Posted in Britain, Citizenship, Nodnol, Pregnancy, Travel, tagged Heathrow on April 20, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Yesterday, you went to the airport to see off Mother In Law after her epic three month visit.
So there you are, sitting in the cafe having a last cup of tea before sending her off to brave the security gauntlet, when you notice that there’s a number of cabin crew types drinking coffee there too.
You were idly pondering over this - [...]
Posted in Britain, Culture, Drink, Family, Food, Holidays, Patriotism, Poetry, tagged Burns' Night, Robert Burns, William Topaz McGonagall on January 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
You are not in the least Scottish.
This has always been a source of faint irritation because you are able to conjure up in almost equal amounts a Welsh background, an Irish one, a Northern English past, a Southern English birthplace and a strong connection to the Channel Islands out of France. So to miss out on being [...]
Posted in Aberystwyth, Architecture, Bridgenorth, Britain, Castles, Churches, Floods, Ludlow, Nature, Shropshire, Sightseeing, Travel, Wales, the Countryside, the Severn Valley Railway on September 20, 2007 | 10 Comments »
So you and B went on holiday.
You haven’t the energy for much description right now - in the last two weeks you have spent five days locked in a room with thirty three 8 year olds who have been fed a bowl of sugar for breakfast each and 30 minutes writing down the story of Britain from [...]
Posted in Banks, Britain, Culture Shock, Kafkaesque on August 28, 2007 | 6 Comments »
You have now given up work so you can prepare for your training to become a school teacher, starting in two weeks.
In honour of this, on your last day you baked a cake for your colleagues which, owing to a kitchen accident, enjoyed the twin flavours of chocolate and pesto. You also attended the leaving party [...]
Posted in Britain, Classical Music, Culture, Music, Nodnol, The Proms, the Royal Albert Hall on August 15, 2007 | No Comments »
Last night you went to half a Prom.
It all started quite auspiciously. You both set off in good time, even allowing for side trips to that endlessly fascinating retail emporium, Boots the Chemists, and so you arrived a good 45 minutes before the start.
At which point you realised that you had picked a popular Prom.
Now [...]
Posted in Alonso, Britain, F1, Fernando Alonso, Formula 1, Formula One, Hamilton, James Allen, Language, Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Patriotism, Russia, Russian, The Rest of the World, War on August 5, 2007 | 6 Comments »
As a fan of formula one, your years in Russia were a bit frustrating.
It’s true that the races were generally available on one of the terrestrial channels, although it always seemed to take a few races for a deal for the TV rights to be struck. Missing the opening of the season every year and [...]
Posted in Architecture, Britain, Chelsea, Culture, Food, Music, Nodnol, Sightseeing, The Proms, the Royal Albert Hall on July 30, 2007 | 4 Comments »
So there you and B are, sitting on a bench eating grapes and a pork pie, admiring the view of large tombstones which populate the square you are in, and basking in the unexpected sunshine.
Suddenly you become aware that the young lady next to you has not only come prepared with cutlery and a china plate [...]
Posted in Britain, Children, Christmas, Detsky Mir, Hamley's, Marriage, New Year, Presents, Russia, Shopping, Ties, Wedding Anniversary on July 22, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Being the occasionally fond wife that you are, it occurred to you to start shopping for your husband’s present for your wedding anniversary (July 18th) bright and early this year.
Particularly because you wanted to buy him a (cuddly stuffed) camel. In the past, these have proved difficult to track down.
So you decided to go into the centre, [...]
Posted in Britain, Call Centres, Communication, Kafka, Kafkaesque on July 15, 2007 | 2 Comments »
You had a particularly frustrating experience with a call line this last week.
It wasn’t the endless pressing of first ‘one’, then ‘two’, then ’seven’, then ‘five’, then ‘two’, then ‘eight’, then ‘one’ as you work your way though the seven levels of hell. This you could handle.
Although it was somewhat dispiriting to have the traditional muzak replaced by [...]
Posted in Britain, Humor, Humour, Ironic, Irony, Language on June 18, 2007 | 27 Comments »
“One of the things that was most surprising,” said a British journalist to a filmmaker from the USA last week, “was that your new film contained flashes of irony. We didn’t think the Americans could do irony.”
The British are very proud of their ironic sense of humour. Well, we call it a sense of humour. The Russians [...]
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