Tag: anenglishmanabroad

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD AT LAST

Two and a half years of lockdown later I found myself back on Blighty’s breezy shores.  Brighton hasn’t changed much but if anything it has slipped slightly further down the scrungy, bohemian, dissolute tube.  I have never seen so many worn puffer jackets and threadbare jeans on hard-faced, hard-swearing individuals and the craziness quotient (measured by people speaking loudly to themselves) was at a record level.

The sartorial picture seems to have forbidden the wearing of socks, even when the trousers are what we knew as “ankle swingers” back in the day.  It’s still difficult, however, to know how many inside leg sizes you have to cut back on to achieve trousers which are half-way down your buttocks while still managing to be half-way up the shin.  Where socks are worn, white flannel seems to be back in fashion which is so Essex 1970s that I felt transported to a different era.

Where Brighton truly scores is in the number of pubs and it was a delight to spend an evening in the wonderful Mash Tun.  Reminded me that one drunken night in the Basketmakers (known colloquially as the Basket Weavers) a group of INTO colleagues agreed we should start an app where we entered scores and a description for every pub in Brighton.  Needless to say, the idea petered out when even that battle-hardened crew couldn’t really remember too much about the five they went to on the first night of the project.

It was enjoyable to return to good old-fashioned jay-walking without fear of getting some sort of ticket.  It is de rigueur in Brighton not to wait for the green man to flash which is probably because some green painted weirdo is always likely to usurp the electronic one and assault you.  My only disadvantage was that I could not remember which way to look first to make sure that I wasn’t under the wheels of the many buses that thunder up and down Western Road.

It all came while I was still a bit jet-lagged from the flight.  Being met by English accents from the cabin crew was disorienting and reminded me how used I have become to people not pronouncing their ‘t’s and have a nice day replacing please and thank you.  British Airways just doesn’t seem to update itself and there is something very comforting about that.

But what is it with the plastic money?  The feel of a polymer bank note is unpleasant and troubling after nearly three years of only dealing with the linen/cotton mix bills in the US.  You can’t decently have the conversation about paying your bills in the UK with “fifty folding” anymore and my own wallet can’t really cope with the springy, spongy resilience of the new notes.  Don’t get me started on pound and two pound coins – I’ve got totally used to small denomination paper as a means of carrying cash that doesn’t shred every pocket in your trousers.

Restaurant culture is also very different and as I waited for an eternity to order one night I reflected on the determined, upbeat sunniness of California waiters.  For the first time I had reason to think that a lower starting wage and the possibility of a bigger tip was something worth considering.  When it came to the bill at the end of the evening it was explained to me that the bill contained a 10% gratuity that was “not mandatory”.  Coming from a place where 15% is worth spending and 20% not uncommon I was glad to take it as a bargain.

What there is to love, is the pre-prepared egg and cress sandwiches in the M&S/Waitrose/Sainsbury food halls, Walkers Cheese and onion crisps and chocolate covered rice cakes.  The US has either passed by or not reached these simple delights and every lunchtime order is beset with questions of white or brown, mayo or ketchup, large or larger.  There is a lot to be said for self-selection of a basic set of carbohydrates and some relatively low-calorie sweet stuff to fill the midday gap.

Trains have not got any better and my four hour journey from Norwich to Manchester was spent standing up in close proximity to strangers who thought that mask-wearing was for the Lone Ranger, Zorro and Kendo Nagasaki.  While the Famous 41 travelling fans of King’s Lynn FC were amusing and drank enough to sink several battleships (probably more given recent news about the Russia’s flagship Black Sea missile cruiser, the Moskva), it was less than wholesome to have people keeping the toilet open throughout the journey to give themselves some breathing space.  I decided discretion was the better part of valour and avoided negotiating railworks and strike action on the route from Manchester to London on Easter Sunday – my tip is to use Blackberry Cars if you need to do the same.

In between there was a wonderful Old Trafford moment where Cristiano Ronaldo rolled back the years to score a hat-trick and secure victory over Norwich which made my visit worthwhile.  The fact that Norwich are bottom of the league and my team shuffled, strained and faltered means nothing when the result is a close fought victory.  Thanks Cristiano and I share the world’s sympathy for the devastating loss of your son this week.

Despite the lack of mask wearing and acceptance of rampant COVID rates there was a strong reminder that the UK has still not really caught up with being open for business.  Along with hordes of tourists I trawled Oxford Street and several other major London shopping haunts on Easter Sunday to find only shoe shops and, bizarrely, American Candy retailers taking money.  Most of the visitors were as bemused as me to find that not even MacDonalds had opened its doors to allow people to celebrate the resurrection with Big Mac.

