The Boston-Standard Winter Survival Test

I passed my Boston-standard cold-weather-survival test this weekend. I'm pretty chuffed, to say the least. It's taken me two and a bit Northeastern U.S. winters to get this far, but I'm sure others with prior experience somewhere like Siberia or the Arctic could probably progress faster. Here's the scale I'm working to:

1.Florida standard: Must be able to complain that 60 F (15.5 C) is cold. No, really. Must be able to tolerate these temperatures combined with some lower humidity and grey skies. Must demonstrate ability to recognise these temperatures, locate and turn on heating.

2.New York City standard: Must show understanding of 'wind-chill factor' and 'it's cold even underground in the subway'. Equipment needed: gloves, hat, large scarf, what your mother would call a good coat. Test: walk 20 blocks along the unsheltered length of Central Park without any aids such as hot drinks or taking a taxi.

3.Boston standard: Must be able to survive walking home in the evening when inevitably unable to locate a cab, minimum 20 minutes in the wind. Needs to own at least two layers of thermals and good boots. 'Fashion' hats (eg crocheted, berets, knitted by your Gran) not acceptable. Endurance test: spend several hours outdoors with no shelter at a 'tailgate' (sometimes, mostly in summer, also known as a picnic in a car park*)

4.Montreal standard: Needs to demonstrate ability to survive minimum seven months without seeing anything green and growing. Be able to get out of bed in the morning even when faced with five-foot snow drifts. Test for women: Go out in the evenings wearing heals and fashionable (ie, not necessarily warm) clothes. Test for men: Go out in the evenings without using the car.

I suspect there are other standards beyond Montreal standard but I've only just started training to this level... I'm not sure, for example, where somewhere like Chicago or Green Bay, Wisconsin would fit in. Any ideas?

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* Tailgates have been known to me as picnics in car parks ever since I went to New Jersey's Meadowlands complex to see the New York Red Bulls v LA Galaxy - David Beckham's first visit - and overheard a little English boy quite sensibly asking his parents why 'all those people' were having a picnic in the car park.

Auntie's Bloomers

(Rant alert)

I don't get BBC America. Yes, I watch it - mainly because out of 200-odd tv channels, it's a haven to recognise the acronym. But seriously, I don't get who it thinks its market is. I'm assuming, it being the BBC, it's used some poor UK license-payers' money to commission some flashy market research over here -- god knows how Sham Wow! and repetitive Intercontinental ads alone could fund that kind of research -- and yet it seems to wobble unsuccessfully between trying to please a guaranteed expat audience and attempting to conquer American viewers.

Watching the news at 7pm or 10pm, I quite often find it excruciatingly embarrassing and squirm-inducing - a bit like watching an original UK episode of The Office. They invite along all these U.S. guests anxious to prove what brilliantly intelligent anglophiles they are, while the presenters dither over questions and prove that they couldn't prod a potato let alone a politician. I'm not a big fan of American news programs either, but I just can't get behind this method of marketing the Beeb in America.

I may finally have had enough. Today, for example, one of the news pieces was a story that "is all people are talking about in the UK", we were told. In a Murdoch-by-the-book example of cross-selling, the BBC America newscaster explained with customary patronage that former BBC political jouno John Sergeant has been winning the UK version of Dancing With The Stars (shown on the BBC) by the popular vote, although the judges have declared him a dancing failure -- and so he has bowed out to let other celebrities have a chance to win. I am sure people are talking about this in the UK -- but does anyone care over here, who isn't an expat and hasn't already seen the story on the web or heard it over email from relatives or friends?

Then I saw an advert for the tv programme Gladiators - which I vaguely remember was on ITV in the UK, not the BBC. And while this takes me back to happy days of my childhood, again it's confusing. Presumably, BBC in America thinks this is the kind of show its audience wants, and can't get on the other 200 or so channels. Not that I'd know, because I spend very little time watching those other channels, but American Football certainly seems to have some parallels with Gladiators...

Anyway - I wanted to know what you guys think, assuming you're expats or Americans with an interest in UK culture. Am I just whingeing? Would you rather turn to BBC America for Eastenders and Corrie, the odd costume drama and re-run of Only Fools and Horses? Or do you like the fact it seems to present its vision of American television, run through a British wringer?

Beer, head & rules

A long time ago, back in the old country, I worked at a local former coaching inn. Having just looked it up online again, it actually looks like a quite beautiful little hotel, the kind that visiting Americans would probably love. It has a pub -- which (at least when I worked there) had a bad reputation among the locals -- and also a bar with a small restaurant. It has a reception room attached too and I spent much of one summer pouring drinks at weddings. It is owned by the largest British-owned brewery in the UK and has a reasonable range of beers on tap.

