Time to meat your maker
After a five month period in which my wedding tackle has been stored somewhere near my pancreas to avoid the bitter cold, somebody finally got around to paying New York’s heating bill, and glorious warmth returned with a vengeance this weekend. In the UK, the changes of the seasons are generally imperceptible, with spring sleepily [...]
You don’t have to be mad to live here
If your idea of fun is listening in to private conversations about Ethel’s ingrowing toenail operation, or the borderline sexual harrassment of Eric’s younger boss, New York is truly the city for you. As I’ve mentioned before, this city’s residents have faulty volume control (they really should have bought the extended warranty), and as a [...]
I’m a New Yorker, and your rules do not apply to me
One thing that you have to say about New Yorkers is that they don’t lack self-confidence. I have never met a phalanx of people that are so certain of their right to existence. Or indeed, so convinced that the city in which they live is the greatest on Earth. Suggest to a New Yorker that [...]
Bra(in) twisting in the 21st century
You’d have to speak to She Who Was Born To Worry to get confirmation, but I think I was probably a right little pain in the arseass when I was a kid. ‘What’s changed?’ I hear you cry in a kind of unison that’s both cruel and a little unnecessary. But as a child, I [...]
Homesickness (or 8 things I occasionally miss about Britain)
I get asked whether I feel homesick quite a lot, and I think people tend to be surprised when I say that on the whole I don’t. The fact is that – love the UK though I do – it’s my family and friends that I miss more than anything, and if they were all [...]
A spoonful of sugar
Some of the traditions that America has are completely different than those in the UK. Like stopping an important sports game two thirds of the way through for the singing of the national anthem. Or, indeed, knowing all the words to the national anthem in the first place. Some things are exactly the same; ‘a [...]
Just making sure we’re all on the same page
I think we can all agree, o learned readers, that diversity is a good thing. The world would be a terrible place if we all looked the same or acted the same. The fact that each one of us likes different flavour crispschips, different football teams or different music is categorically ‘a good thing’. And [...]
It’s not exactly the Discovery Channel, is it?
It’s not unfair to say that as a kid who was brought up in a little town in North Wales, my early experience of wildlife was relatively limited. There was a vague suggestion that there were adders somewhere not that far from us, although the teachers who took us on school trips never seemed to [...]
Money money money (isn’t funny)
When I was a kid, opening my first bank account was pretty much one of the most exciting days of my (then) tender life. It wasn’t so much that I was saving money. After all, that just meant that I wasn’t going to be able to spend all my pocket money on cola bottles that [...]
A full and frank apology to the USA
I would like to issue a full and unreserved apology to the United States of America. In a previous post, I had revealed that an American foodstuff (albeit Italian-American) had made a personal attack on me, and left me with a cold sore-like legacy. By relating such a story, I was suggesting that foods from [...]
