Those of you who bleed red and white, cringe at the words "Hand of God", have St. George's Cross tucked away in a safe place and hate penalty kicks with the white hot passion of a thousand buring suns will know that at 6:30 pm GMT on Saturday the Three Lions will line up against Israel in Euro 2008 qualifying. Now, England has not exactly been tearing up the qualifying rounds. You may recall an earlier post which recounted your intrepid reporter's attendance at the match against Macedonia at Old Trafford which ended in a scoreless draw. A few days later, England was embarrassed at Croatia. Dark days indeed. These early poor performances have led to desparate times and much knashing of teeth in Blighty.
What is to be done? If only a saviour could be found. Michael Owen? He's still 6 months away. David Beckham? He's still counting his money and pretending to be injured. How can we duplicate the recent successes? The questions must be asked: when we won, what did we do right? Who is England's talisman?
I've spent a good deal of time thinking about this. Hours on the train. Hours at work. Today, the flash of genius touched me. England did enjoy a brief spell of success at this summer's World Cup, so I asked myself, what did all those games have in common? ... It came to me in a flash ... During all the games that England won ...
... Beth had a beer.
Not only that, but England scored the same number of goals as Beth enjoyed beers during the game. BETH IS THE TALISMAN! The sloshier Beth gets, the better England plays. So, fear not. I promise you that Beth will be enjoying two pints of cold, frosty lager during the first half of Saturday's game and as many pints as is necessary to ensure victory in the second half. She will not falter. Victory is ours!
Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign o'er us
God save the Beth!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
When Two Special Days Collide, Disaster Ensues
For those of you who are, or pretend to be, Irish, you’ll no doubt be well aware that today is St. Patrick’s Day. It is clear that St. Patrick’s Day is the most important day on the calendar. It is the time to celebrate Irishness by eating Irish stew and drinking Irish Whiskey and Guinness. No matter how many of you may think so, it is not the time to drink green beer. St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated on March 17th as that was the date of St. Patrick’s death in 461. Now, think about how you feel the day after St. Patrick’s Day. If you’ve done it right, not so good. Hold that thought for just a moment.
Mothering Sunday, commonly called "Mothers' Day" in the United Kingdom, has no direct connection to the Canadian practice of Mother’s Day. Instead, it falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent (exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday) and, this year at least, exactly one day after St. Patrick’s Day. It is believed to have originated from the 16th Century Christian practice of visiting one's mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on that day.
So, putting these two special days together, you are virtually compelled to incur the most massive hangover of the year the one day and promptly follow that up with a visit to Mum the next. A surefire recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, Canada has sorted this out and has Mother’s Day much later in the year so St. Patrick’s Day can be fully enjoyed by all. This post then is really by way of explanation to my Mum as to why she'll be getting her Mother’s Day present in May. Just like always.
Finally, Beth and I are on our way out now to continue a tradition started when I was 19. That is, Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day. I have had at least one Guinness on every St. Patrick’s Day for the last 15 years. It is, I think, the longest I have ever kept on doing anything. Good for me.
Slainte
Mothering Sunday, commonly called "Mothers' Day" in the United Kingdom, has no direct connection to the Canadian practice of Mother’s Day. Instead, it falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent (exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday) and, this year at least, exactly one day after St. Patrick’s Day. It is believed to have originated from the 16th Century Christian practice of visiting one's mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on that day.
So, putting these two special days together, you are virtually compelled to incur the most massive hangover of the year the one day and promptly follow that up with a visit to Mum the next. A surefire recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, Canada has sorted this out and has Mother’s Day much later in the year so St. Patrick’s Day can be fully enjoyed by all. This post then is really by way of explanation to my Mum as to why she'll be getting her Mother’s Day present in May. Just like always.
Finally, Beth and I are on our way out now to continue a tradition started when I was 19. That is, Guinness on St. Patrick’s Day. I have had at least one Guinness on every St. Patrick’s Day for the last 15 years. It is, I think, the longest I have ever kept on doing anything. Good for me.