It’s also a reminder that despite my best efforts, along with the Shopping Hours Reform Council, back in 1994 the UK remains unwilling to allow shops to serve customers when they want.  Easter Sunday means shops over 3,000sq ft have to be closed and there was further regression in 2004 when legislation meant they had to close on Christmas Day even if it wasn’t a Sunday.  All this despite a 2014 poll where 72% of people said they should be able to shop when its convenient for them.

It reminded me of the Thursday night in December 1994 when one of our ASDA PR coups was to open Clapham Junction store for 24-hours immediately before Christmas – the first superstore to take advantage of deregulation. People came from all over London and CEO Archie Norman was spotted packing bags at 2am in the morning as one of the PR team, Julie Eaton, whizzed products over the scanner. As Frankie Valli didn’t sing, “oh what a night, late December back in 94”.

It was a fine moment to rank alongside getting the Lord’s to table an amendment to the Shop Hours Act in 1994 to ensure that Good Friday did not have the same licensing hours in shops as Easter Sunday.  The British Retail Consortium wouldn’t engage so I spent a lovely afternoon in the Lord’s tea room briefing a Labour peer who took up the challenge.  Without the change people wouldn’t have been able to buy alcohol in stores on Good Friday before 10am and that would be dumb.

I even managed to complete the shopping task of a case load of UK chocolate, Malden Sea Flakes and a sunscreen that is not available in the US then get a COVID free test before I flew back to the sunny climes of California.  Having got my second booster the week before going I gave myself the best chance but the trains, planes, pubs and 74,000 at Old Trafford must have tested my good fortune to the limit.  A good trip all round and I’ll be back. 

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD PONDERS THE YEAR

A refrain from eternal optimist Del Boy Trotter in Only Fools and Horses was that “this time next year we’ll be millionaires”.  It would be good to hear his thoughts on the recovery from a pandemic that continues to stretch its tentacles into every aspect of life.  For this Englishman abroad it’s back to the future as California’s new indoor face mandate comes into effect and my trip to the UK for New Year is cancelled.

Just a few weeks ago, there was every chance of travelling.  The plane was booked, hotels in Norwich, Manchester, London and Brighton selected, the prospect of Eleanor’s birthday, Christopher’s band at New Year and a trip to Old Trafford to watch a rejuvenated Manchester United thrash Wolves.  Then a little Omicron in the works and the prospect of getting on public transport, being in dingy bars and becoming quarantined in the Holiday Inn equivalent of Wormwood Scrubs became too much.  

So, in 2021, outside of a trip to Washington in June, my life will have revolved around the idyllic neighbourhood of North Park and South Park and I’d have to say there are plenty of worse places to be.  The neighbourhood has survived furloughs, lockdowns, labor shortages and deep cleansing routines with remarkable vigor.  A new ice cream parlour opened on the corner of Juniper and 30th just last weekend after the shop had been empty for the best part of two years.

To say it’s an ice cream parlour underplays the vibe.  The ice cream is from family-owned Mutual Friend, the venue offers a café with coffee from the renowned Dark Horse Coffee Roasters as well as vegan doughnuts and liege waffles.  On a busy corner of South Park with the Golden Rhino alongside and Matteo just over the road it is going to be a total success if my first encounter with it’s first night waffle cone is any guide.

Differences to the daily routines are relatively subtle but the march of time, technology and entrepreneurial zeal have shown their hand.  The Whistlestop Bar has started to accept credit cards, increased their wine range and there is an excellent taco food truck on the weekends.  Needless to say, I have continued to pay in cash, drink Alesmith and sit at the same table each week complaining about the young crowd these changes are attracting.     

There was even the excitement of Albert Hammond Jr attending a promotional night for his newly launched “wine seltzer” called Jetway which required the outdoor drinking area to be cleared for a VIP event.  While I’m not one to complain about celebrities needing their privacy I was a bit baffled to find that the guitarist and occasional backing vocalist of The Strokes had that level of stardom.  Having mastered all five chords of It Never Rains in Southern California recently I was going to offer to accompany him on his Dad’s top selling tune but he lost his chance.

Even the best barbershop in the world, Thee Inglorious Blacktree Barberia, has upped its technology game with a new online booking system called Booksy.  I am pleased to report that an increase in efficiency will not mean an end to being offered beer and a shot to kill some time before getting into the chair.  The other big news is that a food truck stops outside TIBB on a Wednesday and Saturday night – perhaps I should suggest a buzzcut ‘n’ BBQ promotion.

