This is why I will never go to Carl's Jr. I know when I'm not wanted.

Unless you're advertising a veterans charity I am a firm believer that humor sells almost as much as sex. I love a funny advert. And, though you may assume by my witty repartee that I confine myself to more cerebral comedy I am always up for some toilet humor. I draw your attention to this, which made me laugh for about 10 minutes:

And some days I long for just one car dealership or hair dye company to bite the bullet and buck the trend of facile nonsense. Ugh.

But, none of this should interfere with the main purpose of the ad - to make me buy your product or service. Arby's - big BIG props to you for acknowledging Jon Stewart's 16 year assault on the quality of your product and embracing the free publicity. Seriously, jolly well done.

Not so well executed are the adverts that opt for funny over competency. 

One would assume that making your employees look like incompetent bellends would also be a no-no in the Big Book of Advertising. Join me as we enjoy this, or indeed any, offering from Drivetime.com:

Wow. I don't think I'd trust you to wipe your own bum, let alone finance my car? I'm kinda impressed you ladies managed to get out of the house this morning without hurting yourself? Please untie me from this gurney, I would rather get the bus home, if its all the same to you...

Maybe I just don't have enough of a sense of humor, but its like the ad executives just gave up?

What's even worse than this, though, is the smug commercial. Two things that do not make me want to engage - me thinking your employees are incompetent idiots, and you blatantly disrespecting your existing clients. To actually make these the fundamentals of your advertising campaign smacks of incredible arrogance. 

Lets move on to the Lotto advert. Nice and short - it should pretty much sell itself. 

"Play the lottery and you could win $x". 

But then it continues, with an unnecessary amount of incredulity, "You're still sitting there? Maybe you didn't hear?" 

Excuuuuuuuuse me? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Perhaps I'm being too sensitive, but, if you want me to engage, how about we dial down the arrogance a smidgen?

Next we have the match.com adverts where Mr Random McRandom stops women in the street and asks if they have any experience with match.com. Responses from the general public vary, but the sarcastic response of Señor McRandom can be paraphrased into "duuuuuuuuuuuh, do you even HEAR yourself?" 

His response to "No, I would rather meet someone in a bar" is "and how's THAT working out for you?" Um, rude. You can check that fucking tone at the door, sunshine.  Or his response to "Actually  my sister found her husband on match.com"; "Riiiight, you don't think you might want to try it then?" If its populated with sarcastic, smug arseholes like you, then I'll pass. 

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Its one thing to have confidence in your product, quite another to produce the advertising equivalent of stuffing your tongue into your bottom lip, making a "duh" noise. 

I appreciate that I'm not the target audience for this nonsense (I am clearly NOT welcome at Carl's Jr unless I am 23 and wearing a bikini?) but I don't really understand who these are aimed at? People with so little self-respect or sense as to be influenced by a smug git verbally tossing off in their face? Nice.

Hey fatty boom boom

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My husband has informed me that I am too quick to judge the fatties. When the slimming advert with Marie Osmond came on and she starts whinging about how bad she felt when she looked in the mirror I, allegedly, without missing a beat, started singing "Hey, fatty boom boom" to myself. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. Either way, I'd like to point out the the reason I notice the butter balls is that the stereotype that all Americans are fat is far from the truth (despite what all their tv would have you believe! Seriously - think of all the sitcoms from the past 50 years. Male lead = fatty. Female lead = totty. WTF is with that?)

Yes, there are fat people in America (the fattest people I have EVER SEEN were in Texas), but there are also lots of skinny people and everything in between. Some of this is genetics, some of it is cultural, some of it class, some of it is career/lifestyle choice and some of it education. The poorer areas tend to have more fat people because they eat a cheaper diet that tend to be poorer quality and full of fat, sugar and salt to make crap ingredients taste nice.

I'm assuming the stereotypical high-fat American diet stems from a time when people were living harder lives and burning more energy. I'm not suggesting that people were scoffing Big Macs 100 years ago, but they were probably eating deep fried chicken, grits, buttery mash, deep fried dough. It wasn't a problem when we were still living in small rural communities, chopping down trees for fire wood and milking cows, or in crap, developing cities where we woke up early to stoke the coal/wood fires, walked to work, worked our arses off and then walked home. Eating high-fat, high-carb food was necessary you give you energy (although I'm fairly sure they had other problems, like rickets). Now people drive to work in sedentary jobs, eat at their desks and drive home to a ready meal (I know we don't all do that, but plenty of people do. I'm generalizing. This is a "do as I say, not as I do" situation, yeah? Calm the fuck down, people). High fat, high carb diet, with more processed sugars and added flavorings, but with no intention of using the calories to move around a bit.

Part of the problem stems from the fat pride reaction to fat shaming. I am super chuffed for everyone who is happy with their body, irrespective of girth, but when social media highlights a stream of chubsters in banana hammocks and bikinis with empowering statements like "big and proud" then the world starts to think thats how everyone in the US looks/feels. And don't even get me started on the "only at Walmart" meme. Hilarious, but if you've never been to a Walmart then you start to believe that it represents the average American.

The biggest issue here is that there are proportionally as many stupid knob heads outside the US as there are within it, so the stereotype prevails, because its easier to believe it than not. So, next time you want to judge an entire nation on one mutable physical trait, don't, just don't. It makes you look like someone who's never left the village.

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I, however, have learned nothing, so am off to throw donuts at the lumbering butter balls in the park. Good day.

Still overly sensitive, then?

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There's a new perceived slight that I am unnecessarily sensitive to, and I blame my Britishness. And I will be using British actors to visually represent my distress - only they can fully embody the anguish that I feel! 

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Lets set the scene: you're in a shop being served by one of the shop assistants, or in a hairdressers being shampooed. Another staff member leans over to the person currently serving and, within very clear earshot, asks "will SHE be paying by credit card?" or "how long will SHE be?"

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Guys, I'm right here. 

My mum would have a fit. "Who's 'she'? The Queen of Sheba? The cat's mother?" And it really does smart when someone refers to you without acknowledging that you are still fucking there and you can actually fucking hear!