Slainte
Thursday, March 15, 2007
London Calling
We have just returned from another eventful trip to London. The train ride down was, as always, a joy. Just as the Saturday Times is finished, we pulled into King’s Cross. Being veteran London goers, we dived down into the Underground and, having our cash with us, bypassed the exceptionally long lines at the card only ticket machines, and got our tickets for the tube. Our hotel was in Mayfair and we made our way to Oxford Circus and took a stroll along Regent Street and checked out the shops. We had some lunch and investigated Soho and, in particular, Carnaby Street. Carnaby Street is noteworthy for being the birthplace of the Swinging Sixties in England. It’s much more of a shopping mecca now with a number of good looking pubs. Our hotel was on Bond Street which is notable for having a store for every famous jewelry and fashion designer in the world. Both Regent Street and our hotel were welcoming, especially since we could swear we heard a number of Canadian accents. Being away for so long, and suffering on a daily basis with the verbal battering that is the Yorkshire accent, makes us particularly attuned to the sound of the Canadian accent.
We checked in and were shown to our room – the Westbury Mayfair can sure do it up right. After unburdening ourselves, we headed back down to Regent Street and made our way to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Both were still there. Canada House had all the provincial flags outside which was a nice touch. We proceeded to Covent Garden. Covent Garden, for us, will always mean three things: (1) Paul’s Patisserie; (2) the Canada Store; and (3) the Maple Leaf pub.
Paul’s Patisserie serves the best pastries in all of England. This must be the case since half the people in there are French and are clearly missing their daily croissant and chocolat chaud. The Canada Store is a very interesting place. It’s not just the Canada Store, but is also the New Zealand, Australia and South Africa Store. The store is loosely divided into four sections and has products shipped in from the aforementioned countries so ex-pats can buy what they miss from home. In our case, it was Orville Redenbacher’s microwave popcorn, a coffee crisp and Reese’s peanut butter cups (although it should be mentioned that the peanut butter cups can be bought anywhere here, the coffee crisp, however, remains to be purchased only at the Canada Store. It’s also an excellent place to go since there is virtually no chance of a Yorkshire accent beating your ears. The Maple Leaf pub is, well, just what it says it is. It’s where Canadians in London go to watch hockey, eat Canadian food (honey glazed salmon, anyone?) and drink Canadian beer. In our case, we were forced to watch the Wales and Italy rugby match but we were able to enjoy some tall, frosty pints of Sleeman Honey Brown.
So, to this point, the trip has been about avoiding Yorkshire accents and diving into what little Canadian culture there is in London. We had reservations for dinner at the Bank Aldwych and made our way in that direction. To get there we proceeded through the West End theatre district. As we were walking along reading the billboards, we saw a familiar face. Richard Schiff – Toby from the West Wing, for those of you in the know – peered back at us from his billboard. The billboard indicated that he was performing a one man show (the name of which escapes us). We continued along the street and noticed that the face on the billboard was actually underneath a baseball cap and sitting outside at the café next door. A nonchalant triple-take confirmed it. Richard Schiff in the flesh. After a quick phone call by someone to her brother to remark on the Toby sighting and we were off to dinner.
After dinner we attended Spamalot at the Palace Theatre. The Palace is in a great location but it has the least leg room of any theatre I have ever been in. It’s actually barely tolerable. The balcony is also exceptionally steep. So much so, that the lady a few seats down from us couldn’t stay in her seat because of vertigo. Her family did stay to see the remainder of the show.
Spamalot, for those of you who don’t know, is the musical based upon Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Now, I’m no theatre reviewer but I have two eyes, a brain and have seen the original Holy Grail and the musical gives approximately the same sensation as meeting an old friend only to find out they’ve been lobotomized. Nevertheless, the Palace does have a bar and allows you to bring your big glass of Grolsche into the theatre so all was not lost. Stiff upper lip and all that.
