One of the great things about living in the U.S. is that it's actually possible to watch The Oscars at a more-or-less reasonable hour. Last year, I was invited to my first ever Oscars party and I loved every minute of it. I was really looking forward to this year's Oscars - something to mark on the calendar to get me through the long winter. But then I got addicted to The Wire....
You see, my friend who has the Oscars party is part of the book group I'm in. She and some of her friends used to work in a small town in Pennsylvania - as she's explained it, watching films was pretty much all there was to do there in the winter, and they started putting together a spreadsheet with a list of the films and they'd share the file and write down their thoughts on each film. When I was invited to join the spreadsheet posse last year, I saw it as a challenge - being the most irritatingly goal-oriented person you know on the internets (pity those who know me in real life) - and I set about watching as many of the films as I could. I did pretty well. This year, however, I was so busy watching episodes of The Wire, oh, and still trying to keep a job, that I really only started watching the nominated films last week... But I was still determined to watch at least all the nominees in the best actor/actress and film categories and hopefully some of the others.... With this goal in mind, yesterday, I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Encounters At The End Of The World, Doubt and The Changeling. Today, all I needed to see were The Reader and Milk. Then I'd have about 70 percent of the spreadsheet covered.
I saw The Reader this morning. I then walked over to a cinema with a 4pm showing of Milk - which I could fit in perfectly before the event started.
It was sold out.
I am beside my little goal-oriented self. The REALLY annoying thing is that I actually rather wanted to see Milk, while I had next to no interest in some of the others and, because Milk is in the 'Best Film' category, I don't know how the others match up to it...
I think after a few glasses of red wine tonight I should get over this disappointment but I have to say, if The Curious Case of Benjamin Button wins a load of awards and if The Wrestler doesn't, I may well lose the plot entirely. I can't believe I spent three hours of my life watching Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt wearing varying amounts of make up and staring gormlessly into sunsets.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Money, money, money
Like the rest of the world, I've been deleveraging and I haven't really been out for a while, and neither have I been spending a lot of time touching much cash (that sounds weird, but it will hopefully make sense shortly). Yesterday, a couple of colleagues decided they wanted to go for a drink after work and as this is a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity in New York, I decided to go along with them.
I bought a round and got a $10 and a load of singles as change. The $10 seemed a bit dodgy to me - they've just been updated and reissued - so I checked with the bartender that it was still legal tender. Of course he said yes. Later, after a few too many beers and all cost-consciousness out the window, I splurged on a taxi home. I gave the dodgy $10 to the taxi driver who promptly told me it was a fake. "Feel it!" he said. (I really think I may have watched too many episodes of The Wire - I can't tell you whether the bill felt different to others, but it definitely didn't feel like a photocopy. And it was green, more importantly. Money is green.)
But I'm just not sure about this - what do you think? My camera skills are non-existent, but any thoughts from these pictures? Top is the new-issue $10, bottom is the dodgy bill I was given last night.
Paper money is constantly being updated in the U.K., and having had Saturday jobs in shops, I think I have a fairly good idea how to tell at least a bad fake pound note. This has made me realise I know pretty much nothing about U.S. money. A colleague suggested to me that it's a good bill, but someone has taken a little strip placed inside the note (a way to identify it as a true bill) out, and this is why it's been cut at the bottom:
Anyway, for those of you interested, there's information on how to recognise counterfeited bills at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which has a nice little Web site with the neat address www.moneyfactory.com. I will be studying it carefully before I next decide to spend any cash.
I bought a round and got a $10 and a load of singles as change. The $10 seemed a bit dodgy to me - they've just been updated and reissued - so I checked with the bartender that it was still legal tender. Of course he said yes. Later, after a few too many beers and all cost-consciousness out the window, I splurged on a taxi home. I gave the dodgy $10 to the taxi driver who promptly told me it was a fake. "Feel it!" he said. (I really think I may have watched too many episodes of The Wire - I can't tell you whether the bill felt different to others, but it definitely didn't feel like a photocopy. And it was green, more importantly. Money is green.)
But I'm just not sure about this - what do you think? My camera skills are non-existent, but any thoughts from these pictures? Top is the new-issue $10, bottom is the dodgy bill I was given last night.
Paper money is constantly being updated in the U.K., and having had Saturday jobs in shops, I think I have a fairly good idea how to tell at least a bad fake pound note. This has made me realise I know pretty much nothing about U.S. money. A colleague suggested to me that it's a good bill, but someone has taken a little strip placed inside the note (a way to identify it as a true bill) out, and this is why it's been cut at the bottom:
Anyway, for those of you interested, there's information on how to recognise counterfeited bills at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which has a nice little Web site with the neat address www.moneyfactory.com. I will be studying it carefully before I next decide to spend any cash.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Don't Mention The War...