I'm used to being referred to as CUSTOMER ("My CUSTOMER will be paying with buttons and belly button fluff"), or LADY ("My LADY will be here for another three or four hours to give me time to tame this unwieldy bird's nest"). Otherwise you may as well ask "is this dick'ead going to be much longer?"

Seriously, manners, yeah?

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But what of the little red biros? What will become of them?...

A jolly little update from the DMV. As part of the unpredictable odyssey of changing from my maiden to my married name I had the pleasure of revisiting the DMV. Twice. In one day. I have been informed that I have visited the DMV more times than a normal Californian would do in a decade. Hey ho.

I have to admit that booking an early appointment is THE ONLY way to do this. I had to wait for a few weeks for an appointment, but the ease with which I strolled to the front of the queue (**actual experiences may vary) and was sent to a booth within 10 minutes was totally worth it.

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Sadly, updating one's driving license when not currently an American citizen seems to be such an alien task that they don't carry all the pertinent information on their website, so I was not equipped with my I90 (my actual visa, inside my actual passport with my actual new name in, plus my old passport with my old name, plus my actual marriage certificate were not enough. Neither was accessing my I90 online, despite the fact that it is an online form that you have to print out at home. M'kay.) This meant that, having been ushered swiftly to the front of the queue I was told to book another appointment and come back again. Swallows throbbing rage. I smiled, went to my car and booked another appointment later that day at a DMV much further away. Still, I was adamant I was going to get this shit sorted in one day.

Seriously though - as if they don't get thousands of people in the same position as me? Non-citizens who want to legally update their details using their passport - the document that allows them into and out of any country in the world. FFS.

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Anyhoo, off I trot to my next DMV appointment, a myriad of documents in hand. This is the low point of the day - finding a parking space at the DMV. Yes, the place where you actually get your license, that is not on any public transport network, and that expects you to bring your own car in which to be tested, does not have enough parking spaces. Let me repeat that to allow the irony to fully sink in. The DMV does not have enough parking spaces. Are you fucking kidding me?

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So, having nearly caused an accident in my frustration, and swinging the car round to nab a space, I get in, am swiftly moved from one booth to another, getting rubber stamped at each stage, and come to the highlight of my day: discovering that the theory test can now be completed on a computer!! Welcome to the twentieth century, DMV!

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I'm genuinely relieved that they've advanced to this stage - I was starting to get worried. Although now I'm sad for the little man with his red pen who spent all day marking people's tests. What will become of him? And his box of pens? Who will feed and cloth the little red biros?

The continued farce of personal security

I appreciate that with each new development in personal security the scammers find a work around, but its like everyone has just given up?

Its taken quite a while for the US to follow the rest of the fucking civilized world and get their chip
and pin shit together, and it would appear that one reason is that a 4-digit number can be more readily cloned/stolen than your signature. Yeah - that squiggle that means jack shit is apparently waaaaaay more secure than a 4 digit number. The squiggle that no-one checks. The squiggle that last week looked a lot like "Mickey Mouse" after an experiment in Safeway (seriously - try it. Its actually quite fun to sign the electronic pads with something other than your signature. Maybe next time I'll try "Michael Jackson" or "Marilyn Munroe" with a little heart in the "i"? Or how about no words at all? Just a line drawing of a cock and balls?) The squiggle that, when the clerk randomly does ask to see my ID clearly chooses to overlook the fact that my ID has a different last name. I'm glad my personal identification is secure in the hands of these highly trained till monkeys.

Well, you might say, that's still better than a 4 digit number. OK, shall we explore the other personal numbers that an individual is supposed to know by heart? Lets start with the SSN - Social Security Number. Issue 1: not everyone is entitled to an SSN (me included), but I am allowed to have a big girl bank account, so that won't work. Add to this the fact that although all the advice is that you shouldn't give out your SSN willy-nilly, you do, in fact, give out your SSN willy-nilly. When every other fucking organization wants to use your SSN as proof that you are who you say your are you end up putting it on all sorts of random application forms and even giving the last 4 digits over the phone to some strategically shaved till monkey in a shirt in order to update your contact details with Comcast.

So, SSN is a bit of a joke.

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Lets try something else that EVERYONE has - a phone number. Hold on there - surely thats a bit presumptuous? What if someone doesn't have a phone number? Well, hold on there indeed. You have hit upon one of the issues with this way of checking that your are who you say you are. The second issue is that phone numbers appear not to be exclusive and are regularly recycled. Lets take a walk down to Rite Aid. As with most points cards you are asked to put your phone number in at the till to identify you on their database and award you those glorious 3 points from the pack of Pringles and Neosporin you just purchased. But, wait! My phone number is apparently already registered with someone else's card. Well how do you like that? And, seeing as I've had the

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phone number for over a year and Plenti only came out last month, how the fuck is that possible? Join me, again, as we stroll over to Bevmo for the same story. The solution? Call up their customer service team who will sound surprised, talk to themselves for a bit while they look at the database, ask you if you have any other phone numbers you can use (you mean, aside from my actual phone number? A second one I have lying around for when I want to spice things up a bit? No.), ask you if anyone else lives in your house by the name of "Kumal" (You mean Kumal? The man who lives in my closet and uses my mobile phone to setup random store cards? No.) and then flap around with no serviceable resolution.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the mobile phone number is, I propose, even less valid as a means of identification than the SSN.

Where do we go from here? Who knows. Don't say email address because there are at least two of my namesakes in Berlin and London running around giving out the wrong bloody email address because in the past month I have been wished a happy birthday and congratulated for joining a medical institution in countries where I do not live. Idiots.

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Smug British scoff of the day

Thank goodness I was on my own in the car when I had my little smug scoff earlier. The chap on NPR (publicly funded American Radio 4 with adverts and less radio drama) announced that the successful stage production "One man, two guvnors" was coming to the Bay Area. Having never actually seen the production I am assuming that, due to the spelling of "guvnors", it is referencing a "guvnor" as in "boss"? Non? And the pronunciation is fairly important - a "guvnor" is different to a "governor", who is someone who presides over California or a school. The dude on the radio clearly wasn't aware of that distinction, as he announced "One man, two governors", starring, presumably, Arnold Schwarzenneger in one of the governator roles? You can, presumably, hear the sarcasm in my tone? Yeah - that. Completely unnecessary and totally unfair. I am a dick.