The next day, after breakfast at the Mayfair, we headed to the National Gallery. A must see, for art lovers, as its more manageable than the Louvre, there’s no line up and it’s free. The NG has exhibits by Picasso, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and some French guys, among others. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, in particular, was a stunner. Did he just get a big shipment of Yellow #2 and need to off-load it somehow?
After the NG, we headed out for a big lunch and then for more pastries at Paul and then tried to walk it all off window shopping. It didn’t work and we needed a rest. After putting our feet up in the hotel bar, we headed out to Bodean’s BBQ. My God, what a place. Now a restaurant serving pulled pork, ribs and chicken wings with an average décor and sports on a few TVs likely doesn’t sound very impressive to most of you. But to us, this place was heaven. We haven’t eaten BBQ since last summer – it just isn’t done around here. So we devoured some ribs and coleslaw, we guzzled Moosehead beer and we gazed longingly at the college basketball on the screen. In short, we wanted to stay at Bodean’s BBQ forever! At some point we surfaced and found our way home to the hotel, via O’Neill’s pub (which oddly played lots of Neil Young and had a fellow customer with a TML hat on. Just another hint of Canada).
It had been a great day. We settled in for a nice, relaxing sleep. Sadly, this was interrupted at 2:30 in the morning when our phone rang. The eastern European accented woman on the other end of the line politely asked ‘you wanted escort?’ When asked to repeat herself, she again said, ‘you wanted escort?’ It gives ‘full service hotel’ a whole new meaning. We informed her that in fact we had not requested an escort and that she may have the wrong room. On a related note, when we checked out the next morning we reviewed our hotel bill carefully and found that some extra charges had been added. Not an escort, but £64 of drinks in the hotel bar. We reviewed the bar bill and someone had written our room number and signed on our behalf. I guess there was some confused bloke arranging for call-girls and drinks to a room that wasn’t his. Even in his confusion, sounds like quite a night! Luckily, we didn’t have to pay for the drinks and the escort did not arrive at our room.
After checking out, we wanted to make the most of the few hours we had before our train home so we hopped on the tube and went to Notting Hill. We walked around for a few hours taking in the sights and the Portobello Road Market. It was a beautiful, warm day so we were happy to just stroll. We managed to stroll past the travel bookstore where Hugh Grant worked in the movie Notting Hill. The movie may be very cheesy, but the bookstore is great.
As the weekend drew to a close we realized that there was a theme of Canada underlying all the events – Canada House, Canadian food, the Canada store, Canadian accents, Canadian music and Canadian beer. It is nice to be reminded of these familiar things and it makes it easy to feel really at home in London.
We checked in and were shown to our room – the Westbury Mayfair can sure do it up right. After unburdening ourselves, we headed back down to Regent Street and made our way to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Both were still there. Canada House had all the provincial flags outside which was a nice touch. We proceeded to Covent Garden. Covent Garden, for us, will always mean three things: (1) Paul’s Patisserie; (2) the Canada Store; and (3) the Maple Leaf pub.
Paul’s Patisserie serves the best pastries in all of England. This must be the case since half the people in there are French and are clearly missing their daily croissant and chocolat chaud. The Canada Store is a very interesting place. It’s not just the Canada Store, but is also the New Zealand, Australia and South Africa Store. The store is loosely divided into four sections and has products shipped in from the aforementioned countries so ex-pats can buy what they miss from home. In our case, it was Orville Redenbacher’s microwave popcorn, a coffee crisp and Reese’s peanut butter cups (although it should be mentioned that the peanut butter cups can be bought anywhere here, the coffee crisp, however, remains to be purchased only at the Canada Store. It’s also an excellent place to go since there is virtually no chance of a Yorkshire accent beating your ears. The Maple Leaf pub is, well, just what it says it is. It’s where Canadians in London go to watch hockey, eat Canadian food (honey glazed salmon, anyone?) and drink Canadian beer. In our case, we were forced to watch the Wales and Italy rugby match but we were able to enjoy some tall, frosty pints of Sleeman Honey Brown.