The book group I'm in has just read two novels in a row set in England. The second book, Kate Atkinson's Behind The Scenes At The Museum, I chose for what I hoped would be a light-hearted antidote to the first book, Doris Lessing's The Sweetest Dream, which reduced me to tears about the hopeless emptiness* of being English AND female, and made me very homesick at the same time.
I enjoyed Behind The Scenes... but for a while after I'd started it, I was worried it was going to lead to a similar discussion about just how many Brits are deranged, almost always because of some or other world war. One commenter concluded that a main character in The Sweetest Dream must be "bipolar" because she was so crazy - I was astonished because to me she just seemed like a tired-out, world-weary, cynical English woman, the kind that are a dime a dozen in everyone's family (I thought). One nation's familiar bitter cynicism is another nation's bipolar, I guess.
After this, I wanted to find an English 20th or 21st century novel that doesn't mention the war - not in the lines, not between the lines and not beyond the lines, as one of my GCSE English teachers would have said. I kind of failed with Behind The Scenes.., although people seemed to enjoy it. It just made me think again about how much two world wars (and one world cup) somehow infiltrated my environment and upbringing.
I was born in 1981. My parents were born in 1952 and 1954. Theoretically, I shouldn't have had much to do with any war - but I remember in primary school, our headmistress would terrify us into quiet in morning assembly with tales of how she survived the Blitz. There was a U-Boat bell on a stand in the corner of our dining room. Many, many school projects involved interviewing grandparents or neighbours about their wartime experiences. We have relatives in Canada - they moved there after the war. Growing up near Portsmouth, there are forts in the sea against the French, forts on the hill against the Germans and we're round the corner from what was once one of Europe's largest council estates, built badly in a hurry to house those displaced from the bombed-out city.
If I have kids, I'd hope they never have to experience war first hand. But if I pass on anecdotes about my grandparents, family stories and heirlooms, backed up with some top quality 20th C British culture (Fawlty Towers, Blackadder - is there anyone that truly doesn't mention the war?) do I risk turning them into cynical, world-weary adults? Or does it only make an impact if you know people, grandparents for example, who were there, somehow? Would growing up in America make a difference? I realise there are many, many terrible scars on America's history, but they don't seem to have scratched the psyche of the populace in quite the same way.
*I just saw Revolutionary Road. I may be feeling particularly morose because of that film. I wasn't sure whether it was all it was cracked up to be, but it's been lingering with me and I can't stop thinking about it, so it must have done something effectively.
I enjoyed Behind The Scenes... but for a while after I'd started it, I was worried it was going to lead to a similar discussion about just how many Brits are deranged, almost always because of some or other world war. One commenter concluded that a main character in The Sweetest Dream must be "bipolar" because she was so crazy - I was astonished because to me she just seemed like a tired-out, world-weary, cynical English woman, the kind that are a dime a dozen in everyone's family (I thought). One nation's familiar bitter cynicism is another nation's bipolar, I guess.
After this, I wanted to find an English 20th or 21st century novel that doesn't mention the war - not in the lines, not between the lines and not beyond the lines, as one of my GCSE English teachers would have said. I kind of failed with Behind The Scenes.., although people seemed to enjoy it. It just made me think again about how much two world wars (and one world cup) somehow infiltrated my environment and upbringing.
I was born in 1981. My parents were born in 1952 and 1954. Theoretically, I shouldn't have had much to do with any war - but I remember in primary school, our headmistress would terrify us into quiet in morning assembly with tales of how she survived the Blitz. There was a U-Boat bell on a stand in the corner of our dining room. Many, many school projects involved interviewing grandparents or neighbours about their wartime experiences. We have relatives in Canada - they moved there after the war. Growing up near Portsmouth, there are forts in the sea against the French, forts on the hill against the Germans and we're round the corner from what was once one of Europe's largest council estates, built badly in a hurry to house those displaced from the bombed-out city.
If I have kids, I'd hope they never have to experience war first hand. But if I pass on anecdotes about my grandparents, family stories and heirlooms, backed up with some top quality 20th C British culture (Fawlty Towers, Blackadder - is there anyone that truly doesn't mention the war?) do I risk turning them into cynical, world-weary adults? Or does it only make an impact if you know people, grandparents for example, who were there, somehow? Would growing up in America make a difference? I realise there are many, many terrible scars on America's history, but they don't seem to have scratched the psyche of the populace in quite the same way.
