Mick Jagger's Filing Cabinet; or, some things I will never understand about America

Howdy brah! Do you floss?

With the chronic politeness that actually saw me renamed "Thank-You-Sorry" on a recent trip away with American friends, I'd like to begin by offering - you guessed it! - sincere apologies for my commitment-phobic 'approach' to blogging over the past seven weeks. My excuse is that I have but lately rejoined the land of the gainfully employed, and have been concentrating really hard on not messing that up.

Luckily, this temporary hiatus (is there any other kind?) means I return to you with a new perspective on life, as I am by now essentially a bona-fide American. I have a Social Security number, think entirely in US Dollars and just the other day referred to coriander as 'cilantro' without so much as retching. I eat Twinkies for breakfast, sleep in Stars-and-Stripes PJs, and ride a bald eagle to work.

Just kidding! There are still LOADS of things I still can't wrap my head around, and here they are:

Adventures in Marketing: How could you, Don?

Perhaps I'm just resentful that $90 cardigans don't feature heavily on my shopping list, but even just passing the poster for the new Mad Men Collection at a well-known clothing store every day makes me grumpy. It's not that I object to retailers taking inspiration from cultural trends (far from it; the sooner H&M brings out a Clueless-inspired collection, the better as far as I'm concerned). It's more the dubious sell-out this represents for what is, to my mind, one of television's finest artistic achievements.

To the lighthouse! Confessions of a unsolved mystery addict

There are certain keywords that are just digital catnip to the easily-obsessed internet browser. For me, those words are: 'never to be seen again'.

As a wiser (and more male) man than I once said, "Joe Public loves a good mystery blaze" - but seriously, is there anyone alive that doesn't thrill to read an unsolved mystery? Somewhat tragically, I found my childhood obsession with unexplained disappearances, ghoulish foretellings and, er, ghost ships reignited by this phenomenally creepy account of a 1957 camping trip in the Urals that went spectacularly wrong for ten US skiers, who ventured into the mountains never to be - ah, you've guessed it.

So if you too owned and loved the Reader's Digest Strange Stories, Amazing Facts - a book whose total penetration throughout every British household during the early 90s is an unexplained mystery in itself - I present to you the Top Five Creepy Mysteries that unsettled my nine year-old self most. As my new compatriots might say: addicting!

Hiatus...

Apologies for the lack of recent posting - the Teacup is currently away from the Bay, with much-missed family on what I believe is called a 'vacation' here. Normal service will be resumed in the fullness of time!

The Importance of Being Nicest (aka: Lessons from Wyld Stallyns)

Amongst the many influences Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure has had on my life - including teaching me that Joan of Arc was not Noah's wife -  the exhortation to 'Be excellent to each other' is by far the most sort-of-profound.

As such, I rival your average finishing school headmistress in my preoccupation with issues of etiquette and manners - my own more than anyone else's, really - and couldn't help but love this highly practical post on how to politely request somebody's help [Jezebel: The Tricky Business of Asking for Work Favours]. As someone whose worst nightmare is being described as 'rude' (and yes, I have actually had nightmares about it), it makes inordinately happy when I discover that other humans care about this kind of thing too. Happy - and polite - days!

When bad things happen to good museums

Surveillance footage of the
Weinstein Gallery theft

Perhaps it's my background at a fine institution that suddenly found itself the focus of this kind of attention in 2006, but I can't help noticing when museums and galleries hit the news for the 'wrong' reasons.

The 5 comedy songs that are just genuinely awesome

Anyone can write a silly song, but occasionally that rare beast comes along - a comedy song that is also a genuinely superb bit of music. And sometimes, that beast comes along five times!

Based on my passion for said musical comedy (and 1980s-inspired synths, it would seem), please enjoy this entirely subjective list of the five comic songs from television and radio that are just awesome tracks.

In which I solve the burgeoning diplomatic crisis

Seasons change, dogs moult, yet some spats are doomed to rumble until the end of time. Today, Jezebel is most put out by a recent survey of contemptuous British attitudes towards the inexorable march of Americanisms into the English language [Jezebel: Brits hate you for saying 'train station']. All the usual suspects are heres: apparently, we Brits loathe the words "gotten" and "normalcy", are full of hatred for the phrase "you do the math", and will just stab anyone who orders a "take-out". The US response is disgruntled, to say the least: "other horrid consequences of American influence include ladies wearing trousers, men being seen in public without their powdered wigs, and mass unemployment of footmen," snarketh back Jezebel.