So, to this point, the trip has been about avoiding Yorkshire accents and diving into what little Canadian culture there is in London. We had reservations for dinner at the Bank Aldwych and made our way in that direction. To get there we proceeded through the West End theatre district. As we were walking along reading the billboards, we saw a familiar face. Richard Schiff – Toby from the West Wing, for those of you in the know – peered back at us from his billboard. The billboard indicated that he was performing a one man show (the name of which escapes us). We continued along the street and noticed that the face on the billboard was actually underneath a baseball cap and sitting outside at the café next door. A nonchalant triple-take confirmed it. Richard Schiff in the flesh. After a quick phone call by someone to her brother to remark on the Toby sighting and we were off to dinner.
After dinner we attended Spamalot at the Palace Theatre. The Palace is in a great location but it has the least leg room of any theatre I have ever been in. It’s actually barely tolerable. The balcony is also exceptionally steep. So much so, that the lady a few seats down from us couldn’t stay in her seat because of vertigo. Her family did stay to see the remainder of the show.
Spamalot, for those of you who don’t know, is the musical based upon Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Now, I’m no theatre reviewer but I have two eyes, a brain and have seen the original Holy Grail and the musical gives approximately the same sensation as meeting an old friend only to find out they’ve been lobotomized. Nevertheless, the Palace does have a bar and allows you to bring your big glass of Grolsche into the theatre so all was not lost. Stiff upper lip and all that.
The next day, after breakfast at the Mayfair, we headed to the National Gallery. A must see, for art lovers, as its more manageable than the Louvre, there’s no line up and it’s free. The NG has exhibits by Picasso, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and some French guys, among others. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, in particular, was a stunner. Did he just get a big shipment of Yellow #2 and need to off-load it somehow?
After the NG, we headed out for a big lunch and then for more pastries at Paul and then tried to walk it all off window shopping. It didn’t work and we needed a rest. After putting our feet up in the hotel bar, we headed out to Bodean’s BBQ. My God, what a place. Now a restaurant serving pulled pork, ribs and chicken wings with an average décor and sports on a few TVs likely doesn’t sound very impressive to most of you. But to us, this place was heaven. We haven’t eaten BBQ since last summer – it just isn’t done around here. So we devoured some ribs and coleslaw, we guzzled Moosehead beer and we gazed longingly at the college basketball on the screen. In short, we wanted to stay at Bodean’s BBQ forever! At some point we surfaced and found our way home to the hotel, via O’Neill’s pub (which oddly played lots of Neil Young and had a fellow customer with a TML hat on. Just another hint of Canada).
It had been a great day. We settled in for a nice, relaxing sleep. Sadly, this was interrupted at 2:30 in the morning when our phone rang. The eastern European accented woman on the other end of the line politely asked ‘you wanted escort?’ When asked to repeat herself, she again said, ‘you wanted escort?’ It gives ‘full service hotel’ a whole new meaning. We informed her that in fact we had not requested an escort and that she may have the wrong room. On a related note, when we checked out the next morning we reviewed our hotel bill carefully and found that some extra charges had been added. Not an escort, but £64 of drinks in the hotel bar. We reviewed the bar bill and someone had written our room number and signed on our behalf. I guess there was some confused bloke arranging for call-girls and drinks to a room that wasn’t his. Even in his confusion, sounds like quite a night! Luckily, we didn’t have to pay for the drinks and the escort did not arrive at our room.
After checking out, we wanted to make the most of the few hours we had before our train home so we hopped on the tube and went to Notting Hill. We walked around for a few hours taking in the sights and the Portobello Road Market. It was a beautiful, warm day so we were happy to just stroll. We managed to stroll past the travel bookstore where Hugh Grant worked in the movie Notting Hill. The movie may be very cheesy, but the bookstore is great.