It did get me thinking, though, about all the little colloquial ways we refer to each other in the UK that impart a HUGE amount of meaning, more so that the cutesy turns of phrase in the US (Whats up, buttercup?):

"Alright, guv" is a cheery colloquial greeting imbued with deference to a more senior individual - the verbal equivalent of doffing one's hat.

"Alright, me old cocker" is something you might hear in an old man pub between two older working class chaps.

"Listen, sunshine" - similar to "sonny jim", this would be used by an older or more senior person to a younger man. There is a slight implication that the younger man is a bit of a scamp - there's a certain ring of discipline about it, like a policeman talking to a naughty school boy.

"Whatcha, cock" - my personal favorite - like "me old cocker" you'd most likely hear two older guys exchange this greeting. See also the hilarious Carry On style gag that include the line "have you got the time on yer, cock?"

Seriously, the more I have to explain the logic behind some of this British stuff the more I realize that it is all hilariously nonsensical. Its no wonder the world thinks we're all eccentric nutcases.

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Surprise cinnamon has a savoury ally

We know the food in the US can be delicious as fuck. The sweet and salty combination that has only recently appeared in the UK (and is still viewed with suspicion by popcorn eaters) is clearly superior to either plain salty or plain sweet. Its not an unnatural abhorrence - peanut butter, yeah? - but a naturally complimentary flavor combination.

However, there are other flavor combinations that are NOT acceptable. I have two main issues here - the first is cinnamon, which I have already touched on. (Calling something Pumpkin Spice is fucking NONSENSE. Its cinnamon and nutmeg. But mostly cinnamon.) 

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Stop putting cinnamon in and on everything sweet. Apple tastes lovely - it does not need cinnamon. A buttery cookie is delicious - why have you desecrated it with this powdery shit? And, y'know, if you're going to ruin it at least have the decency to tell people. The thing I hate most is surprise cinnamon. It immediately ruins the thing I am eating, for which I had high hopes, and I want to hunt down the arsehole who baked it, roll his nuts in cinnamon and see how he likes it? 

Well, lucky me, I have discovered the savoury equivalent of surprise cinnamon. Surprise fennel. I was starting to get suspicious of pizzas - there was a weird flavor that didn't add anything to my enjoyment of tomato, cheese, dough, garlic and pepperoni. An incongruous notion that kinda took the edge off of everything. Then I bought a "Tomato & Basil" pasta sauce yesterday, thinking that the dominant flavors would be tomato and basil. Yummy. I was so very wrong. I could smell the fucking fennel as soon as I opened the lid and it overpowered the tomato, the basil, the spinach pasta, the pesto and the cheese. 

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Again - why are you messing with a delicious flavor combination by adding an incongruous and distracting turd of a flavor? Does someone in Congress own a fucking fennel plantation and there is a fennel quota that all italian food manufacturers stateside must adhere to??? Stop the madness!! 

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Keep on trucking

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Time for a road trip! A work thingy beckoned us down to Pasadena this week, and we thought the drive might be fun. (It was, although possibly because we're still noobs - nodding donkeys, immense wind farms, stunningly bleak landscapes and the biggest dairy farm we have ever seen are probably not as exciting if you've grown up with this shit).  And despite having an American made car (wah, waaah - stop criticizing American made cars - they are the best! USA! USA! Blah. You know they're mostly not. Big, wobbly tin cans with inefficient engines and the turning circle of a dead mammoth. As much as I admire the fact that cops here mostly drive the American made Crown Victoria, having actually piloted one myself I am more than slightly concerned that they might be doing any high speed chases. It was like steering a barge) the Ford Edge is a splendid and comfortable little fella. Plus, its a new car, so we've not had to do anything to it yet (I am proud to say that I have helped my dad fix a slipping cam belt, changed a tyre and would regularly check the oil and tyre pressure in my old VW Golf).

So its only fair to expect to have to pump up the types a bit after a whole year of car ownership. No problemo. The little light comes on and we pull in to a service station and look for the little "water & air" station.

Hmm. Its not obvious, but it must exist, right? Right! Although not in the same evolved form as we know it.

First of all it was a tiny little area at the back of the gas station car park. Secondly, it was called the "RV station". Really? So, only RVs require water and pressurized air? M'kay. Thirdly, and this is the biggest issue, and the main reason we drove past it a couple of times before we realized what it was, it is a small metal box with the two tubes poking out. And nothing else. No little screen that measures the tyre pressure and presents you with the information. No little number pad where you select the correct tyre pressure that you want to inflate up to. Just a box, a tube and a nozzle. Oh, and a sign that says "Please see attendant for service". Really?

Yes, really. So, the hubby checks on the suggested tyre pressure in the car's manual, trolls into the gas station and asks the attendant for "service". It would then appear that he turns the machine on. That is all. He was very sweet and informed the hubby that he'd need a manual tyre pressure gauge. Yes, manual. Its like a small metal straw with another metal tube inside it, and when you put it over the tyre valve it thrusts the inner metal tube up and you read the corresponding little number etched into the metal straw. Wow. We appear to have left the 21st century behind somewhere in Pasadena?

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The hubby sorted the tyres with no trouble at all, although its all a bit hit and miss - pump up the tyre, then check it, then pump it up a bit more, then check it, dealing with the ever-present danger of over-inflating the tyre so it bursts. I repeat my earlier "wow". Initially I was surprised that the country that invented convenience would allow this nonsense. And then I realized that this option is for plebs. The CONVENIENT option is to take your car to the garage as soon as the light comes on and have a coffee while the little man sorts it out for you. Which, if we're being honest, is sort-of what I did - sipped my Starbucks in the passenger seat while hubby tussled with a pressurized hydra in the pissing rain :)

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Like drop-kicking a corgi

I had a slightly embarrassing attack of the brits* today. It wasn't as severe as when I ask "what teas" they have in a restaurant and then grimace when they don't list Lady Grey, but it is recurrent. And it makes it so much more uncomfortable when it happens in public you have to hold it in. 

