Ticking all the boxes
As you’ll have gathered from my last post, The Special One and I are currently filing various papers to prove that our marriage is bona fide, and not an ill-disguised sham in which I’m using her to gain access to a country with no universal healthcare and no ready access to HP Sauce. I feel [...]
Excuses excuses excuses
It may not have escaped your notice that America is a pretty large country. You could probably fit the UK inside New York state (if you borrowed a bit of New Jersey, perhaps?), and I’ve seen bigger aubergineseggplants than Wales. And like any large territory whose population has migrated for work and family over the [...]
Out with the old, in with the new. Eventually.
I haven’t passed comment on the election since the historic events of November 4. After all, I don’t even have the vote, let alone an inside track on the political machinations that led to the Democrats winning Virginia, so sometimes it’s just best to keep quiet. All I can say is that I stayed up [...]
Life’s too short to deal with cable companies
Once upon a time, I used to work in the murky world of cable and satellite television. How the channels I worked for ever got to air I’m not sure, given that they were almost entirely populated by 25 year olds in their first jobs and with a near-universal penchant for binge drinking. And that [...]
Customer service hell (or America, as it’s also known)
Customer satisfaction isn’t exactly a particular focus for New Yorkers. In fact, on the list of 500 Things Every Business Must Do To Be Successful in NYC, “making sure that the customer is happy” appears just below “don’t leave dead rats in your reception area.” It sometimes feels that if you walk into a shop [...]
Over the Hil
Incredibly, after more than 500 days of campaigning, it looks like the race is over and Barack Obama is the chosen one for the Democratic party. Personally I think it’s a shame to see either one lose, given that the electorate has paid much more attention to this clash of the titans than they probably [...]
School papers
I’ve blogged before about the impossibility of doing anything in this country without some form of ID, and rarely a day goes by without me thinking that I should muster the will to go get a driving license. Not so that I can drive, you understand, but just so that I can spend more than [...]
A very British sense of humo(u)r
Crime isn’t funny, I know. But a New York Police Department sign which I saw in a yellow cab on my way home this evening made me laugh out loud. The sign read:
“Reward up to $500.00 for the arrest and conviction of anyone who commits GRAFFITI VANDALISM”
And scrawled underneath that in neat ballpoint penned handwriting?
“Bite [...]
X marks the spot
Today much of the US has gone to the polls to decide which of the candidates will represent the Democrats and the Republicans in the upcoming election. With more than twenty states holding their primaries today, it’s one of the most important days on the road to the 2008 presidential vote.
As a student of political [...]
Taxing times
With January 31st rapidly approaching, it’s probably about time that I completed my UK tax return if I’m to avoid a £100 fine. Thankfully I only have to do the short one, although no doubt that will change next year when I attempt to claim back a heapload of overpaid British tax.
After more than ten [...]
