When I moved to New York with Simone, we didn’t have a TV. We didn’t have money for a TV and we didn’t think it a priority. Besides, there’s the whole waste-your-brain-away argument, which comes in really handy when you’re too poor/cheap to acquire a TV. So then I got a job in the television industry, and was asked the inevitable, “What do you like to watch?” question, to which I replied, “Well, I don’t actually have a TV at the moment.” What happened next? A half-amused and half-reproachful, “You may want to get one.”

Then Andy came to New York and he came with a TV. Problem solved.

Now I am here in London, and I am, once again, TV-less. Once again, I am starting a new job in TV, only this time I have far less of an understanding of what the heck is on at any time of day. AND once again, it is becoming a bit of an issue. SO, my mission for this weekend was to track down a cheap but functional TV. Mission FAILED. Homebase doesn’t have them anymore. Dixon’s only has expensive small ones. John Lewis only has expensive big ones.

Never fear, I have since decided that ordering a TV online is the way to go. It has the added bonus of arriving at the flat, and it is now the only place that I have seen cheap working TVs. I will certainly update when the TV situation gets squared away.

In the mean time, not having TV is a very good way to get caught up on Strong Bad Emails.

OK OK. . . first things first, I apologize to the THOUSANDS of readers I apparently offended by suggesting that only three people read the blog. I, of course, like to think that it is immensely popular and is currently developing a cult following. BUT, sometimes people find humoUr in a bit of self-deprecation, and modesty has never been my strongest asset, so I exaggerated slightly on the small side. It did provoke comments, though, so that’s good. Maybe I should be offensive and rude more often!

Moving on.

Today was Dick’s party. Dick is the chief executive of my company, and every summer, he hires coaches (read: buses) and brings the whole company (about 140 people) to his lovely country home. He loads up his big back garden with beer, wine, Pimms, and snacky items. Then he takes the whole company to his “local” (read: local pub), which he OWNS, for unlimited drinks and a solid, meaty pub meal. Have I mentioned that I really like this job?

Apparently, what happens at the party is that everybody starts to gossip quite severely about everyone else. As the new kid, I did a lot of listening, but it was still quite fascinating. I learned all about various colleagues’ crushes, sexual preferences, professional aspirations, and previous drunken incidents at Dick’s party; all in all, it made for quite an entertaining evening. On the way back on the coach, some folks decided to stave off their traffic-sitting boredom by commandeering the bus driver’s microphone and starting a round of impromptu karaoke. Yes. Karaoke. They sang various hits from Grease, a rousing British-accented version of American Pie, My FavoUrite Things, and even Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Wow. When these folks loosen up, they really don’t mess around.

OH! I also learned that my fellow employees were relieved to find out that I am actually not a religious zealot of any type. Apparently this was of significant concern considering my American origins. INnnnteresting. . . I suppose it’s only fair, considering that I thought they’d all be a bunch of crazy weather-talkers.

According to the English, one of the world’s stereotypes of the English is that they always talk about the weather. Now I grew up with an English dad, and I live in the world, and I had NEVER heard about this until I moved here. I knew quite a bit about some other stereotypes which the English - based on this weather one - would probably be MIGHTY disappointed to hear, but I definitely had not heard this one. But just in case all of you other world-dwellers (well, the three of you who read this anyway) have indeed heard about this and are dead-set on maintaining your views about the English population and their weather-talking ways, I am here to help assuage your stubbornness.

So, do the English talk about the weather more than one would think normal? Yes, they do. I can’t help but think, though, that Americans talk about the weather quite a bit, as well. I can think of dozens of instances when, upon meeting a colleague on the elevator, conversation began with, “Gosh it’s chilly out there, isn’t it?,” or “Phew! What a scorcher this one is!,” or “Will this rain EVER stop?,” or even the exclamatory, “Can you beLIEVE this weather?” That said, however, I do find that the English discuss the weather even more frequently than my American colleagues.

BUT, now that I live here, I found out why.

The weather here is just crazy. It’s nuts. Last week it was 90 and I went out to buy appropriate clothing for a hot, stuffy office. This week I’m freezing my tuchus off in trousers and a lightweight jumper. If I truly aimed to dress appropriately for the weather at all times, I would have to pull a suitcase along with me - umbrella, raincoat and boots, lightweight jumper (that’s sweater), heavyweight jumper, shorts, trousers (see, I’ve learned the pants lesson), socks, sneakers, sandals - the works. And then by the time I put my boots and raincoat on, it would be hot and I’d have to strip down to my bikini again (because that’s totally what I wear when it’s hot outside). Now, from what I gather, the winter is raWther more predictable - cold, rainy, cold, rainy, cold & rainy, rainy & cold. . . . I’m thinking, though, that wallowing in our collective misery will be enough to encourage conversation about the winter weather, too. We shall see.