As the weekend drew to a close we realized that there was a theme of Canada underlying all the events – Canada House, Canadian food, the Canada store, Canadian accents, Canadian music and Canadian beer. It is nice to be reminded of these familiar things and it makes it easy to feel really at home in London.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
A Day in the life of a PhD Student
(a little picture of where the monotony, I mean magic, happens) Working from home as a PhD student is a repetitive task. Sometimes I feel like I have the same day over and over again. Working from home as a PhD student is a repetitive task. Sometimes I feel like I have the same day over and over again. Oops, there I go again.
Don't get me wrong, there is something glorious about working from home at times. I have been known to work in my pajamas until almost noon. And, the overall dress code is pretty relaxed. My pajamas and my working attire could easily be confused as the same items. I also find I can get a lot more done at home than when I go in to Sheffield. Obviously, the 50 minutes on the train and 20 minutes of walking involved in getting to work might have something to do with it.
On the other hand, the down side of working from home is the minimal contact with the outside world. I can go days without seeing anyone but Brent and without going outside. I try to get out once a day just for the sake of it and to stretch my legs. Sometimes the days seem to drag on. My day typically goes like this: I do some variation of reading and writing all morning. From 0830 until 1230 I am usually fixated on my work. Then I take a break for lunch and watch some tele - usually re-runs of Will & Grace (I can't watch the re-runs of Scrubs or Frasier, because the same episodes will be on later and if I watch them now, what will we do in the evening?!!). The afternoon is when it all goes down hill. It's 1400 before I know it and if I'm going to get out for a walk I better do it now. Getting out is not always particularly enjoyable depending on the weather and the crowding on the streets. We live really close to the high street shopping area, but if it is crowded I usually lose the will to live after five minutes of walking through all the people. At which point I head home.
Of course the other down side of working from home is the domestic duties. Interspersed between reading and writing is lots of laundry (thanks in large part to the ridiculously small washing/dryer we have), cleaning and meal preparation. The work of a domestic goddess is never done.
I seem to go in cyclical patterns of feeling like I am getting a lot of work done and the next minute feeling like I don't do enough work. This mirrors the PhD process in general. There are great highs and lows of activity. You can work for unending hours for a few weeks straight, only to hit a patch where there is virtually nothing to do and no real demands or deadlines. I am sure some really dedicated students do extra reading or write articles or something. Me, I'm planning our next trip! Oh yeah, and there's that other wee job that I have teaching midwifery students that takes up all the rest of my time.
For someone who is usually over-organized and, let's face it, a little anally retentive, I seem to have picked lifestyles (midwifery and the life of the permanent student) where there are no clear boundaries between work and home life. For better or for worse, I am blurring the boundaries. Or maybe my thoughts are just permanently blurred...also a hazard of the phd life!!
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Six Month Reflections
Usually, we write our blog with the goal of amusing those reading and perhaps shedding a little light into what it’s been like for us living in the UK. In our attempt to keep our devoted readers (okay, so it’s only Dave, Greg and Patti who read it, but three readers are better than none) interested, we often decide to use humour and story-telling. However, sometimes we edit from the blog some actual honesty about what it is like for us to be here for fear that it might be depressing or boring. But today, while we are taking stock of life after six months in England, I will try to take a page from another blog we’ve stumbled upon, www.wifeinthenorth.blogspot.com and share some of the ups and downs of life since we moved across the pond.
There are good days in England. Days when the sun is shining and the train runs on time. These are the days when we feel lucky that we have been able to have this opportunity. We feel lucky that things have really worked out well for us. We have a nice place to live. We both have great jobs with really great co-workers. And, the pace of life is a lot slower. We are both taking steps to advance our careers. Brent is doing his Masters and it is being paid for by his work. Brilliant. Beth’s PhD is progressing well and her supervisor is terrific. The grocery store delivers. Fantastic. Plus, we are able to travel all over England on little mini day-trips instead of making it a big two week vacation. This is quite a luxury. Some days it feels like the land of opportunity. There are so many midwifery teaching jobs here we could have our pick of where we want to live. A stark contrast to Canada where there are six universities spread out throughout the country and they are all already fully staffed. And, the field of university intellectual property is miles ahead here - they have really got their act together. There are days when it is fun noticing the amusing differences between cultures. The sense of history and the feeling that many of our ancestors came from these very lands is pretty amazing. It is a privilege to live in the land of Shakespear, Churchill, Dickens, Austin, and Harry Potter. We are also really lucky to be experiencing this adventure together.
