth so vigorously that they remove a patch of skin an inch and a half square which takes 3 weeks to heal, for example). I don’t want to contribute to the emergence of superbugs resistant to antibiotics, and my children’s immune systems seem to do the job perfectly well without. The real issue here, though, is the Neosporin commercial. You know I hate commercials, and this one really is one of the worst. It is almost impossible to avoid (or do they just have it programmed into my personal Cox Communications box?) and irritating to the point of… doh, I can’t think. Irritating to the point of self-mutilation with a facecloth.

The commercial shows a mother telling the story of how her precious daughter once had a clean cut on her finger, a good, oo, 3 or 4mm long. She washed the cut. She didn’t do anything else. It went a tiny bit red round the edge. She went to the doctor. He suggested she try Neosporin. The cut healed up. She will always use Neosporin. She hates to see her child suffer. She thinks all parents feel this way. She is sure we will all want to use Neosporin.

Where do I start? I can’t even begin to unpeel the layers of why this annoys me – it would make for very dull reading. It’s to do with manipulation of parents by playing on their worst feelings of inadequacy; it’s to do with commercialization of health issues; it’s to do with the way some mothers tell you how hopeless they are as a mother when what they really want you to draw from the story is how good they are as mother; it’s to do with the American obsession with medicine and drugs; it’s to do with having to get to grips with yet another brand name I don’t know.

I told you I shouldn’t start. How I would like to finish, though, is by refashioning the commercial for a UK audience. It would go like this: the mother is telling the story of her daughter’s cut finger. She phones up her GP. The receptionist says “is it an emergency? otherwise the next available appointment is a week on Thursday.” She blags her way through that one (although I’d like to see her do it), and when she sees the GP, he says to her “I can tell you’re a first time mother” (this is a direct quote from a real life GP - perhaps he’d like to appear in the commercial.) She hates to see her child suffer. She thinks all parents feel this way. She goes to her local friendly pharmacist who says “och Hen, the bairn’ll come to nae harm frae tha’ wee bitty scratch” but since she is set on purchasing a product of some description, she leaves the chemist’s with a little sky-blue tube with a white lid and white writing – that marvelous stuff Savlon (and a small bottle of Olbas Oil which was by the till and on special offer).