So, before muskets start being fired, or I get placed in some sort of holding facility, I simply must set something straight. My 'fellow' Americans: this so-called canvassing of Brit opinion comes not from any rational source, but from the denizens of the 'Have Your Say' recesses of the BBC News site. For anyone unfamiliar with this shadowy netherworld, it's an arena so astonishingly intolerant that somebody has actually created a separate website just to catalogue the worst excesses of its "dribble-spattered lunacy". These are people who post things like "the whole idea of females working outside the typical occupations of teaching, nursing, agriculture and so on is wildly impractical". They think racial profiling doesn't go far enough, and that the re-implantation of chain gangs is the only way to tame Britain's youth. They're the ones that make the famously rabid Daily Mail commenters think "steady on, guys".

In short: if there's a group of people who are going to email the BBC in droves when invited to talk about something foreign they don't like, it's this lot. So, 'burglarize' aside (because that one really is mental): stand down, America! The British are not coming.

One more thing though. What is wrong with saying "train station"?

Adventures in Marketing: Pickin' on Hardly Strictly

I am unbelievably excited about attending my first Hardly Strictly Bluegrass later this year, such is the legendary fame of this much-loved free annual festival in Golden Gate Park. I'm also a huge fan of the way the organizers are building momentum to the event itself via their Facebook page, posting fan pics of previous events (complete with happy reminiscences from the snappers themselves), flagging folky gigs going on around town that might interest fans of HSB, and generally nurturing a lovely, unforced sense of community spirit. 

Most of all, I love their strategy for dripfeeding details of the line-up: by offering fans a Soundcloud 'Sneak Peek Medley' of the featured artists, and encouraging us to guess who's confirmed to play by working out who's featured on the audio. It's such a beautifully simple idea, and even when I can't guess all of the bands I'm hearing, I'm still listening to some fabulous music. This is how you promote something - with a semblance of heart. Cheers for the lesson, HSB folks!

Adventures in Marketing: Some unsolicited advice for Netflix

Who doesn't enjoy giving unsolicited 'expert' advice? Turns out it's fairly fun to read as well, which is why I love the idea of this 'Free Consultation' over at The Awl. The idea - that airlines could humanise their operations and curry some customer loyalty by letting booking customers know exactly which pilots and cabin crew they'll be flying with - is fun and rather neat, and I bet no-one's actually thought of it before.

It's also nice to see unsolicited advice being doled out as a positive concept, rather than a reaction to something gone wrong - which, if we're honest, is where the rest of us usually begin. (As self-designated squadron leader of Pedant Patrol, I'm a dreadful one for this, particularly when it comes to duff promotional text on websites and product packaging - but that's another story entirely.) Sadly, the only nugget of uninvited marketing wisdom I can offer right now is in this vein, to the beleaguered Netflix (that's the US Love Film, Brit readers), whose recent price hikes have inspired 90% of the US population to riot:

Guys -
In all honestly I don't really care that you've put your prices up by $6. What I do care about it finding out from an outraged Internet a whole seven hours before you get around to notifying me, your customer, by email. 

Now, let's not fall out again, as I have got a whole six seasons of The X-Files to rediscover via your Watch Instantly service and there's no way I'm actually buying those.

Carly 

That feels better. Now, what life-changing unsolicited advice would you offer to Big Bizniss, for a 'nominal fee'?

I'm not from New York City, I'm from Rotherham

I ask you: What is it about moving thousands of miles from the motherland that makes an otherwise sensible person turn her home into a one-bed British Embassy?

I should begin by acknowledging I've essentially answered my own question there, but mental images of me sleeping in a Union Jack romper aside, it's comical how nationalistic a transatlantic move can make one feel. I may not have applied to the Department of the Interior for ambassadorial status quite yet, but the fact remains that until I actually step across my threshold into the San Francisco fog, I could quite easily convince myself that I never left the British Isles.

It's the morning routine that's most telling. It's not just the worrying reliance on PG Tips and Marmite on toast, despite not really liking either of these brands prior to leaving the UK. It's the obsession with reading all of the major UK newspapers online of a morning. It's the need to hear the soothing sounds of BBC Radio, even if that means this very morning hearing Jeremy Vine asking (and I'm not joking here): "have YOU ever had your eyes pecked out by a bird? Call us!"

The crunching irony is that I am the least likely British citizen to fall prey to anything as embarrassing as national pride. In fact, in my past life living over the River Cam, I counted myself as quite the Yankophile. Only the finest HBO boxsets were allowed to grace our DVD tray. US news outlets and opinion sites were my bread and butter, and I was one of those pig-irritating Brits that when overheard snickering at the computer, would airily announce: "oh, it's just the Republicans up to their usual tricks again". Now, I find myself drawn to the cultural equivalent of apple crumble. I snuffle up all available episodes of The Office (British one, of course), and fill up my iPod with Adam & Joe podcasts. My love of the Boss is on temporary hiatus while I snuggle down listening to Stornaway and the Smiths.