But then there are the grey, rainy and gusty days; and the weather is bad too. There are days when we wonder why we left our nice, comfortable life behind with family and friends. There are days when figuring out how to do basic day to day things in a foreign place is too hard. Often we coast through the week Monday to Friday, caught up in our daily activities and busyness, only to be hit with the feeling of homesickness on Sunday when we finally slow down. Our missing of all things familiar turns into lengthy conversations about the importance of snow to the Canadian identity and fond reminiscence of how nice our couch was. There are days when we just whine, ‘we want to go home,’ and when we curse how the British can’t get anything right.
It is a huge undertaking to pack up, put in storage and move one’s entire life. It is even more challenging to try to maintain some kind of a life in two places. We are still paying bills and running a house in Canada, while doing all those same things here as well. It is a lot of balls to keep up in the air.
One of the hardest things about living in a new culture is finding out all the things you take for granted. On a daily basis we all have systems for being in the world; ways of getting things done. You know where to go, you know how long it takes to get there, you know the route and the expected traffic patterns and you don’t even have to think about it. When you move somewhere new these systems disappear and you have to start over again. It finally feels now, six months later, that we have some systems for surviving and functioning here. If we miss our train, we know when the next one comes. We know that you have to call Sky early when the wind knocks the satellite out or else it will take them 3 weeks to come and fix it. It feels good to be competent, functioning people again. But I can’t help but feel that although the layer of ice that we are skating on is getting thicker by the day, there is still a fast current lurking just beneath the surface. At any moment we might hit a weak patch of ice and fall in.
There are good days in England. Days when the sun is shining and the train runs on time. These are the days when we feel lucky that we have been able to have this opportunity. We feel lucky that things have really worked out well for us. We have a nice place to live. We both have great jobs with really great co-workers. And, the pace of life is a lot slower. We are both taking steps to advance our careers. Brent is doing his Masters and it is being paid for by his work. Brilliant. Beth’s PhD is progressing well and her supervisor is terrific. The grocery store delivers. Fantastic. Plus, we are able to travel all over England on little mini day-trips instead of making it a big two week vacation. This is quite a luxury. Some days it feels like the land of opportunity. There are so many midwifery teaching jobs here we could have our pick of where we want to live. A stark contrast to Canada where there are six universities spread out throughout the country and they are all already fully staffed. And, the field of university intellectual property is miles ahead here - they have really got their act together. There are days when it is fun noticing the amusing differences between cultures. The sense of history and the feeling that many of our ancestors came from these very lands is pretty amazing. It is a privilege to live in the land of Shakespear, Churchill, Dickens, Austin, and Harry Potter. We are also really lucky to be experiencing this adventure together.
But then there are the grey, rainy and gusty days; and the weather is bad too. There are days when we wonder why we left our nice, comfortable life behind with family and friends. There are days when figuring out how to do basic day to day things in a foreign place is too hard. Often we coast through the week Monday to Friday, caught up in our daily activities and busyness, only to be hit with the feeling of homesickness on Sunday when we finally slow down. Our missing of all things familiar turns into lengthy conversations about the importance of snow to the Canadian identity and fond reminiscence of how nice our couch was. There are days when we just whine, ‘we want to go home,’ and when we curse how the British can’t get anything right.
It is a huge undertaking to pack up, put in storage and move one’s entire life. It is even more challenging to try to maintain some kind of a life in two places. We are still paying bills and running a house in Canada, while doing all those same things here as well. It is a lot of balls to keep up in the air.