The longest running saga of the pre-Christmas period has been the failure to get a treadmill delivered.  Walmart had the first opportunity and the delivery van even got to park outside the house while I engaged with the driver to get him to put it, as agreed with the company, in the outhouse.  I found that American delivery drivers don’t bargain and after five minutes of him furiously gesticulating while he argued with dispatch on his phone he simply drove off.

While WalMart might think that they have the financial muscle and retail nous to take on Amazon this was a real indication that they do not have doorstep delivery in their blood.  Decades of having shoppers making a pilgrimage to their tedious acres of boring aisles on bland retail parks has numbed them to what individual service looks like.  The promises of a new delivery date were given but never matched by action and after another two weeks the order was cancelled.

Next up was BestBuy which has a decent reputation but is turning out neither to be Best or to offer any certainty that we can Buy.  A delivery man phoned to ask if he could come earlier in the day than expected and I agreed only to find that 12 hours passed without him coming and the dispatch team not even knowing where he was.  A second attempt found Felix promising action without any follow through and here we are two weeks later wondering if this is another bust.

What I have to believe is that somewhere in a WalMart warehouse and then in a BestBuy warehouse there has been/is an expensive, 300lb treadmill with my address on it.  There is no supply chain crisis where the parts are scattered around the world because a man turned up outside my house and was ready to deliver it if he’d been given the right instructions.  The purpose of logistics firms is to pick, load and deliver these items on a basis that is routine to the point of boredom and Amazon has got it right while others are failing.

Somebody who has delivered is my friend and erstwhile PR entrepreneur Tony Tighe with a book of his life and career called “30 Years of Bull****”.  It’s a romp through his starting point on the family’s Liverpool market, through early days in Benidorm and on to a career in beer sales and marketing before starting Greenwood Tighe PR.  We worked together during the heady days of ASDA store openings during the 1980s where budgets were lavish and hangovers a certainty.

For several years the level of invention and B list stars became increasingly surreal.  A world record breaking haggis for the opening in Corby, crooner Frankie Vaughan kicking down a green door in Stockport, Anneka Rice in a helicopter as part of the treasure trail for Hunt’s Cross and the extraordinary ‘wrapping’ of ASDA’s “present” to London at Colindale.  It was splashy and showy and was part of defining a brand that challenged the establishment hierarchy of Sainsbury and Tesco. 

When I returned to ASDA in the 1990s I had already been told that “the roundheads have taken over from the cavaliers” and the store opening budget was about 10% of its previous high.  We’d have the oldest and youngest members of staff cutting the ribbon or run a competition for a deserving local family to have a trolley dash for the opening.  The local coverage was decent but it wasn’t quite the same as bringing the motorway to a standstill and being on national news with store bound traffic as we had done in the glory days.

What had been carried forward from the 1980s was a contrarian, disruptive attitude to challenge the corporate smoothness and complacency of the two dominant southern based retail behemoths which saw us overtake Sainsbury on market share.  Tony had moved on to other things but I was fortunate to find new creative geniuses and allies at Lynne Franks PR to dominate tabloid and TV coverage and capture the imagination of “ordinary working people and their families”.  Having seen Mr Tighe write his book at the age of 70 I am pondering whether I should set about offering my own tales from a career in PR.    

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD SEES THE IMPOSTORS

There was a time when watching English multi-billionaire Richard Branson cock-a-snook at even bigger multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos by being first into space would have filled me with a sense of pride and delight.  Plucky little Englander beats richest-in-the-world American has been the stuff of dreams since 1776 and certainly since growing up in an England where ‘who won the war’ was sometimes as much a rallying call against US claims as taunting the defeated of 1945.  But, in the victory of the bearded over the bald, I can’t find any sense of achievement or excitement at being ‘first’ to launch a commercial, peopled flight to space.

I’ve gasped in awe at the Moon landings, marvelled at the miracle of Apollo 13 and delighted in the exploration of Mars as a multi-national feat of technical brilliance.  Four or five minutes of weightlessness and who has the biggest windows is the stuff of schoolboy boasts and a total irrelevance to me and many others.  Throwing multi-millions at it while the planet is burning, the poor are starving and pandemic variants lurks uneasily over daily life seems the ultimate waste of time in pursuit of bragging rights.