I am referring to the standard niceties that I thought EVERYONE was taught as a kid: when someone says "thank you", you counter with "you're welcome". Or "de nada" in Spanish. Or "Kochirakoso arrogate gozaimasu" in Japanese. Or "afwan" in Arabic.  Its as natural as breathing out after breathing in, but apparently some people in my locality have been dragged up by baboons and respond with "uh-huh". "UH-HUH"??? What the fuck is that??? I have to bite my tongue so hard every time someone does that - it's so unnacceptable. And it makes me feel so alien and so far away from the UK. I have NEVER heard this back home. Every time that happens its like someone has literally punched the Queen in the hooter, taken a shit in Hugh Grant's cucumber sandwiches, filled the Prime Minister's teapot with kool-aid and flushed Harry Potter's head down the toilet. I never thought I could get so offended by a simple lack of manners, but it really does grind my gears every. Single. Time. And it is at that point that I feel more British than I have ever felt in my life. 

So, if you don't want to feel the immensity of my British wrath (heavy tutting and possibly an eye roll) repeat after me: "you are welcome". You can thank me later. (You're welcome).

*To prove my point, this is a poop joke. And you can't get much more British than a poop joke.

I'm sure Leo still gets it

Having had a delightful fuck-worthy experience with the lying liars at Comcast I wanted to post a quick update to my earlier entry about the cost of living. Of all the words that don't translate from the UK to the US (trousers, jumper, stag do) the word "total" was a bit of a surprise to me. I am, as usual, being facetious.

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When being mis sold an upgraded tv package I heard the hubby ask for a total monthly price multiple times. Each time he was given a different number. For the purposes of most commercial interactions I'd like to think that the sales person knows that when I ask for the "total cost" I couldn't give a sweaty monkey scrotum how much this will cost to the company or to them personally. I don't care how much of this will be tax collected by the state. What I want is the total that I, as the customer, can expect to be extracted from my bank account. I will, at some point, require a breakdown of costs, which you can tot up to give me a few sub-totals, but my current question is 'what will the total sum of my bill be at the end of each calendar month'? If I subsequently discover a tax, a rental charge for the new HD box, a callout fee for the installation of said box, or a monthly "bevvies" fee that you use to get the beers in at the end of another successful month of being a dickhead sales bastard, I will push my excessively large remote control into one of your orifices.

In short - don't ever expect the total to be the total.

Public transport clearly demonstrates where the social priorities lie for local government

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I was busy thinking about the millennia that I had to wait for my CVS points card to be activated
when lo and behold I am faced with the same issue when foolishly thinking that I could top up my Clipper travel card instantly online. I am referring to this as Clipper-gate. It could be that the system is as fucked as the online transfers and some poor bastard has to go and get the cash from the bank, put it in an envelope and send it over to the Clipper accounts team who put the cash in a giant piggy bank, look up my name in a vast ledger and, using a little rubber-tipped pencil, scrub out the current total and pencil in an updated one. Its either that, or a lack of funding.

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Bay Area pubic transport is really good. I don't like comparisons with London, because TFL has had significant investment under BoJo and we have been revealing in a series of transport anniversaries that have attracted sponsorship and therefore additional pots of cash. (That said - take note, London - there are NO staff and NO ticket offices at many of the suburban Caltrain stations and we foreigners seem to be getting by ok). That said, someone from the local transport authority should really pop over and have a butchers. Heck, take the union reps with you - you want people to feel sorry for you? Provide a better fucking service. Troll through Clapham South tube station on a Friday night and see how inexplicably amenable and helpful the staff are there. Even when surrounded by a bowl of drunken dicks they still provide an outstanding service and most of them don't look like they've been smacked in the face with a fat, drunk girl's kecks.

I appreciate that the Oyster card caused kerfuffle, and it can be hard for non London natives to get their head round it (especially now that buses don't take cash. Have I made that up? I think thats true? I know they were talking about it?) but the system is now prolific and outstandingly managed. You can top up your Oyster card at all the stations, using the same machine at which you buy paper tickets. You can top it up online. You can top it up with cash in hundreds of newsagents across the capital.

Now, lets explore the Clipper card, beloved in San Francisco. You can use it to travel on most of the transport systems in the Bay Area - bus, train, tram. Jolly dee. The pricing system is complicated as fuck, (why are the fast pass options so complicated, and why are they separate to the cash bit?) but as long as you can simply have a running cash total on the card that is deducted with each use then we are onto a winner. And the cost of travel is excellent, especially for the second most expensive city in the US. Now we come to the bits that clearly need more thought. And by "thought" I mean "funding". As I said - the public transport in the Bay Area is really good for the US, and is a lifeline for lots of people who live in cheaper areas and travel to work in the major conurbations. This is how we reduce traffic into and out of SF everyday. This is how we reduce the animosity towards immigrants to the area who are working in the big tech companies and getting their flashy private wifi buses to work everyday and blocking the publicly funded muni. Social diversity, less stress, better mobility, blah blah blah - read a modern essay on town planning and you'll get the gist.

So, firstly we need to have Clipper machines in all stations. Secondly, when one adds money to a Clipper card online it should not take 5 days for the money to appear. It should be instant. I appreciate these are little things, and that they actually probably cost a lot to implement, but if this were a private enterprise, or serving the wealthiest inhabitants of the Bay Area then they would already be dealt with. Plus wifi on the trains. And a buffet cart.

And while we're on the subject of investment in transport, I would like to raise the high speed option. The UK is tiny and has invested, (some issues there - MPs giving contracts to companies in which they have a vested interest etc), and we have got archaeologically and ecologically important sites coming out of every orifice. Plus our ancient low bridges which scupper double decker trains and certain portions of high speed track. Plus having to work round existing buildings and foundations which are EVERYWHERE (the Crossrail team deserve medals on ingenuity. Seriously - the work they had to do to ensure London didn't jump implode is astounding).