One of the hardest things about living in a new culture is finding out all the things you take for granted. On a daily basis we all have systems for being in the world; ways of getting things done. You know where to go, you know how long it takes to get there, you know the route and the expected traffic patterns and you don’t even have to think about it. When you move somewhere new these systems disappear and you have to start over again. It finally feels now, six months later, that we have some systems for surviving and functioning here. If we miss our train, we know when the next one comes. We know that you have to call Sky early when the wind knocks the satellite out or else it will take them 3 weeks to come and fix it. It feels good to be competent, functioning people again. But I can’t help but feel that although the layer of ice that we are skating on is getting thicker by the day, there is still a fast current lurking just beneath the surface. At any moment we might hit a weak patch of ice and fall in.
Milestone
Six months ago we arrived in England. This anniversary has sparked some reflection. Here is an inventory of sorts chronicling some of what we have done since September 2006.
1 airport pickup
3 trips to M&S/Debenhams to buy linens/pillows so we could sleep in our bed
2 cell phones purchased from Vodaphone
0 cells phones purchased that we use now
2 wrong trains taken by Brent to/from work
2 trips to York (2 full English cream teas at Betty’s tea room)
1 instance of sneaking into York Minster
45 days for Brent to get NIH number
181 days (and counting) for Beth to get her NIH number
2 conferences attended for work
3 nights in Edinburgh
5 glasses of Scotch enjoyed whilst in Edinburgh
27 days for BT to set up telephone
29 days for Sky to connect satellite
3 times Sky satellite service has been interrupted for extending periods (due to wind)
1 trip to Old Trafford
0 goals witnessed at Old Trafford in England V Macedonia match
1 Canadian Thanksgiving
1 trip to Glasgow
8 trips by Sainsburys to deliver groceries to our flat
29 midwifery students (partially) enlightened by Beth’s wisdom
1 car rented
2 Steak and Ale pies made
34 Mars bars eaten by Brent on the commute home
68 trips to Sheffield by Beth
7 full work weeks completed by Brent
1 trip to London
1 trip to Paris
1 new computer
10 trips to Costco
1 new pair of boots
1 snowfall
3 Frasier marathons on TV
4 friends engaged
20 phone calls home
1 giant bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry
4 bottles of Scotch
10 teenagers puking in the streets of Leeds
4 castles visited
18 sleepless nights
2 trips to Ikea
1 pay raise
1 Masters program started
2 PhD courses completed
170 days of rain
1 airport pickup
3 trips to M&S/Debenhams to buy linens/pillows so we could sleep in our bed
2 cell phones purchased from Vodaphone
0 cells phones purchased that we use now
2 wrong trains taken by Brent to/from work
2 trips to York (2 full English cream teas at Betty’s tea room)
1 instance of sneaking into York Minster
45 days for Brent to get NIH number
181 days (and counting) for Beth to get her NIH number
2 conferences attended for work
3 nights in Edinburgh
5 glasses of Scotch enjoyed whilst in Edinburgh
27 days for BT to set up telephone
29 days for Sky to connect satellite
3 times Sky satellite service has been interrupted for extending periods (due to wind)
1 trip to Old Trafford
0 goals witnessed at Old Trafford in England V Macedonia match
1 Canadian Thanksgiving
1 trip to Glasgow
8 trips by Sainsburys to deliver groceries to our flat
29 midwifery students (partially) enlightened by Beth’s wisdom
1 car rented
2 Steak and Ale pies made
34 Mars bars eaten by Brent on the commute home
68 trips to Sheffield by Beth
7 full work weeks completed by Brent
1 trip to London
1 trip to Paris
1 new computer
10 trips to Costco
1 new pair of boots
1 snowfall
3 Frasier marathons on TV
4 friends engaged
20 phone calls home
1 giant bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry
4 bottles of Scotch
10 teenagers puking in the streets of Leeds
4 castles visited
18 sleepless nights
2 trips to Ikea
1 pay raise
1 Masters program started
2 PhD courses completed
170 days of rain
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Train stories
We've chronicled train observations before. You remember the briefcase bartender and the man with the four tall boys of Carling during a 50 minute journey. This week has provided some similar amusement, but of a more refined nature.