News: The bugs are GOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEEEE!!! Albeit, I’m afraid to step on the rug with bare feet thanks to the thick coating of pesticide seeping through it. It has been about a week, and I feel like maybe a month is enough time. One day I might even lay on it. TBD.

Week two of my new job has begun, and things are feeling a bit more comfortable. I did some significant shopping for work-appropriate gear, which helps tremendously, and I am starting to get a sense of who talks to whom, who works for whom, what meetings are when, what’s expected of me, and just how things work in general. Today, however, I had an Oprah-esque “AHA” moment.

You see, up until now, I have been tremendously overwhelmed by the sheer volume of research that comes out of this department. I kept trusting that I would catch up within a month or two, but I was really impressed by this stuff. They send out 30-page, insightful, thorough PowerPoint presentations every week for every channel (a.k.a. cable network) in the portfolio. Geeze! Anyway, I just said to Andy on Friday that I was feeling relatively certain that I would discover the easy way to do these reports - that there would be some sort of formulaic platform or template. Turns out, I was most definitely right.

Today Nik asked me when I would be looking to take over the weekly meetings for bla bla bla. I said definitely not this week, maybe next week, probably the week after that. Then I asked for some more information about what exactly is to be presented at said meeting. He said, “Oh it’s dead easy, . . .” WELL, the . . . bit included the following information: the weekly report is OUTSOURCED to another research company. That’s right - the weekly report for the weekly meeting for . . . is copy and pasted from the other company’s weekly report. Entire SLIDES - not even just charts or just data - the whole thing. Well DUDE - I can DO that!! AND, I can do that QUICKLY!!

Needless to say, I feel MUCH better. I was feeling a bit more on top of things already today, and now I’m feeling like after two months or so (possible sooner, but it’s good to leave a cushion), I’ll be right on top of everything. GooooOOOOOOO T-BONE!

The first test of the Ashes finished today. Somehow, they were able to squeak some play in between raindrops, and the Aussies were able to finish England in less than an hour. Australia was able to get the 5 wickets while England scored less than 30 runs. Oh, the humanity! English cricket fans take heart, there’s still 20 more days of cricket left to play in the Ashes. Eli, this is far from over…

It’s that time again, the time when the world screeches to a halt to watch the famous Ashes. Okay maybe not the whole world, but most of England is at least paying attention to the Ashes.

For those of you in the states that think baseball is boring, thank your lucky stars that cricket isn’t popular, because as a spectator sport, cricket ranks somewhere near golf.

The Ashes is a “test” cricket series played every other year between the country that invented the game (England) and the country that is good at the game (Australia). England last won the Ashes in 1987.

The series consists of 5 test matches, each test match being up to 5 days in duration. Play starts at 10:30 each day and continues until around 6 o’clock. That’s 150 hours of competition! All this for a small urn containing “the ashes of English cricket'’ which “died'’ in a match in 1882 when Australia beat England for the first time.

Test cricket is very unusual, and I think I like it for its peculiarities. For example, during the day the players break for a 40-minute lunch break, a 20-minute tea break, and three 10-minute drink breaks. What other sport breaks for tea?

The test match is over when both teams have batted two full innings. If for any reason, day five ends and both teams have not finished batting, the result is a draw. Can you believe that? Five full days of competition and no winner! What really confuses me is that they can declare a winner when play ends prematurely for a four hour Twenty20 cricket match, but not for a five day test match.

So we’re currently in the middle of the first test of the series, which is being played at Lord’s in London. Today is day four. Day one saw the Aussies get off to a bad start by being bowled out before tea with only 190 runs in their first innings. England did worse being bowled out the next morning with only 155 runs. The Aussies finished with 384 runs in their second innings leaving England with over 400 runs to make up. At the end of day three, England had 156 runs with only 5 wickets (outs) left. It wasn’t looking good for England.

Today is day four and play has been suspended due to rain. It doesn’t look like there will be any action today, and tomorrow’s forecast has a possibility of rain too. So right now it looks as if a rain induced draw is England’s best chance. Poor Aussies, up by 250 runs and facing the possibility of a draw. Ah, but that’s the way the wicket falls!