There is significantly less of this in the US. There are still protected areas of natural beauty, Native

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American land, historical sights and dinosaur bones, but not as densely (or expensively) packed as the UK. If inhabitants of Fresno or Sacramento or Oakland were able to get over to the wealthier areas of Nor-Cal quickly then they would be able to seek employment there and command higher salaries that would raise the general quality of life across the whole freakin state. I wonder if the local authorities would be so reticent to commit to a large scale plan and greater investment if the Silicon Valley elite were pushing for it? Or if some of them didn't have personal interest in oil & gas and keeping cars on the road? Feel free to accuse me of being a communist or a conspiracy theorist - I'm not either of these things (don't let the little tufty Lenin beard fool you. Thats just hormones). I just think I'm smarter than everyone else, thats all.

Tell me how an online transaction takes 4 weeks? Tell me!!

So, I've already had a seething rant about the DMV and the fact that I had to use a pen and paper to do my theory test and a little man at a desk actually marked it with a red pen. Yes, that actually writes and posts a cheque on behalf.
happened this century. I believe I have also mentioned, the online transfers situation whereby a little bank pixie

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Why the ruddy heckington am I therefore surprised that it takes 4 weeks for my CVS points card to
get registered. FOUR. FUCKING. WEEKS.

Not that I even care, but don't encourage me to sign up and send me vouchers by email that I can't fucking use because "it can take up to four weeks for the system to update". And yet, you bombard me with email spam in that 4 week period? You seem to have got my email address on the system pretty fucking quick.

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This seems to be the norm here - online processes are apparently not instant (as they mostly are in the UK), and nobody seems to be irritated enough to do anything about it. My suspicion is that the systems are bloated with fat human staff who have to manually enter details (even though I typed my details into the till), and somehow have employment protection even though their job appears to be to make everyone's lives a bit harder, and to ensure we get less quality of service for a service we didn't really give a shit about anyway.

Keep an eye out for money off coupons for your Cancer medication. No, really.

I've already had my little winge about what is and is not covered by insurance in the US of A. Well, I thought it would actually be a bit useful to share some of the stuff I've learnt to overcome the medical minefield. 

I can't help you with choosing a health insurance provider. That was decided by the old man's employer, although we were given a choice of coverage within that. Turns out I'm making the same choices about my own healthcare as I am about the cats - I have to decide if I am prepared to pay $x per month for basic emergency healthcare and coverage of prescriptions, or, if I think I'm going to get cancer, I need to pay $x extra a month to cover any potential tests I might need to diagnose stuff. And if I want cover for having kids and whatnot? Thats an extra bundle of coverage that costs an extra $x per month. But what if I get some hideous thing and I don't know about it til its too late? Simple - pay an extra $x a month to have a free annual checkup with allsorts of tests. I have read ALOT of fine print. The main things to look out for:

1. If you want coverage for something specific (a particular congenital disorder, a specific medication) check that it will be covered and to what extent before you sign up. You can talk to a rep on the phone from the chosen insurance company. 
2. If its something pre-existing you will have to work quite hard to determine what will and wilt be covered. Lot of insurance companies simply won't cover pre-existing issues, meaning that if you went to the doctor with a stomach ache yesterday, signed up for insurance today, and in 2 months it was discovered to be a tumor then that won't be covered, nor will any of the tests or medication. 
3. There is also a period of time during which you can't claim. It depends on the company, but it could be a couple of weeks up to a month.
4. You will have to pay for all your doctor visits. This is called co-pay - its the wad of cash you'll shell out when you go to the doctor, or pickup a prescription. It can be as low as $0, but it will vary depending on the pharmacy you go to and what your insurance coverage is. Heck, it may also depend on what drugs you're getting.
5. You can decide what your voluntary excess should be - they call that your 'deductible'.
6. Prescriptions are often written Rx. I have no idea why they decided to go all latin up in this bitch.
7. Not all the prescriptions you get from your GP will be covered by your insurance. Apparently one cannot get acne after the age of 31, so my insurance company did not cover my prescribed medication. Nice. You can fight them on it, and, in fact, you are encouraged to, because if they don't know there is a problem then they won't change it. 

   

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8. YOU will have to check if a particular drug or test or therapy is covered by your insurance company - you can do that by calling them up. Alternatively they should have a list of covered things online.
9. If your prescription involves some extra mixing of specific amounts of drugs you may need to find a Compounding Pharmacist. These chaps seem to be talked about in hushed tones, and exist only on certain mythical plains. 
10. If a prescription isn't covered by your insurance:
1. Shop around - find out how much your medication costs at various pharmacies. Also, note that the price can change daily, so if you find somewhere good it probably won't be that price next time you go there.
2. Once its in the system at one pharmacy you can't get it back. Yup - I took it to one pharmacy, they told me they didn't have any in stock and that it would be $90, because my insurance didn't cover it. Wow. I said, no thanks, can I have my script back and they said that once its in the system they can't give it back to me. FFS.
3. BUT if you find a better pharmacy they can call up the first pharmacy and have it transferred electronically. This took a couple of hours to be sorted, so you might want to come back later.
4. Get a coupon for your prescription medication. Actually, this isn't even something that most of my local chums know about. I was certainly able to download an Rx app and get my prescription medication (that wasn't covered by my insurance) half price. I just had to show the coupon to the pharmacist. Astounding. 
5. Pharmacists can refuse to give you your medication. Yup. There have been a few cases recently where they have refused to give women drugs to help with miscarriages because the same drugs are used in abortions, and the pharmacist did not believe that the doctor in each case had made an ethical decision. Yep, free ethics lesson with every pack of tampons from your friendly local pharmacist.
11. And on a less serious note:
1. If you need to get high, medical marijuana is a thing in certain states and you can go to an actual pharmacy and get a weed prescription. There are lists of things that you can get weed for in certain states.
2. Paracetamol is called acetaminophen.
3. If you are looking for soluble aspirin you won't find it. The closest they have is 'buffered' aspirin which doesn't have the coating on it for swallowing, so when you put it in water it slowly and reluctantly falls apart, rather than actively offering itself up to imbibement. 

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Emergency care can be pretty scary too. In the UK you go to A&E, or, get an emergency appointment at your local out of hours surgery. Here I had to call the insurance company and speak to a nurse who advised me on which hospitals nearby were covered by my insurance. I do pay extra each month to be able to claim SOME money back at hospitals that aren't in my 'network', but if we go to a hospital that is in the 'network' then we get back 90% -100% of the costs, rather than 50%-80%, so its worth knowing in advance.