But it’s not the first time in recent months my perspective on winning and losing has been altered by living away from the UK.  I was not plunged into dark bitterness by the England team’s loss in the final of the Euros and was pleasantly cheered by the success of a young USA team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup at the weekend.  I’d wanted Mexico to win but in a battle between youth and experience the enterprise and optimism of the American team was overwhelmingly attractive.

At one point I thought that the Olympics would win me over to a more jingoistic frame of mind with memories of the Super Saturday of the 2012 London Olympics still burnished in my mind.  Watching Mo, Greg and Jessica rip through the global opposition in just 44 minutes of athletic excellence was a thrilling experience.  But for every winner there was someone doing their personal best or eating bitter disappointment as they find it is simply not their day.

Kipling’s advice in “If” was pretty much spot on – “If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same”. Which is not to say that Mr Kipling cakes are not equally perspicacious in advocating for “…that Friday evening Viennese Whirl, that says: “Disengage brain, switch off the week and welcome to pyjama town”.”  It is a different way of coping with a week of triumph and disaster but it has its merits.

Watching heptathlete Johnson-Thompson insist on hobbling over the line to complete the 200m in the heptathlon after damaging her achilles tendon was a reminder of the fine margins between glory and heartbreak.  It was reminiscent of the moment at the 1992 Olympics that that Derek Redmond’s father, Jim, broke through officials and security to help his son limp over the line in the 400m.  Difficult to remember all of the Gold medal winners from 30 years ago but that image of honour, love and courage in defeat is burnt into the memory.

But the real moment for me was seeing how the medal tables can represent the ways different media are handling their country’s situation.  The New York Times has been called out for using total medal count which places the US on top despite China having the greater haul of Gold medals.  Living in the land of revered American Football coach Vince Lombardi’s dictum – “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser” –  it seems counter intuitive to see second and third place given equal billing to the winner.

Perhaps, however, there is a sea change going on which recognizes that being first is only part of the purpose of human endeavour.  The response to Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the gymnastics competition and the joy at her returning to claim Bronze on the beam may just signal a recognition that physical and mental health are the main tests of whether any of us win or lose.  What was equally impressive was the solidarity of the other US competitors in emphasising that, in a sport where individual prowess is measured, the notion of team solidarity remains. 

Slightly more muted in most corners of the US media has been the response to the relative failure of serial winners the US Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNST), to do better than Bronze in their Olympic efforts.  It is difficult not to believe that this is partly because the team has become a political football (sic) with accusations of “Leftists maniacs” and “wokeism” resulting from the uncompromising statements of some players.  What impresses me more (apart from their record of success) is summed up by retired USWNST’s Abby Wambach, a gold medal winner in 2004 and 2012, in her book Wolfpack where she says she loved, “..winning and losing as ONE team” and “..the magic of collectively surrendering to an unknown outcome.”

I’ve just finished reading a book called Running to the Edge which is mainly about the work of Bob Larsen who was hugely instrumental in rebuilding American distance running after years of decline.  He summarises running coach and sports physiologist Joe Vigil speaking to Deena Kastor, later an Olympic Bronze medallist, at a point she was considering giving up the sport. It is an elegant metaphor for life and goes, “In this sport, success is all about the principles you live by… [it is] about building great relationships, setting goals for personal development, then trying to reach them, about bringing people into your life and venturing out on a journey with them.”

There is something symbolic about Branson, Bezos and, probably quite soon, Musk looking down on humanity from a bubble that their business success has bought them.  They have earned their success and employed people and created wealth and have every right to spend their money as they wish.  But the exclusive nature of space tourism* makes it difficult to feel that they are on the same team as most.

Notes

*Virgin Galactic plans to conduct just one more test flight before it will begin flying paying customers. More than 600 people have reserved tickets priced at $200,000 to $250,000 so far. The company is expected to reopen ticket sales soon, though at a higher price point.  Prices for Blue Origin have not yet been published.

Image by Colleen ODell from Pixabay

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD MOUNTS THE PELICAN

The exit from pandemic lockdown seems as long and complex as the lockdown was abrupt and simple.  A few months of outdoor eating have turned into another few months of indoor seating but the masks remain.  Anti-vaccine campaigners are as prolific as pandemic deniers and concerns about variants veer from the hysterical to the comforting.

The much bigger and more dramatic news is that I have turned from a leader in the Peloton resistance to a convert.  I’ve always considered that ‘spinning’ was a traditional cottage industry best left to sheep farmers in the Orkney Islands and that ‘soul cycle’ was just a marketing effort to make spandex sound as cool as Marvin Gaye. Anyone who doubts this logic should consider the relative merits of The Spinners singing Dirty Old Town and Soul Man by the mighty Sam and Dave.