On Thursday, one of the companies from which my company buys research hosted a pub quiz night, and I was lucky enough to attend and represent on a four-person team from our group. First things first, I didn’t really even know what a quiz night would be, having never come across one in the past. I was picturing something similar to the computerized trivia games they have in some bars and restaurants in the States. Second things second, I figured this event would surround a general theme of British television, about which I know devastatingly little, so I knew from the start that I might not be the strongest of competitors.

So I learned at this quiz night that pubs quite often have quiz nights or afternoons and that they are at their best in the winter on a rainy, cold, lazy Sunday afternoon. (With no football to watch, I can see how that might be appealing) I also learned that quiz nights are MUCH more involved than table trivia. First, everyone has a team name. Stand-outs at this event were Quiz Team Aguilera and The Hairy Geoffreys. There are several rounds of questioning, with scores reported at various intervals. This event featured eight rounds, all of which were modeled after television game shows. Each team writes down their answers for the entire round and hands them in before the start of the next round. VERY fun.

Highlights:
- We had to think of the next line to a song lyric, and not knowing what came after, “Every time I walk down the street with you. . . ,” we decided on, “I accidentally step in poo.” No points for that, but we did get a mention and a good laugh. I can’t take credit - that was all Luke.
- We had to think of captions to given pictures. One of the images featured George Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair, and I think Dick Cheney (can’t remember). All four of them appear to be looking at Bush’s shoes, but with limited stretch of the imagination, at his lap. We didn’t have the opportunity to hear all of the responses, and bearing in mind the lack of restraint (for the sake of taste) in British humoUr, I’m sure they were entertaining, but the winner for the night? “They’re right, George - You ARE the biggest cock in the world.”

Sorry if that’s a bit profane, but I decided it was funny enough to warrant inclusion.

We came in 5th out of nine teams and we did so in abominable fashion. Terribly. Ah well - we really went for the free food, so mission accomplished.

OK, so it’s day three. About time I do something idiotic.

This morning I decided to get breakfast in the café which is in the basement of the office. BUT, I didn’t know how to get there. I went to the basement when I first got in, but there wasn’t an apparent route, so rather than wander aimlessly through random offices, I resolved to go upstairs and wait until lunch time. Fortunately, shortly after my arrival upstairs, Fiona asked if anyone needed anything from the café downstairs. “YES!” I said, “I’ll go with you!” and off we went. It was so easy to get there that it’s just embarrassing that I didn’t figure it out on my own. So anyway, we go down, Fiona teaches me that the bagels really need to go in the small toaster because they burn in the big toaster (catastrophe averted, thank you Fi) but that the small toaster takes a long time. Rather than wait for my bagel in the small slow toaster, Fi decided to go back upstairs. “OK, see ya.”

So I finish toasting, spread my bagel indulgently with peanut butter and jelly (hoping secretly that someone will be horribly grossed out by it - ahhh. . . the life of a foreigner) and pay my remarkably reasonable 50p. Then I walk out of the café and back into the stairwell. I go up to my floor and THAT’s when I realiSe that I have no way of getting back ON to my floor having left my ID on my desk.

OK.

So, back down to the café level - doot de dooo. . . hmm. . . need my ID to get in there.

OK.

Back up to my floor, hoping someone will happen by. Munching on the bagel. Nope. Nobody comes by. Decide that I have a better chance of that at café level, and then maybe I can meet someone down there who will escort me back up.

In the stairwell by the café, finish my bagel. Someone came!

Back in the café, I figure out that I can get back into the lobby without needing an ID, so I do that, and then the security guard (after hearing about my mistake) lets me into the elevator bay where I fortuitously stumble across someone heading to my floor who HAS her ID and lets me in. PHEW.

Needless to say, this story, when retold by yours truly, caused politely muffled hysteria among my coworkers who are not quite yet comfortable tearing me to shreds for these silly antics, as some former coworkers were prone to do.

Also, someone asked if I was Canadian today. Did I follow a sentence with “,eh?” no. Did I eat some round, meaty bacon? no. Did my head split in half when I talked? no. I don’t get it. I guess maybe there are more Canadians here than Americans, or maybe he doesn’t like Americans and was just being optimistic? Who knows.

I pledge to try to do more dumb things more regularly, so that I have more entertaining stories to share. nighty night. . .