The hospital was fine - same as the UK, except the wait time was a lot shorter, and you have to get your credit card out before you are allowed to leave. You don't pay all the money up front (like we will have to do with our cat insurance), but you do have to pay the co-pay fee for an emergency visit, and you are later sent a final bill by the hospital with the full cost of the treatment, minus the amount that your insurance company will pay. That just leaves you with your deductible, (which we call the excess in the UK), which was about $300 last time. I have no idea whether we would have to pay more if we took an ambulance, and whether we should just call 911 or whether there is a special private number to call? Who knows. I wonder how many people have actually died trying to work this shit out, find their healthcare provider's list of approved hospitals and balance their finances, all with a plank of wood through their abdomen?

Once you get your head round all this it starts to become routine, although I still don't think any system where an individual has to decide between getting their giant stomach tumor removed or paying the rent is acceptable. And don't even get me started on the influence of the drug companies. BUT, this appears to be one of the few situations here where you DO get better service because you are paying through the arse for it. Unless you're already sick. Or old. Then you're fucked.

http://gizmodo.com/a-better-first-aid-kit-that-makes-suggestions-and-knows-1613376483 

I am a sucker for the "exciting new twist", but when that twist is cinnamon I'd rather eat cat litter

I may well have found the array of products on offer a little overwhelming when I first got here. When you just want a box of Frosties its actually quite disconcerting to be faced with a whole supermarket aisle dedicated to types of Frosties. Strawberry flavor? Gluten free? Frosties with chocolate bits? Or Limited Edition blueberry flavor? (QUICK BUY IT!! Its limited edition! Soon it'll be gone forever and you'll be the only person in the world who hasn't tried it! It could be like the very ambrosia of the gods and everyone will be talking about it and you'll have to pretend that you had it, but you didn't, because you hesitated and the limited edition was gone! And you'll know that you missed out on the most delicious breakfast item ever created and it'll haunt you. And they'll all know. And its all because you didn't believe them when they said it was limited edition. LIMITED!! QUIIIICKKK!!)

It is, however, quite easy to get used to these overwhelming food choices. I am currently enjoying a glass of LeBron mix Sprite (lemon, lime and cherry) and Cheeseburger Pringles. Don't judge me. I know I'm a sap for a bit of tv advertising, but it actually makes a trip to the supermarket a bit more fun. Minced beef? Yawn. Wholemeal sliced bread? Meh. But, whats this? Candy's flavored Oreos? Don't mind if I do!

Actually talking of sliced bread, can I use this forum to make a plea to bakers, pizza dough makers and other purveyors of savory dough items? For the love of god, stop putting sugar in stuff. Wholemeal bread shouldn't be sweet. Not everything has to be sweet, k? And cinnamon? Stahp. You put it in fucking everything. Just stahp. If I never tasted cinnamon ever again I'd be ok with that. So, if you're crafting a recipe for a new meatloaf, or a pizza crust and you think, "How much cinnamon should we put in this?", the answer should be none. Err on the side of caution and skip it altogether. Better none than some, that what I alway say.

Does Family Guy count in my quest for cultural immersion? Yes, yes it does.

I have actually been learning a lot about American culture to try and help me understand the US and, by extension, the UK. I recently had a chat with someone about why the 'Irish cop' is a stereotype in the US (the crappy situation in the UK meant that they were forced to be highly politicized and unionized, so when they migrated to the US they organized the shit out of the important stuff to get the communities sorted).

And having grown up with a fair bit of US tv there are reams of cultural references that I never

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understood until now, and each one helps me understand the country that I'm living in. Go for the popular culture stuff - written by the people, for the people. As an English Literature graduate I am sanctioned to say that the following can be equated with Shakespeare (his plays are littered with bawdy, rude, racist and highly topical comments on the politics of the day, and were seen by plebs and royalty alike. Yeah!! You just got schooled, son!!!) And anyway, a bit of humor makes the lesson go down a bit easier, and we know what happens when we deprive ourselves of TV:

• Book - Cimarron by Edna Ferba (about the Land Rush)
• Book - The Grapes of Wrath (about the impact of the depression. Or watch the film)
• Book - The Things They Carried (Wow. Just wow. If you watch this in conjunction with M*A*S*H, Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket you'll start to confuse the Korean and Vietnam wars, but maybe thats the point? History repeating itself, boys and girls)
• Telly - Drunk History (I have found out about so many impressive characters in American history because of this - see Claudette Colvin and her relationship with Rosa Parks. PR before the masses even knew about PR. Fascinating and powerful stuff)
• Anything by Seth MacFarlane - obvs Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, American Dad - the cultural references are rude and poignant and I'm so freaking chuffed when I get all of them. Smug mode: "Hahaha, its funny because Karl Rove was an evil spin doctor.") Also, A Thousand Ways to Die in the West - the early European settlers lived a terrifying and short existence. Life in Europe must have been fucking awful for them to prefer this. 
• Podcast - This American Life. In fact there are loads of associated podcasts and radio stations. 
• Telly - How the States got their shape (as shouty and flashy and brightly colored as most TV shows seem to be, but Henry Rollins is a pleasure to watch)
• Anything on PBS. Anything. It may not be fun, but it will damn-sure be educational. 
• Telly - any old shows like the Love Boat, The Dick Van Dyke Show
• Film - Western films (they are all incredibly culturally insensitive, which already makes them historically of interest, but watching them with even a smattering of knowledge of the politics of the early settlers and how hard life was in the actual Wild West gives them a whole new meaning)

Enjoy. And if anyone asks, call it research.

Pee 'n' peep

British toilet humor is legendary, if misunderstood. I was weened on bum jokes and, I'm pleased to see that this generation is still being entertained by Dick and Dom shouting bogies loudly in public spaces. We are a nation that is proud of our ablutions. With that in mind we don't really want to enjoy these moments with our nearest and dearest, or indeed complete strangers (well, some of us do, but there are special websites for people like that).