Of course, the funny thing is that this week my two worlds have collided. Even without taking the Royal stagecoach into consideration, the scale of the News of the World's perniciousness is so great that San Franciscans have stopped worrying about the illegal goldfish market long enough to be genuinely shocked by the distinct whiff of sulphur emitting from News International. British news, it seems, is big news over here right now.

So, as I switch on my sixteenth Blackadder episode, my heart swells a little - knowing there's nothing like hearing the words "gutter press", "Metropolitan Police"  and "unfathomable corruption" to make a Brit feel that little bit closer to home.

The 3 non-fiction books you need in your life

They say you can learn a lot about a person from the possessions they'd rescue if their house was burning down. For the purposes of this post, I think the same holds true if you replace 'possessions' with 'books', 'rescue' with 'didn't sell', and substitute moving abroad for the whole burning house thing.

Scanning our sparsely-populated shelves here in our SF flat, here's what I have learned: a surprising number of my non-fiction books accompanied me onto US soil. So, in honour of these brave little pioneers, and taking my cue from the Guardian's recent '100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books' list, here's my recommendations for three non-made-up books you have to read:

The tipping point

At the risk of turning this into some sort of money blog, I'd like to turn my attentions to the subject that has flummoxed this immigrant most - tipping.

Let me clarify before you think I've turned into a typing cliché: I'm no Mr Pink. It is not the act of tipping itself or the monies required that I have trouble with. It is, as far as I'm concerned, a non-optional social convention, and that's a-ok with me. The whole shebang may be in stark opposition to the UK system (where leaving a tip of any amount is really only brought about by great-to-exceptional service), but as the BBC iPlayer keeps forlornly reminding me when I try to watch The Apprentice, I am not in the UK.

Je m'appelle Carly

On the telephone with an cheery representative from the Department of Motor Vehicles, arranging to take the California driving test:

Her: "Your accent is lovely! Where are you from, France?"  

Me: "No, I'm actually English." 

Her: "Cool! I was thinking either French or British, it just sounds so nice. What's your name?" 

Me, rather pleased: "It's Carly." 

Her, suddenly sounding CRUSHINGLY disappointed: "Oh. I totally did not expect you to have a name like that."

'Sad veiled bride, please be happy...'

My lovely and talented friend Tom, who blogs about books at Tomcat in the Red Room, has had a temporary lapse in his usually stellar judgement and allowed me to write a guest post for him!

I'm reviewing one of my very favourite novels: Richard Yates' incomparable, heartbreaking The Easter Parade, and you can read it here (the review, not the book - although you should read that too).

PS. I shall be awarding one pulled pork sandwich to the first commenter to name that tune in the title of this post. (Please allow time for overseas delivery.)

"I don't think it's as common over here"

I have come to terms with the fact that nine times out of ten, my name is liable to be misheard over here. I don't think there's been a time where I've introduced myself and haven't been asked - very nicely, mind - to repeat myself. It's not so much my name being an uncommon one than a combination of my unfamiliar accent and the markedly different vowel sounds in US pronunciation: I have always pronounced my name "Caah-lee", but over here the sound is more akin to "Caurrh-lee". Mystery solved!

However, what I didn't realise was just what my pronunciation of my name sounded like to US ears. I'd noticed that people looked a tad bemused upon hearing it for the first time, until saying "oh, Carly, right!" - but hadn't paid too much attention to why this might be.

Image: Evelyn S, Wikimedia Commons

The scene: one of my favourite pork sandwich emporiums in the Ferry Building. I order my favourite delicacy, which I am told will take around five minutes to prepare. I'm asked for my name, so that my order can be called when it's ready for me to collect. No problem! "I'm Carly," I trill - at which the guy looks a little confused, but duly writes it down.

"I haven't heard that one," he says. "Is it kind of unusual?"
"Hmm, not really," I chunter. "Although I don't think it's as common over here as it in the UK."
"Well now I know," says the very pleasant young man, who I swear is barely suppressing laughter. "Have a nice day!"

I wait for five minutes at the side of the counter, and sure enough, the server calls out what I hear as "Carly?", and I eagerly spirit off my delicious-smelling sandwich. Only when I look at the receipt I've also just been handed do I see what my name was taken down as:

"COLLIE". As in the dog.