So today was my first day of work, as I mentioned, and I must say it was generally very good. I was dressed SOOOO wrong, but everyone was very polite about it, in that they pretended not to notice, and most of the day was packed with the usual first day type stuff - getting security passes, going to meetings with this person and that, HR stuff - the usual. And now for the unusual - tea trolley. Now I need to mention that at some point I intend to tell my coworkers about the blog, because they seem VERY nice, so they might read this at some point. Hopefully by then they’ll know that I am by no means scarred by this experience and fully expect to be teased about it. Moving on.

Every Monday, my company has a tea trolley at 3:30 or maybe 3:00 can’t remember. Basically it’s just a cart with tea on it, and two people serve the tea, and there are various tea biscuits laying out which are of the come-early-or-don’t-bother-coming variety, meaning they’re the good ones and go quickly. I was thinking, “Gee, that’s so nice. A tea trolley. We never had anything like that at my old job.” OK, so then I get there this morning and my assigned buddy, Nikki, who is awesome thank goodness because you never KNOW who your assigned buddy is going to be, tells me that she has put tea trolley in my diary (that’s what they call calendars of the at-a-glance or outlook variety here) for the afternoon. “GREAT!,” methinks - that will be lovely. OK, here’s what went down at tea trolley.

Tiffany was told that she and Nikki would actually be serving tea trolley today. Tiffany helped lay out biscuits (actually, watched Nikki lay out biscuits). Tiffany was shown the tea, the cups, etc. Tiffany was kindly and then a bit more insistently coerced into wearing an APRON emblazoned with the company LOGO.

Yyyup, that’s right.

Now, was I among a communally embarrassed team of newbies wearing stupid aprons? OH NO. I was most certainly the ONLY person wearing the apron. I most certainly did NOT know that every single person in this country likes milk in their tea and why would you even ask. And I had to talk to people, which I normally love, but on my first day, I kind of like to keep a low profile. Especially considering my remarkably conspicuous accent. Anyway, nice idea, and I’ll feel better when I see anyone else go through it - which I think everyone does on their first day - but man was that a bit much for my first day.

The blessing in disguise about the apron? It covered up my outfit. And I am SO not kidding that I was thinking that when I found out about the apron. “Well, at least people won’t be able to see my outfit.”

And don’t worry - I was overdressed. I didn’t show up on my first day in my ripped jeans and hanes t-shirt. Although, with the right accessories and the conviction that I was SAYING something with my clothing. . . nah, still no good. Anyway, guess who gets to go shopping?

News: Two HUGE thumbs up for the carrot cake. Turned out fabulously. I am a very lucky woman.

We had quite an eventful weekend. Yesterday we went on a hiking adventure with the McFadden clan - Caton, Mark, Anna, Scout, and Duncan (sorry Dunc, someone had to be last). We drove up to Chipping Campden, which is in the Cotswolds, hiked around for quite a while, had a few mandatory indulge-in-the-GORP breaks, got minorly lost on the way back, finally found a WONDERFUL pub, and found our way back to the car for an exhausted drive home. The GORP (which actually stands for Good Old Raisins & Peanuts but ends up being a bunch of other yummy treats mixed together) was amazing. The pub lunch was amazing. A shandy (half lager, half “lemonade aka. sprite) tastes pretty darn delicious after a meandering hot hike. The drive back was most certainly enhanced by the vocal stylings of Caton, who has of late built up QUITE the repertoire of baby-appropriate tunes. All in all, a wonderful day.

Today, Andy and I went to the National Portrayte Gallery. That’s how they say it. Portraytes. It’s basically a medium-sized museum filled with hundreds of paintings of various British dignitaries. The section on the “Struggle for America,” which some of you know as the Revolutionary WAR, included one of George Washington and about four of some British guys. Then again, I’m sure the American Portrayte Gallery would probably have one of George III and about 600 of some American guys. So it’s only fair. Anyway I decided I want to have my portrayte done. BUT first I need a really fancy dress and actually I don’t really want to sit there and wait for it, so maybe they could take a picture and paint from that? Not sure how these things work these days. For a lady of honor like me, I’m sure that proper arrangements can be made.

Besides the National Portrayte Gallery, and INFINITELY more important, is that today Andy and I decided to make carrot cake. This is our first time with carrot cake, and so far things are going splendidly. For the record, all I did was grate the carrots and help carry the groceries home, but still - that’s helping! SOOooooo what I am doing now, besides posting to the blog, is waiting quite anxiously for the carrot cake to finish chilling, for goodness’s sake, because SOMEONE needs to taste it, and it might as well be me.

Here are some pictures of our hike in Chipping Campden , and here are the ones I promised of the Changing of the Guards. Enjoy!