*I just saw Revolutionary Road. I may be feeling particularly morose because of that film. I wasn't sure whether it was all it was cracked up to be, but it's been lingering with me and I can't stop thinking about it, so it must have done something effectively.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Looking English
I left the Big Apple this weekend for a jaunt to south Jersey, where among other activities I got my hair cut beautifully for a fraction of the price it would have cost me in New York. The hairdresser who cut my hair had just got back from a trip around Israel, so we chatted about how brilliant Tel Aviv is for a bit, then she mentioned that she had lived in Belfast and also London and we talked about the weather. And then she said, after she'd finished with my hair, "You don't really look English."
I have pale skin, blue eyes, possibly better than average teeth for a Brit, according to my colleague from Bermuda, and although I haven't been back to Blighty in nearly a year last time I was there I certainly blended into the crowd.
I know it was just a throw-away comment, but it's been niggling at me - just what does 'English' look like?
Is it famous?
Famous and a world-renowned politician?
Just not that attractive?
(This one suggested by the American consultant in the household)
One of my favourite actors?
Errr?
(again suggested by resident American when requested to think of an English woman... I think we watch too much F Word)
What do you think - who looks English, and what does English look like?
I have pale skin, blue eyes, possibly better than average teeth for a Brit, according to my colleague from Bermuda, and although I haven't been back to Blighty in nearly a year last time I was there I certainly blended into the crowd.
I know it was just a throw-away comment, but it's been niggling at me - just what does 'English' look like?
Is it famous?
Famous and a world-renowned politician?
Just not that attractive?
(This one suggested by the American consultant in the household)
One of my favourite actors?
Errr?
(again suggested by resident American when requested to think of an English woman... I think we watch too much F Word)
What do you think - who looks English, and what does English look like?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Anglo-American Translation - Recipes
When I was younger, one of my favourite weekend activities was shopping with my dad. My mum planned the meals and wrote the list, and my dad and whichever kids were around at the time would then go to the supermarket and try to decipher my mum's handwriting and guess what she wanted to cook for the week. And then we'd argue over who would get the blame when we brought home three large packets of rainbow sprinkles instead of raisins, or something equally obvious with hindsight.
Anyhow, in our little household here, this game has an extra twist: Anglo American translation difficulties. For example, this evening, I decided I really wanted to try a recipe in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries for chocolate pudding (highly recommended). Now, for starters, I bought the recipe book here, even though I know for a fact that Nigel Slater is about as English as they come. So the recipe ingredients have been translated by Slater's American publisher. But, because I operate and think (still) in British English, as I wrote the shopping list, I translated back into my native tongue, even though I knew an American would be doing the shopping.
This is what the (already translated into American English) recipe called for:
dark, fine quality chocolate - 7 oz
superfine sugar - 1/2 cup
large eggs - 3
butter - 5 tablespoons
chocolate hazelnut spread - 2 heaped tablespoons
We had eggs and butter, so I ignored them and wrote on the shopping list:
dark choc
icing sugar
choc/hazelnut spread
Which, apart from the sugar, isn't that different from the 'American' English as translated by whoever publishes Nigel Slater in the U.S.
Our conversation went something like this:
"So you want baker's chocolate-"
"-No, really good chocolate. High cocoa content. Fancy chocolate."
"And powdered sugar-"
"Yes, icing sugar, the dusty stuff."
"And what's that?" Raising eyebrows at my handwriting.
"Chocolate spread. You know, like Nutella."
"Ah, Nutella. Got it."
Which is a long-winded way of showing that translating foods is a difficult art but some brands are known internationally and thank goodness for that.
But this issue of food translation really does bother me a little and it's not for the first time. I love this Nigel Slater book - but I actually rarely cook from it because so many of the recipes are completely and utterly English. I should have thought about this before I bought it (it is, after all, a diary of what he eats and cooks in a year in London) but I didn't. In some ways, it's really helpful for me that the ingredients are 'translated' because sometimes I forget what American English is for rocket (arugula) or coriander (cilantro). But even though it's translated, the core elements of what he cooks - the cuts of meat, the types of fish, or even the helpful brand of a good curry powder - are untranslatable because they're easily obtainable in England but the equivalent of a week-long ransacking of supermarkets and specialty food stores here. Which just proves what I spent many years at university (on some senseless intellectual task such as translating paragraphs of Naked Lunch into Spanish, or Ulysses into French) learning: there is always a way to translate the words. But there's very rarely an easy way to translate culture. Oh, and there really is such a thing as English food.
In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions for good American cookbooks, I'm open to suggestions.