Needless to say, I now introduce myself as "Caurrh-lee", although I should point out that I don't hold the monopoly on comic mishearings - to American ears, my husband Rob's name sounds like "Rub". So, readers: have you ever fallen prey to a name-shaming?

Land of Opportunities to Spend Money

It can't all be raucous nights out and base jumping, so one of the games that I've particularly enjoyed playing since our arrival in San Francisco is the pithily-titled, entirely-subjective "What Seems Surprisingly Expensive Here, and What Doesn't?".

To partake you will need a) a foreign country, and b) another country (for scale). Let's play!


Part One: What Seems Surprisingly Expensive Here?

But imagine the salad!

• Grocery stores. A dollar an apple, really? To any San Francisco resident, complaining about Whole Foods and Mollie Stone's being expensive sounds like complaining about the rain being wet, but it's still startling just how much more costly these stores are compared with the higher-end UK equivalents such as Waitrose or M&S. It's especially confusing to encounter higher-than-expected prices in Safeway, although admittedly this perception might be due to their long-defunct UK incarnation as a decidedly 'budget' supermarket. Exhibit A: my friends' so-bad-it-must-be-true tale of purchasing a larger-than-average tomato from Mollie Stone's, which was rung through the register at a princely $12 dollars. That's right, c.£7: for one tomato.
  
• Mobile phone contracts. This is one of the aspects of US living that I - somewhat foolishly - assumed would be ridiculously cheap. Not so, fact fans! Verizon's basic Talk and Text plan giving me just 450 inclusive minutes would set me back $60 - and that's before adding any kind of web plan, which starts at $30 for smartphones. So that's easily $90 (£55) a month - for a pretty bog-standard contract. Come back O2 - all is forgiven!
  
• Home entertainment packages. The only impressive thing about our UK package was the undeniably remarkable way in which Virgin Media conspired to raise our bill by roughly 20% every single month. But at least they didn't charge me $99 (£60) for TV, internet and phone, which is what Comcast's pricing system begins at here. So, no TV and no landline for Chez Teacup, which is why you will not be able to a) talk to me about last night's television or b) actually talk to me.

Part Two: What Doesn't?

Time zone trauma; plus, when is the cut-off?

I flatter myself to think that I've got the hang of the eight-hour time difference between here and the UK - not that that stops me beginning a family Skype conversation with the words "What's the time over there, then?". That said, cringeworthy mistakes do still happen, and not even their initial concern that you've been run over will protect from the wrath incurred by a 3am phone call.

To this end, I heartily recommend that any Gmail user in exile from the homeland enables the Sender Time Zone feature in Gmail Labs (ie. the thrilling antechamber where you can test-drive probably-great-maybe-rubbish beta propositions on your Gmail account). Not only does it show the local time an email was sent, it also gives the current time over there. Probably the most useful element is the little phone icon that appears next to a sender's name, which turns green during local 'business hours' (9am - 6pm) and red-for-danger outside of those. Whilst I'd argue they could afford to extend that to 9pm (which, strangely enough, this otherwise-useful Lifehacker article seems to believe they already have done), it's preposterously useful as an at-a-glance guide. Just make sure you've got your correct time zone set in your own Google account settings, obviously.

Sadly, the biggest issue still remains. Tell me - when IS the 'cut-off'?

Watteau vs Wallet: or, putting a price on your museum visit

Working in an industry that you've always enjoyed from 'the other side' is undoubtedly a privilege, but it doesn't half limit your weekend options. Having worked in one of the UK's best museums for almost four years, it's now impossible for me to just 'relax' and enjoy a visit to any one of the world-class art institutions I now find on my doorstep. Exhibition layouts, hang heights, the merits of various promotional fonts – don't I sound fun to be with?

Yet what particularly caught my eye on my last museum trip (to the de Young, as it happens) was the sheer number of visitors spilling through the doors. There wasn't a downpour outside, or a special promotion taking place; these people had all simply decided that a museum experience was worth their time on a sunny Saturday. Most strikingly for me - coming from a country where the majority of museums and galleries are free to the public - that it was worth the admission fee.

Golden Gate Pork

To kick-start this endeavour, I felt it important to establish from the outset the kind of thing the casual reader can expect: namely, lame puns and an unseemly emphasis on food.  So with that in mind, let's talk about pulled pork!

Oh, he knows...
(Image: BArchBot, WikiMedia Commons)

But pulled pork...it's a different world! If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a different bloody animal! These oozy, butter-tender strands and lumps of slow-cooked pork, raked off the beast and stuffed into a sandwich that is destined to drip oil all over your front - humble pig, is that really you? Oink three times for yes!