Maybe thats why all the public toilets I have visited in the US seem to have ill-fitting doors to allow me to see all the ladies in the queue, and walls that barely disguise the fact that I'm squatting over the porcelain, so everyone knows exactly what stage I'm at. Maybe Americans simply don't find this amusing and therefore not embarrassing or even noteworthy, so it matters not a jot that there is no privacy in the most private of moments. Maybe, as I have been informed, it makes sense to keep the space as light and airy as possible to help dispense with gross smells.

Whatevs. I have made it my mission to make eye contact with anyone outside of my cubicle while I am mid-peep. Thats clearly what is expected.

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Vaffanculo - its (not) St Patricia's Day, patron saint of Naples

I have actually learned a lot about early Irish immigration to the US. If you're British its particularly poignant and not something that features in our history lessons at school, but, as with all bits of history that we're not proud of, it shouldn't be forgotten lest it happens again (who am I kidding, history goes round and round and round like a washing machine full of turds).

Kiss me I'm not even remotely Irish

That said, lets address the darling statement you hear so often from East Coasters: "I'm Irish". I am certainly not going to argue that you cannot call yourself Irish - identity is a very personal thing - is it the country you were born in? The country you spent most time living in? The country of your parents? The cultural heritage that mostly matches your own upbringing? Cultural identity is as personal as the color of your undercrackers, and if you ask someone where they are from then you'll get the same look of horror as if you had just asked them what color they're packing inside their kecks. BUT, if you do consider yourself to be IN ANY WAY of Irish descent, lets start with the basics. Its St PADDY'S day, not St PATTY'S day. Seriously. Unless you're celebrating St Patricia, Patron Saint of Naples six months early? No? Well, you should therefore note that Paddy is a shortened version of the Irish name Padraig (which is referred to as Patrick in English, Patricius in latin, Padrig in Welsh). Fair enough, he was actually born in Roman Britain, before going to Ireland as a young man, meaning that Patrick might still be ok? No, no its not. If you were in any part Irish there is no way that you would shrug and say, "well, I guess you're right, he was from the other island, so Patrick and therefore Patty is entirely acceptable." St Padraig is the Patron Saint of Ireland, and a symbol of the motherland that was left behind when early Irish settlers started out on the terrifying journey to the New World, so this little consonant swap is actually quite meaningful.

Right, now thats dealt with, lets look at the popular alcoholic beverage "Irish Car Bomb". For the love of George Bush, its this sort of shit that makes the rest of the world believe that the US knows nothing about/gives no fucks about anyone but themselves. And I know thats not true, so please, stahp. I can't put it any better than this: http://paddynotpatty.com

So, next time you think it would be cute to bake up a batch of Irish Car Bomb cupcakes (yes, this is a thing) for the local bake sale, try searching for a recipe on Google, but leaving out the words "recipe" and "cupcake" and see what atrocities you find. Its still super sensitive and you are being super INsensitive.

Aaaaand, relax. I was actually lucky enough to spend a lovely few hours with THE St Paddy's Day flag carrier for Sligo, the day after her big debut on the streets of SF. As it happens we did end up in a pub, but thats a cultural stereotype from the UK and Ireland that is entirely true and one I am prepared to own. Sláinte.

Simple solution to lazy-arse shoplifters

I wondered why the people in the local Costco are so mental about which door you go in. Seriously - the two huge garage doors are next to each other and they start to freak out if you go in the exit hole (because its 3 feet closer to the information desk) instead of the entrance hole. Well, mystery solved. It turns out that as a deterrent for shoplifters (who wander in, pick up a tv and take it straight over to the returns desk) they put a little sticker on every item you plan to bring back as soon as you enter the store. And they're not the only ones. I've seen it in Best Buy too. And it makes complete sense! Not only does it mean that the store saves money on shoplifting bastards but it also means that it should, theoretically, be less hassle for me at the returns desk. The staff don't have to be suspicious, even if I look very shady in my flasher's mac and dark glasses, and the whole customer/employee experience is much more pleasant.

Well, thats how its supposed to work. I'm sure there are some complete arseholes who ruin it for all the other children.

I've got a cold, not a $500-a-day meth habit

I may have already mentioned the crazies that shuffle round SF screaming their murderous plans or generally being a bit weird. I am reliably informed that there is a significant meth problem in the city - a combination of the existing weed culture, the warm climate and the empathetic local hippies apparently attracts them. 


Well, it turns out that these fuckers aren't just creeping me out at the bus stop*, they are also the reason I have to sell my soul for some Beechams. 

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So, I troll over to the pharmacy to pickup some hardcore cold medicine, and it turns out that I have to actually ask for it at the pharmacy counter. Fair enough. There's certain questions that need to be asked - do you have asthma? Are you on any other medication? And, apparently, can I have your driver's license? Yep, if you want to buy certain cough and cold medications that contain pseudo ephedrine then you'll need to provide ID to the California equivalent of a Boots saturday girl who will record it on some central database. Pseudo ephedrine is apparently a key ingredient in the production of meth, so if one tries to buy it in significant quantities, by visiting numerous pharmacies, a little red flag appears and your purchases are limited. There are two reasons why I am irritated by this. The first is that when everyone is telling me to protect my identity, forcing me to hand over all my pertinents to all in sundry when all I want is something to unclog my schnoz feels a bit wrong. The second is that the US is incapable of streamlining most of its core systems to make my life easier (tax/car insurance/sending a cheque) and yet this little database that is targeting the minority seems to be working swimmingly. 

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Oh, and if you want to get a bit of soluble aspirin to gargle with for your sore throat, good luck. Having sifted through all the utter tripe about it on the internet forums it turns out its not as readily available as it is in the UK, but you can still find it by looking for "buffered" aspirin. What? Know, right. Make it more complicated than it needs to be. Buffering is some sort of chemical process that means that it dissolves sooner, rather than coating which means it dissolves later (in your stomach). Why the manufacturers think I give a shit about the chemical process before I buy it, rather than what happens after I buy it and shove it in my cake hole, who knows.  



* SO, the first evening we ever spent in SF we accidentally walked through a less savory part of Downtown, and there was a crazy lady screaming at the bus stop that she was going to kill everyone. Welcome to California, boys and girls...