Anyhow, in our little household here, this game has an extra twist: Anglo American translation difficulties. For example, this evening, I decided I really wanted to try a recipe in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries for chocolate pudding (highly recommended). Now, for starters, I bought the recipe book here, even though I know for a fact that Nigel Slater is about as English as they come. So the recipe ingredients have been translated by Slater's American publisher. But, because I operate and think (still) in British English, as I wrote the shopping list, I translated back into my native tongue, even though I knew an American would be doing the shopping.
This is what the (already translated into American English) recipe called for:
dark, fine quality chocolate - 7 oz
superfine sugar - 1/2 cup
large eggs - 3
butter - 5 tablespoons
chocolate hazelnut spread - 2 heaped tablespoons
We had eggs and butter, so I ignored them and wrote on the shopping list:
dark choc
icing sugar
choc/hazelnut spread
Which, apart from the sugar, isn't that different from the 'American' English as translated by whoever publishes Nigel Slater in the U.S.
Our conversation went something like this:
"So you want baker's chocolate-"
"-No, really good chocolate. High cocoa content. Fancy chocolate."
"And powdered sugar-"
"Yes, icing sugar, the dusty stuff."
"And what's that?" Raising eyebrows at my handwriting.
"Chocolate spread. You know, like Nutella."
"Ah, Nutella. Got it."
Which is a long-winded way of showing that translating foods is a difficult art but some brands are known internationally and thank goodness for that.
But this issue of food translation really does bother me a little and it's not for the first time. I love this Nigel Slater book - but I actually rarely cook from it because so many of the recipes are completely and utterly English. I should have thought about this before I bought it (it is, after all, a diary of what he eats and cooks in a year in London) but I didn't. In some ways, it's really helpful for me that the ingredients are 'translated' because sometimes I forget what American English is for rocket (arugula) or coriander (cilantro). But even though it's translated, the core elements of what he cooks - the cuts of meat, the types of fish, or even the helpful brand of a good curry powder - are untranslatable because they're easily obtainable in England but the equivalent of a week-long ransacking of supermarkets and specialty food stores here. Which just proves what I spent many years at university (on some senseless intellectual task such as translating paragraphs of Naked Lunch into Spanish, or Ulysses into French) learning: there is always a way to translate the words. But there's very rarely an easy way to translate culture. Oh, and there really is such a thing as English food.
In the meantime, if anyone has suggestions for good American cookbooks, I'm open to suggestions.
Monday, February 2, 2009
That white stuff
So in case your friends, relatives or anglo colleagues haven't been calling or emailing you at all hours, IT SNOWED IN LONDON. (In fact, it also snowed any may well still be snowing in other parts of the country, but a lot of people tend to forget about the other parts.)
The headlines screamed incompetence, London transport chaos, UTTER BREAKDOWN of public services, this would NEVER have happened before the war etc etc.
What I think the headlines meant, and I say this after a fairly snowy January in New York (in fact, the coldest January in five years), is that Brits don't half enjoy that white stuff.
To wit, take a look at the Londonist flickr pool for some photos of people having fun in the snow...(I was hoping to post some but my delightful TWC internet connection is not cooperating.)
We're on course for more snow here in New York - but I'm rather envious I wasn't back home today. Here, snow JUST ISN'T THAT FUN. It won't be a quasi public holiday, just because it snows. It will be dirty and slushy and icy and miserable. And the buses will still run, they'll just have chains on their wheels. Everyone has boots and hats and probably more than one pair of gloves. And people think to grit the streets before the clouds pull in. So maybe New York is a more efficient city, a harder-working city, a city unfazed by a bit of frozen precipitation. But it's definitely a city full of snow-fun killjoys.
The headlines screamed incompetence, London transport chaos, UTTER BREAKDOWN of public services, this would NEVER have happened before the war etc etc.
What I think the headlines meant, and I say this after a fairly snowy January in New York (in fact, the coldest January in five years), is that Brits don't half enjoy that white stuff.
To wit, take a look at the Londonist flickr pool for some photos of people having fun in the snow...(I was hoping to post some but my delightful TWC internet connection is not cooperating.)
We're on course for more snow here in New York - but I'm rather envious I wasn't back home today. Here, snow JUST ISN'T THAT FUN. It won't be a quasi public holiday, just because it snows. It will be dirty and slushy and icy and miserable. And the buses will still run, they'll just have chains on their wheels. Everyone has boots and hats and probably more than one pair of gloves. And people think to grit the streets before the clouds pull in. So maybe New York is a more efficient city, a harder-working city, a city unfazed by a bit of frozen precipitation. But it's definitely a city full of snow-fun killjoys.
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