Moving to San Diego seemed to be one of the easier calls in life. Trading in the English winter for Californian sun was no hardship. And I had successfully managed a move from Essex to Yorkshire, arguably the greatest cultural distance in England, when I was 23. But we are creatures of our environment and subtle changes are worthy of reflection.
San Diego is one of the great craft beer cities in the world and I have been converted from my standard lager to the local product. A lifelong love affair with Stella has become a series of one-night flings with Sticky Henderson, Perky Blonde and Deftones Phantom Bride. These are courtesy of the brewers Resident, Belching Beaver and Thorn Street – just three from the 100+ in San Diego County . But to my great shame I was so distracted by the weather and wearing flip-flops (of which more in a moment) that it took me three months to realise that a pint is not a pint. It’s not even close. People from the country of my birth know that this is one area where size is everything and will be glad to read that history and actuality are both on our side.
Since 1824 the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth have broadly standardised on the Imperial (feel your heart swell with pride at a word which gets less play by the day) pint equivalent to 568ml. In America the standard pint is 473ml – the uncharitable might even call it the ‘Puny’ pint. That’s because the Imperial (had to use that word again) pint is about 20% larger.
The downside is that what I had begun to consider an increasingly heroic drinking capacity was rather less impressive than I thought. However, craft beer often weighs in at a pretty hefty 6%+abv compared to Stella’s 5.2%. Like the shots to goals ratio of an erratic centre forward I have not quite worked out the right balance between volume and potency but look forward to continuing my education.
An offshoot of this discovery is the mild satisfaction of realising that US gallons are smaller than British gallons. So the price of petrol (or gas as I call it when I am trying to fit in) is not quite so extraordinarily low as we have all thought for years. But I am also told that California gas is expensive compared to Pennsylvania so visitors should choose their destination and filling stations wisely.
My second discovery has been that wearing flip-flops is not the work of the devil. Like most English boys from my era my feet have been encased safely in socks and shoe leather from my first pair of Start-Rite’s to my latest black lace-ups. The notion of bare feet in public anywhere but on holiday in some far-away place where the neighbours would never see has been largely unthinkable.
But there is something about constant sunshine and getting very hot feet that lured me into reversing years of tradition, training and toe-trapping. Shopping the Zappos app has become a little like finding Tinder for shoes as I swipe right for OluKai and Chaco and left for Loake’s. Inevitably, the increased exposure of my feet has led me even further down the path towards behaviour my father would have considered slightly troubling. I had a pedicure.
In my defence I was driven by a sense of anthropological enquiry after being told that the ratio of men to women made mani-pedi salons a dating hot spot. I had, after all, been responsible for the PR team that invented ‘love in the aisles’ to suggest that ASDA’s frozen food aisle was Cupid’s home. For those interested I can report that nail salons are as unlikely to light the fires of love as frozen cod fillets. But if baby soft, good-looking feet are a sign of evolutionary success it’s an hour well spent.
This probably gives the impression that my early months have been spent strolling around the neighbourhood visiting bars and obsessing about my toes. I write that as if it would be a bad thing, but it really isn’t given the quality and quantity of local beers and brew-houses. My current recommendations to visitors are The Bluefoot Bar in North Park (for a dive/sports bar), the Queenstown in Little Italy (Sunday brunch/people watching), and 10 Barrel Brewing in East Village (great balcony).
Sadly, the Bluefoot is a place of pilgrimage for Arsenal fans. Matters appeared to come to a head last week when there was a seven-hour stand-off as SWAT teams thought they had a homicide suspect holed up across the road from the bar. I know that the Carabao Cup result was distressing for the Gooner faithful but that seemed a bit extreme…
My third discovery came when crossing the road the other day. Firstly, I managed to look to my left first to check for traffic which is quite something after so many years of Tufty Fluffytail and the Green Cross Code adverts reminding me to look right. It always struck me as one of the stranger journeys for David Prowse to go from child-safety icon, the Green Cross Man, to progeny-maiming dark lord, Darth Vader. But it’s nice to have some perspective by learning that Prowse’s west-country lilt led to the rest of the cast nicknaming him Darth Farmer.
More important though was that I headed for the pavement (sidewalk!) that was IN THE SHADE. Sensibilities built up over years of vitamin D sapping winter weather and overcast summer days dictate that when there is sunshine an English person walks in it. There are days when crowds of people zig-zag their way down city streets to maximise exposure and worship the glowing, unfathomable orb in the sky – it’s like line dancing but from a cult that also invented Morris dancing.
We do it because we know that the sun might disappear any moment – behind a cloud or a building. More worryingly we know that its reappearance is not certain. Certainly not for days or even months. So we act like lizards, soaking up the warmth and the rays to see us through the lengthy periods of dark, cold and precipitation we know are heading our way.
Sunshine or shade. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the distance between the innocent, carefree time of the Green Cross man and the stygian depths of Darth Vader as he embraced the dark side. But that’s for another blog and a different time…in a galaxy far, far away.