Anyway, when I started, I was given a cursory training in 'pulling' beer -- at least the ales, which aren't simply a case of flipping a tap. Among the things I was taught, and I remember this was even included in a little training booklet I was given, was that the beer's head shouldn't be more than an inch. In fact, I remember being told that patrons had the right to refuse to pay for beer with more than an inch of head.

I've been thinking about this because quite regularly here, pints of beer are served very rarely anywhere close to full. Sometimes you feel like you've been cheated of at least $1 of the $6 beer you bought. On the other hand, in the UK these days, bar staff seem to take pride in serving pints of full as possible and mastering the art of handing them to you without spilling - so that you can have the pleasure yourself of spilling the pint down your wrist, onto your shoes and all over the angry people in front of you on your way back to where your friends are standing.

But anyway, I've been googling to see if the 2.5 cm rule was a real law or just something made up by this brewery - and I can't find any evidence of either. Does anyone know if this is a rule? And, if so, why hasn't Bloomberg launched something similar here?

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And if you're at a loose end - take a look at the video here of Lawrence Dallaglio, Ambassador for a certain beer, showing you how he pulls it.

Oh dear...

Once again, work got a bit on top of me over the last few months and a nasty cold coupled with a chain of visitors topped it off. It wasn't that I didn't want to post, but, well - this is an apologetic catch-up again, I'm afraid. I've been pretty busy, to be honest:

1. I popped my food delivery cherry. Yes, dear reader, I've lived here two and a half years and until last month I'd never had the gall to order food and have it delivered. I was not a true New Yorker. Part of my fear was not knowing how much to tip and the other part was a certain English sensibility that ordering food to be delivered might give my neighbours a certain impression of me... I don't know why I care what the neighbours think - this being New York, I may as well not have any neighbors for all I see them. But anyway, last month I plucked up the courage to make a phone call to order pizza not once, not twice, but four times and I haven't looked back since. I hope by the New Year to have got the hang of ordering from at least one other food category - perhaps sushi, or a curry... Don't want to push it, but I'm proud of my progress so far.

2. At one point in the last few weeks, I felt so ill that I took myself to the doctor's office. I'd more or less convinced myself I was at death's door - strange what being away from home and English common sense and the National Health Service will do for you. I sat in the doctors office feeling like I was on fire, but with a strange watery sensation in my lap. It wasn't until 45 minutes later and I was called to the nurse that I realised I'd failed to put the lid on my litre bottle of water and it had been slowly dribbling through my new red leather handbag and down my jeans. I peered in and my wallet was literally floating in my handbag. I dug it out and hid the bag, dripping, behind me as I walked into the nurse's office. Where they asked me a load of questions about my medical history. Then I waited 10 minutes. Then I went to the doctor's. Who spent 15 minutes asking the same questions and marveling about how I couldn't remember the name of the last doctor I saw, more than two years ago now. Then back to the nurse for a strep test (is this the same as tonsilitis? I've never figured it out. To my knowledge 'strep' either doesn't exist in England, or Brits are blessedly immune). All the while I was leaving a trail of watery red dye behind me. I don't think I'll be going back in a hurry. It was bad, but it got worse when I realised on leaving that both my mobile and my work-issued blackberry were floating, lifeless, in the dregs of the water. I hate being ill. It was definitely the most costly doctor's visit I've ever had.

3. Oh yes, about the history that happened. Bleary-eyed shortly after 6am last Tuesday I stumbled to the bus stop for work. I could not for the life of me figure out why there was a three-block long queue of people lining up outside the housing estate across the road. My eyes were a little wonky and everyone was bundled up against the cold in a way that suggested Russian bread lines. I briefly wondered just how bad the financial crisis had got before getting on the bus and forgetting all about it until I got to the office, where all the yanks were whingeing about the voting lines. To which I replied, ha, well, at least you CAN vote and made a lame-arse crack (complaint) about taxation without representation, which just doesn't have the same ring to it as it did 200 years ago after a load of nice tea had been thrown into a harbor.

4. The other thing that's taken up my time has been the end of the baseball season. For the last few weeks, my braindead tv-watching time, previously occupied by baseball, has been taken over by American football. If you remember, this was where I was at last football season. Now, I find myself watching football much as I do a firework display - the odd second where I go 'ooooh!' in admiration when someone catches a far-flung ball, or 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!' the moment when someone breaks through a line of vicious lycra-clad warriors and then 90 percent of the time thinking that I'm getting a crick in my neck from straining to watch action that's hidden behind trees/clouds/ad breaks for new cars.