The British are a reserved lot. They are very private and, well, antisocial. Many items of their culture reveal this to be true. First, they are homebodies. The home is their castle and rarely do they leave it. In fact they are the kings of DIY for this very reason. Another example is the fact that bathroom stalls are almost always full walls right down to the floor. Brits also rarely make eye contact when passing others on the street. Its like they live in their own bubble world not to be interferred with by recognizing the other human beings around them. This phenomenon is also found during their excessive mobile phone talking. They won't talk to their neighbour on the street, but they will chat loudly on their mobile nonstop, while walkng on the street and while sitting on the train. There seems to be a significant amount of denial while in public places. It's as if they don't like to acknowledge the existance of others because it would threaten their privacy.
Yesterday I sat near two old men on the train who clearly thought that they were in their own world with no other humans nearby. These gentlemen, and gentleman is really the only word for them, as they were smartly dressed with proper hats and coats and shiny shoes, had the most profane vocabulary I've heard in a while. Not so gentlemanly. It was quite odd to see men who were old enough to be my grandfather saying that they couldn't wait to have a "fag" immediately upon disembarking the train. They sneered openly at all the other passengers. They were proper grumpy old men. Their conversation was reminiscent of Statler & Waldorf from the Muppets. It would have been fine if this heckling was taking place in the comfort of their own home, car or theatre box but it was easily heard by all the rest of us on the train.
Another man on the train today also seemed to think he was in his own private world while riding the train. He boarded the train at the stop after mine. He sat down a few rows ahead in a seat facing me. I didn't really notice him until I heard a funny sound. I looked up to see him saving with his electric razor while reading the paper. Next I'll see some woman shaving her legs on train while taking a swig from a 40oz bottle of vodka. Classy. When I start talking outloud to myself on the train it's time to come home to Canada.
The British are a reserved lot. They are very private and, well, antisocial. Many items of their culture reveal this to be true. First, they are homebodies. The home is their castle and rarely do they leave it. In fact they are the kings of DIY for this very reason. Another example is the fact that bathroom stalls are almost always full walls right down to the floor. Brits also rarely make eye contact when passing others on the street. Its like they live in their own bubble world not to be interferred with by recognizing the other human beings around them. This phenomenon is also found during their excessive mobile phone talking. They won't talk to their neighbour on the street, but they will chat loudly on their mobile nonstop, while walkng on the street and while sitting on the train. There seems to be a significant amount of denial while in public places. It's as if they don't like to acknowledge the existance of others because it would threaten their privacy.
Yesterday I sat near two old men on the train who clearly thought that they were in their own world with no other humans nearby. These gentlemen, and gentleman is really the only word for them, as they were smartly dressed with proper hats and coats and shiny shoes, had the most profane vocabulary I've heard in a while. Not so gentlemanly. It was quite odd to see men who were old enough to be my grandfather saying that they couldn't wait to have a "fag" immediately upon disembarking the train. They sneered openly at all the other passengers. They were proper grumpy old men. Their conversation was reminiscent of Statler & Waldorf from the Muppets. It would have been fine if this heckling was taking place in the comfort of their own home, car or theatre box but it was easily heard by all the rest of us on the train.
Another man on the train today also seemed to think he was in his own private world while riding the train. He boarded the train at the stop after mine. He sat down a few rows ahead in a seat facing me. I didn't really notice him until I heard a funny sound. I looked up to see him saving with his electric razor while reading the paper. Next I'll see some woman shaving her legs on train while taking a swig from a 40oz bottle of vodka. Classy. When I start talking outloud to myself on the train it's time to come home to Canada.
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