Linguistic abomination

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Dammit it is sometimes very hard not to look down on the American flavor of the English language.
Today I heard two apparent abominations in one news report. Please tell me I'm not the only one who shudders at the sound of "yearly" instead of "annually" and "fourths" instead of "quarters". I feel like we're heading down the Orwellian route to New Speak? The logic of these alternative words is obvious, but if you lose all the quirks in a language then you lose the colors you can paint with it. Plus, it sounds weird.

Needless to say I immediately Googled both these words, expecting to fuel my indignation, instead finding that they are completely acceptable, if a little bland, alternatives. Much like my initial consternation over the great date swap (writing 31st January 2015 as 01/31/15 - watt???) I'm sure I'll get over it, because although it feels like a linguistic abortion language is all about communication, and if I persist in using turns of phrase or syntax that no other bugger understands then I have missed the point entirely.

This debate normally stirs up the old chestnut "Americans don't speak proper English". Can't really be arsed with this one, but basically language is always changing and adapting. American English has evolved in a different direction to British English, but to roughly the same extent over the last 400 years. One can't expect a language to stay static, especially when it has so many varied influences on it over the course of a few centuries, and Britain and America have had incredibly different cultural and historical influences, so it would be mental to assume that we'd be speaking 17th century english right now.

I think these little linguistic differences represent the bigger cultural differences that I've mused on in the past. Basically, Limeys like pedigree and Yanks opt for convenience. We revel in the subtle distinctions between regal, royal and kingly, and our Americans cousins go for the easiest and most logical option to remember/spell/get the point across. Both are totally legitimate - language's main purpose is to communicate and if you're a new country created by immigrants from across the world your primary goal is to make your language understandable and easy to use. If you're a country that is arrogant enough to send its patrons onto the Costa Del Sol to demand beer and a fry-up in loud voices then you care less about being understood and more about showing who's boss. And then getting a pint. Which you can achieve by ridiculing the changes that have been made to the language outside its native land over the last few hundred years.

All of that said, I still feel a bit sick when people butcher my version of the language, but I'm trying to take the moral high ground here.

WTF Punxsutawney Phil?

If you've seen Bill Murray grimace his was through Groundhog Day then you'll know roughly what goes on on Feb 2nd each year. Get ready for the big shocker - that is literally how it goes down.

For the uninitiated - some men in top hats talk to a giant rodent and ask it whether it'll stay chilly or not for the next six weeks. It goes like this:

See? Even the dudes in the top hats can't really take it seriously. That poor little bastard, Phil, is suspended in a terrifying Michael Jackson/Blanket moment, and yet the people in the crowd are literally open-mouthed with delight.

It would appear that its a Pennsylvania Dutch thing (not to be confused with a Sylvania Families thing) that came over in the 1800s and has continued to bring a little light into the dark winter months.

Well, Phil, looks like it might not be a difficult call on the weather front this year? There's a fuck of a blizzard headed straight for the US and everyone appears to be panicking (unless you're on the West Coast, in which case you're still hoping for a bit of rain before the end of the month).

Rocking a Mrs Beeton vibe, mothafuckas!

I thought it might be handy to do a post on cooking. Its not something I'm particularly good at (unless its Wotsits) but I am learning. And its so much easier in the US! Aside from the utterly SHITE electric cooker we have that means timing is a game of fucking russian roulette (will I die from undercooked chicken or choke on chicken thats so dry it sandpipers my esophagus on the way down?) the use of cups is ingenious, and you can have a myriad of packages in the cupboard that instantly turn into brownies or stuffing or canapés. Noms.

A few things to note though:

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1. Get yourself some cups. Seriously - dicking around with a set of scales feels primitive now.
2. Everything is in Fahrenheit, obvs, so deal with it.
3. Broiling is actually grilling, not some hideous boiling/retching combo that it sounds like.
4. They call grated cheese "shredded" cheese. Wanna know why? Because you buy it prepackaged in a little bag. They have no desire to know HOW it got into these little shreds - the grating process is irrelevant - what they want to know is the current state that its in - shredded. Done. Convenience, bitches!
5. If you're looking for a lovely fillet of beef (the little round expensive one) you'll need to look for the word "tenderloin" - thats what they call it here. It may be called filet mignon, apparently, although I've only ever seen it labelled as tenderloin, and the meat dude had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for fillet steak.
6. They don't have golden syrup here, so if you're a fan of flapjacks you'll have to find some way of making corn syrup less atrocious and use that. Also, flapjacks are a type of pancake here - if you want an actual english flapjack try asking for an oat bar. 
7. Custard isn't a "thing". This is good and bad. Its bad because WHAT THE FUCK?? Its good because it meant I had to learn to make the most epic custard in the world ever, and every one of my lovely American chums has said that they love custard and its a special treat when they actually get to eat some. They are all such lovely people that they could just be humoring me, but I take my compliments where I can get them, so that one's going in the bank.

   

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8. If you want a yummy biscuit base you'll probably have to use Graham Crackers (pronounced "Gram" for some fucking reason. Don't get me started on that - its the "Craig" pronounced like "Creg" debacle all over again) instead of digestives, unless you want to pay out of your are for some imported digestives. Not the same, but equally as good.
9. Bovril is illegal. Yup, you heard. Its a meat-based by-product so it is totes illegal. You can still have Marmite and Vegemite though, which are nearly as good. Although a hot Marmite is not a patch on a hot Bovril (look it up, kids, its an actual drink).
10. Stuffing isn't quite like the Paxo we know and love at home - its much more bread-y. I actually MUCH prefer the US stuff you get in the Stove Top packets, but it is way more filling than Paxo.
11. And on that note - marshmallows on top of mashed sweet potato is a thing. As far as I can tell its not a very posh thing, but don't be horrified if it turns up at your table. 

So, I think thats all the cooking things I can think of for the moment? Shopping in a US supermarket is so much fun - there are just so many random things that make cooking more convenient/more fun/less of a ballache/more tasty. I'm sure I'll be back with more cooking tips soon. Ooh - I feel like Mrs Beeton! Or maybe I'm more a Fanny Craddock? Yeah, I'm more of a Fanny. Oh do fuck off, Johnny...