My world vision is of bikes on the open road if they have to exist at all but as a walker and car driver I have my doubts about the value of wheeled vehicles powered by somebody’s gluteus maximus, rectus femoris and gastrocnemius.  Add in the red face, body squeezed into lycra and sense of entitlement to the road or pavement regardless of pedestrians and you have a recipe for confrontation.  I understand the benefits to health and the environment but can’t work out why they spoil the good work by being so angry all the time.   

Any prospect of sitting and sweating on a stationary bike alongside a dozen other humans puffing and panting with exertion was my idea of malebolge – the eighth circle of hell.  This was the one where Dante suggested that fraudsters were sent and I can think of nothing more fraudulent than persuading people they enjoyed paying money to be tortured by some screaming sadist with calves made of wurtzite boron nitride.  

But the Peloton arrived two months ago and has outperformed all expectations while being renamed the Pelican for no reason other than they look similar and it sounds funnier.  From being considered an occasional alternative to running and rowing it has delivered a whole new physical, aural and visual experience.  I’ve even found myself recommending its merits to other people which makes me sound like I have totally signed on to the cult.

The instructors are good and you get to pick someone who matches how you feel on the day whether that’s the brutal Olivia Amato and Kendall Toole or ex-Buddhist monk Sam Yo’s five minute warm ups.  There’s a nice chirpy British feel to Leanne Hainsby and Ben Alldis and recent Reddit rankings show a lowest difficult ranking (7.34) for Portland’s Hannah Corbin.  The Reddit list warns me off Christian Vande Velde because he is the toughest (8.67), an ex-professional cyclist who has finished fourth in the Tour de France and sounds scarily like a Bond villain with a plot to take over the world through spinning.

Speaking of Bond reminds me that another great US success, Amazon, has brought access to 007 with its purchase of MGM.  My mind turned immediately to the prospect of home deliveries fulfilling the dream of the 1970s series of ‘all because the lady loves Milk Tray’ adverts.  The prospect of Daniel Craig dropping a Prime delivery of household essential onto the porch while simultaneously disarming brutish henchmen of psychopathic criminal geniuses is surely the best thing that could happen to our lives.

But I also had a soft spot for the notion that Disney would take over the Bond franchise as was suggested by business talk a few years ago.  It is no mistake that Bond’s double O number is seven because I have always suspected that Dopey was quietly spirited away one night and replaced by a deeply embedded British spy with a licence to kill.  It is the only possible reason that he does not have a beard and never speaks – you heard it here first.

The American takeover of a symbol of Britain’s history is something that is doubly on my mind as I approach the fourth anniversary of living in the US.  It’s also more than a year since I have travelled to the UK so the daily influence of the country has had no resistance for some time.  A few signs of underlying change have become noticeable.      

During a walk to Target last week I realized that American shop names now spring to mind before their UK equivalents.  Home Depot comes before Homebase, Nordstrom before Marks and Spencer and Costco before any of the inferior UK warehouse shopping equivalents.  When my ex-retailer mind has shifted to the wonders of the new world’s commerce it’s a moment to reflect on the changes that have crept up without me noticing.

I realised recently that I don’t really hear American accents any longer.  Working in Belfast for nearly two years I was constantly aware of the accent and would occasionally have to ask people to slow down and speak up because an Englishman was in the room.  But my ear has tuned to the tendency to pronounce ‘t’s’ as ‘d’s’ and the range of ‘have a nice days’ and ‘my pleasures’ that are everyday civilities.

The truth is that I can’t get Alexa to understand me unless I adopt some of the speech idiosyncrasies.  I spent several weeks asking her to turn on the outside lights but my insistence on the using the fricative ‘t’ in patio simply caused the Bezos version of computer says no.  Replacing it with a plosive ‘d’ makes me sound like a bad actor in Goodfellas but also has the desired effect of lighting the way.

I have moved into using sidewalk and garbage without wincing and have learnt not to say fortnight without hastily explaining that it comes from the Old English term ‘fēowertyne niht’ and means  fourteen nights.  No doubt I will slide into saying ‘y’all’ and thinking it is normal to take food home from a restaurant because the portions are too big.  There is some way to go before then and it is possible that my return to the home country, vaccination passport or alternative willing, in Autumn (still can’t get used to saying Fall) this year will bring a pause in my Americanization.  We shall see.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay