:: The Wendy House ::

why I love England #5: It’s near Europe

Learning about diverse countries, climates, cars, cities, cultures by actually visiting them is easy because they are close, part of the European community (EU) though Britain has opted out of many of the unifying practices such as the Social Charter and the Euro currency.

says the Very Nice Lady (VNL) from the highways and drainage specialists at Reading Borough Council freephone information.

VNL:  if I don’t have any joy I’ll get back to you in just one second

Wendy: thankyou

VNL: I didn’t have any joy

Wendy:Oh

Lunching with an hearing impaired friend (HIF) who uses spoken words rarely, with good effect:

[silence]

HIF: you are the only person I know who talks less than I do

Wendy: is that good?

HIF: yes (laughs)

Wendy: (laughs)

[silence]

why I love England #4: public service advertisements

The most recent series of public service advertisements are aimed at tackling ‘binge drinking’ culture that is painfully obvious on the Streets of British cities and by the behaviour of British holiday makers.

They are very direct and witty: Metro webpage with embedded media files of TV abverts.

My first memory of this striking style of advertisement was the 1986 anti-Aids campaign that leveraged John Hurt as voice-over and Nicolas Roeg’s directorial talent.

IT support:  hello,  this is [name] in Salt Lake city  (US Accent)

Wendy: Oh!  I hope its sunny in Salt Lake city

IT Support:  it’s 4am in the morning

Wendy:  Ah,  gosh,  well,  not sunny then,  I’ve got this problem…

[problem fixing conversation and Wendy starts falling asleep then wakes up when]

IT Support:  Wonkey,  I’m even talking British now,  wonkey

Why I love England #3.  welcoming

England welcomes all sorts of people, even bus enthusiasts, as long as they behave like responsible citizens by following health and safety instructions and reporting suspicious unattended packages to the appropriate security authorities.

Lady on plane with English accent (LOPWEA):  where are you from?

Wendy:  Bristol, England

LOPWEA:  I though you had a foreign accent

Wendy:  I’ve recently lived abroad for 8 years,  where would you guess the accent is from?

LOPWEA:  Austraila or New Zealand

Wendy:  yes,  its ex-colonial English,  the NW US

Why I love England #3.  closeness

closeness illustrated by analogy to the display system in a local store

Within 6 months of arriving in Reading I’d been invited to a local couple’s wedding,  into half a dozen neighbours houses for tea and general niceness,  out to numerous local events,  heard multiple personal stories of divorces, abortions, new-loves, disputes with the local council,  disputes with neighbours,  and, of course, the standard commute and job stories.  I experience a closeness with people here that is very heartwarming.

first Man In Panama Hat (MIPH): that is the most striking womans hat at this wedding,  I didn’t recognise you earlier, is it new?

Wendy:  I have a tan.  The hat’s about 20yrs old, from Cornwall, it’s my favourite hat, though I rarely have a special-enough occassion to wear it (subdues jumping impulse based on the excitement of being in the company of 2 other people wearing hats).

first MIPH: it did SAY Cornwall to me (giggles). 

second MIPH: it is the ONLY woman’s hat at this wedding (giggles).

Headgearless guest:  Isn’t it good of the Bride and Groom to arrange a wedding so that we can all wear our favourite clothes (smiles).

On this fabulously sunny and very cheerful day the female wedding guests were not ruining their immaculate coiffures by squishing them under hats.  Instead a rash of fascinators were jiggling with the movement of their wearers.

The US the tax year runs from January 1st to December 31st.  The UK Tax, fiscal, year runs from April 6th to April 5th based on 18th Century ‘quarter days’ when servants were traditionally hired and ’rent’ was gathered from the predominantly non-home-owning population and,  of course, the introduction of Tax to support the Napoleonic wars.  Those darned French.  The UK corporate financial year runs from April 1st  to March 31st,  something to do with not loosing money when the Gregorian calendar was introduced.

I think of my P60,  provided by my employer as being like my US W2.

Do not destroy

The P60 helpfully announces this instruction in bold type on its authority-imbued graduated pinkness.

Not a popular Scottish music festival.  A testosterone fuelled five-aside football tournament in Palmers park.

why I love England #2:  The BBC

Public funded broadbcasting in the public interest rather than in the interest of making profit.  With journalists all over the world who assume their audience has some intelligence and ask insightful rather than tabloid questions.  I suspect that I have a crush on Jeremy Paxman.  They produce high quality drama,  comedy productions and Dr. Who.  They backed Red Dwarf on BBC2 and Top Gear.  They employed Dennis Potter and delivered Blue Peter who provided me with my first and enduring female role model in Valerie Singleton and gave me profound appreciation of the potential of squeezy bottles and sticky-backed-plastic to contribute to orld happiness.  

Stephen fry quoted on Wikipedia’s entry about Valerie Singleton:

I have been pondering this business of fame since I was young enough to know Valerie Singleton from the Queen (for Americans and other non-Britons I should explain: one is a remote, god-like, autocratic woman endowed with powerful charismatic charm and the other is a constitutional monarch recently played on screen by Helen Mirren

What more could a girl want from broadcasting?

A castle isn’t complete without a moat. 

In April I booked builders to install a moat in June.  In mid july I haven’t yet seen them. 

Without a moat how can the Wendy House remain defended from being undermined?

What is an English waterside ceremony?

Lots of people wearing gender-defined colourful, often impractical, clothes and hats travel to a small Oxfordshire town to shout at teams of very muscular young adults rowing boats rather fast on a straight-stretch of the River Thames.  Pedestrians weave between cars* jammed in the roads while police people politely suggest,  then instruct, that the pedestrians stay on the pavements.  Not to mention the barrels of Pimms flowing, gallons of champagne popping,  and glasses of Brakspear sinking in Public Houses,  car parks,  and by the riverside.  It was the annual Henley Royal Regatta.

 * I took the 850 arriva bus from Reading to High Wycombe, hopped off at Henley, and a jolly pleasant ride it was too.

Why I love England #1.  First in an infinite series

Healthy ladies in slightly ridiculous hats & waistecoats made of flapping strands of material oddments jumping around with large sticks and bells tied to their staunchly sensible shoes within the ruins of a 12th century Abby adjacent to a Victorian prison on a rather damp June day.  How could you possibly not love this?  and it happened in Reading!

The opening and closing phrases used in emails that I receive* from English people are noticably different from those I receive from US people.  Opener-closer pairings tend to be more thematic than systematic:

Most common 2 UK Openers:

• Dear Wendy 
• Hi Wendy
• Other openers: ‘Thank you‘  ’Heya‘ ‘Hello  (Wendy, Love, Angel, Darling etc)‘  ‘Indeed’  ‘Oh my!’  ‘take this quiz its great!’**  ‘Oh cripes yes!’ 

Most common 2 UK Closers:

• Kind Regards (name on new line)
• Best Wishes,  (name on new line)
• Other closers: ’Love’   ‘Cheers’‘  ‘Sincerely‘ ‘ Thank you’  

Most common 2 US Openers

• Hi Wendy
• Hey
• Other US openers: ‘Hello’  ‘Thank you’  ’your question has been received’  ’that time again’  ‘thematic and diverting’

Most common 2 US Closers

• Thanks
• [authors name]
• Other US closers: ‘Sincerely’   ‘          [name]‘  ‘Must go!”  ‘Thank you’  ‘Thanks’  ‘thematic and diverting’

* The data leading to this conclusion was drawn by unsystematically reviewing the contents on my work and personal email inboxes for May 2008 living in the UK and October 2006 when I lived in the US.  The senders assumed-location or citizenship was used to assign UK or US practice.   By far the most common emails I receive come from friends and family with no standard opener or closer, they are written as-if with-in an ongoing conversation and are excluded from the analysis.  In no way can my inbox contents be considered representative of National or International trends. 

** My nieces do like eveyone to join in a good Quiz

”’bring”’ ””’bring””:  Hello…  …Wendy House speaking,  how can I help you?

American friend:  Wendy?  Is that you?

Wendy:  Yes

American friend:  OH MY GOD,  Wendy,  your accent has gotten so English that I didn’t even recognise you! So,  how are you liking being back in England

Wendy:  It’s the little things that you didn’t realise that you missed or thought were over romantised like the sound of leather on willow during a cricket game in a park,  followed by a brief silence then clapping as the players on both sides applaud a good shot,  the smell of freshly mown, damp, grass in the morning, the diversity of nose shapes, the plethera of watery blue eyes and men wearing shoulderbags.

American friend:  are you reading one of your blog posts?

Wendy:  I’m not sure,  I’ll check and get back to you on that one

A jumble sale in the local church,  not something I came across in the NW US.  The word jumble didn’t crop up at all.  Ah,  memories of crowds of people waiting for a sale to open, the rush to get the bargains, old people with elbows of steel aimed with the precision of military training at my softer-parts…   …money raised being put towards renewing the church roof….

New Zealander: are you homesick?

Wendy:  Homesick?

New Zealander: 8 years is a long time to live in the US, do you miss it?

Waiting in the cold March night air at a crowded bus stop…

Ottowan: I’ve learned so much from you British
Wendy: give an example?
Ottowan: how complaining can be used anywhere, anytime, to entertain complete strangers, like at a bus stop where you’re waiting 30 minutes for buses that are sKeduled to turn up every 8 mins
Wendy: nods, giggles, “look, there are 3 buses coming now” and 3 buses did indeed arrive together

Does this count as a good commute story?

Apologies are used in a subtly different way here in the UK than  in the NW US.  This bus uses a lively exclamation mark.  It feels more like a cheerful announcement than a humble seeking of forgiveness.  I don’t recall the word sorry used in this cheerful way as frequently in the NW US as in the UK.

Halifax House names survey 2003 doesn’t include The Wendy House.

Kent Junior School claim that the tradition of naming houses was introduced by Landed gentry and subsequently copied by peasants. 

Here are the top 5 names for UK houses according to the Halifax in 2003:

1. The Cottage
2. Rose Cottage
3. The Bungalow
4. The Coach House
5. Orchard House

Text-messaging is probably popular here because its a way of having fun with friends without using too much cell phone battery while you’re in a queue.  In  just one one day I queued for a cumulative total of 2 years, 3 months, 1 week,  8 hours,  24 minutes and 7 seconds at:

1. after-party London fancy hotel, because I’m worth it, check-out
2. London Underground ticket-issuing machine,  because I’m really Joe Public
3. British Rail Ticket office, because I haven’t yet queued enough today
4. Letting agency office, because I was just a would-be renter.
5. NatWest counter who cashed my cheque to pay my first months rent but they directed me to another queue to take my a standing order
6. NatWest information to set-up a standing so that it pays automatically in future
7. Marks & Spencers public loos, ladies,  restrooms, toilets, washrooms,  because I really can’t decide what to call them and have lost the ability to say TOILET in public or LOO,  really,  I go all pink and start inspecting the top of my shoes.
8. Bar.  Apparantly this bar staff found out that a 3 foot bar can render me invisible.  Sigh.  Luckily,  fellows on the customer side of the bar noticed my little queue-bashed-face and pointed the bar-staff over to sort me out before a I subjected everyone to a wreckless outbreak of public blubbing.

It feels like UK systems maximise having people stand in queues awaiting their service distribution.  This is very economical for the service provider in terms of cost,  they under-staff and turnover remains high.  British consumers appear very patient with this approach to providing them with service.  I’d much rather the services provided adequate staffing to ensure that, as a customer, I do not have to plan for standing in a queue…..  

During a rather unrare planningy moment:

Spanish person:  you’ll need your passport number to complete this form

Wendy:  will an out of date passport number work?

Spanish person:  I don’t know. They accept other documents

Wendy:  My Birth certificate?

Spanish person:  No,   it has to be a UK Birth Certificate

Wendy:  It is,  I’m born and bred in England!

Over a lunch of chicken and chips with lashings of vinegar:

Someone from the Colonies (don’t know which):  Are you Australian?  I can hear an accent

Wendy:  I’m English

SFTC(DKW): but you’ve lived abroad for sometime?

Wendy:  Yes,  8 years in the US,  but its probably my regional English accent that you’re hearing

Over a disturbingly small cup of tea:

New Zealander:  I can hear your American intonation

Wendy:   that’s actually my English regional accent intonation

New Zealander:  (immitates raising voice-pitch towards end of sentence)

Wendy:  That’s right,  Bristolians raise their voice towards the end of a sentence,  well spotted!  (I squeaked the last bit in a higher pitch)

I don’t think I convinced anyone.  Maybe I’ve been colonyised?

In October my facebook friends no longer described me as predominantly  arrogant and mouthy,   Hoorah!

They have found that my frequent unveiling of yellow wonky teeth is my main virtue.  Needless to say, I don’t count any US Dentists amongst my friends. 

Obviously I could survive on a desert island without panicking about the lack of a dental floss and could focus on the more fun stuff  like some serious splashing in the sea,  exploring,  then bedtime with a drop of fermented coconut milk and lashings of ‘goodnight John-Boy’,  ‘goodnight Mary-Ellen’  Waltonesque politeness. 

The total omission of the category ‘worst speller’ is because the Facebook applet does not compare people on this dimension.  Otherwise I’m sure creative speller would be up there amongst my top virtues.  While I’m considering this I’ll have half a dozen a cups of tea because I surely can drink a lot of tea,  as indeed my friends conscientiously observe.

Then in November my wonky teeth got knocked off the top slot by my outstanding manners with new entries replacing adventurous and best companion on a desert island with loyal and dateable.   In the light of my repatriation this all makes good sense because while the UK is an island,  it is not a desert,  and returning to the UK can be viewed more as native loyalty than adventerousness.  Dateable?  Hmmmm….  this is questionable on the grounds that no-one has actually managed to achieve a ‘date’ in 2007.

Goodness knows where the manners came from,  probably mumzie.

Reading rhymes with

• bedding,
• sledding (if there’s snow), or
• wedding (if their is a significant other, which there isn’t).
• heading (an essential skill for a footballing forward)

I’ll be covering the unique and much maligned experience that is ‘Reading’ in many upcoming blog posts.  A Brighton-based blog post exemplifies common themes of passionate disappointment in Reading:

the epicentre of new Labour, corporate, consumerist blandness…   …despite its affluence and its growing population it can’t rise above the terminal blandness and ‘middle Englandness’ it seems to have always had…    …It is bored and dissatisfied young people planning their escape, it’s a football club who plays in a shed resembling an out of town B&Q and whose torrid home games with their dire atmosphere are (ahem) bound to take the Premiership by storm this season…  …Reading is a rip off, Reading is unfriendly, Reading is in a rush to purchase and then to get home.

Oh deary me!

A (fictional) letter from “chase me ladies I’m in the cavalry” to a Reading East MP (Member for Parliament) had me wetting my pants,  or is it my trousers,  I can’t be sure,  but they are definitely damp. 

There is good news about Reading provided by a blog called Reading Roars. Not ’Reading belches’ ,  ‘Reading pukes’, ’Reading falls asleep in front of the TV’.  Wendy appetite wetting references includes a Sushi restaurant.  yes, one!  Wireless enabled bus service called the “Thames Valley Park” (TVP) that has been described as a ’farce‘.  I love a good farce.  I do like buses too.  Two goodies in one!  I can hardly wait to try blogging from a bus.  Just imagine what a vibrating bus will do to my spelling, ability to fall-over, and general happiness…  There’s a Farmers market.  I do like farmers and I might find one or two ruddy faced farmers there. With my UK regional accent I might even be mistaken for a farmer,  it has happened before! 

Result!     

Stay tuned to find out how my Reading investigations evolve,  or even send me tips on highlights…

if you invited the seven dwarf’s round for supper.  You would also have to invite a couple of giants because you wouldn’t be able to eat them all by your self.  At least not without raising your susceptibility to intestinal explosions.

just a handy tip for those supper parties that Martha Stewart hasn’t yet copywrited written.

you can go about your business now.

thankyou

these parting messages have been known to prompt giggles in NW US people:

• Bye-Bye
• Take care
• cheerio
• cheers
• bye-bye
• Ta-Rah
• Fair thee well 

Use them with extreme caution.  Obviously European phrases such as ‘Ciao’ are also used in the UK and I’ve heard them here in the US.

Parting phrases in the US are no less diverse or complicated.  The US Bureau of educational and cultural affairs language programe provides 2.5hr guidance on how to say goodbye.  very thorough!

Parting phrases most commonly delivered by my US friends are: 

• see you
• have a good (night/day/weekend/vacation etc)
• I’m outta here
• Peace

I know a Brit when they send me an e-mail.  oh yes!  i don’t need to hear the roundness of their vowel sounds or the cuteness of their accent. oh no!  Just one introductory line

Hiya

and use of an awesome alternative

fabulous

can help super-sleuth-Wendy know she is emailing with a probably British person,  possibly even a Northerner!

Barista:  it’s not that I like your accent or anything,  but I just have to say that I saw the queen,  well 10 minutes of the Queen actually.

Wendy:  The Movie? (deliberately uses the American word to keep the cuteness thing at sub-gushing proportions)

Barista: Yeah,  and I didn’t know what it was about and that Diana is in it and I thought how important it is and that I should watch the movie.  Would you like a free sample caramel latte?

Wendy:  Yes please

Barista:  and the government,  I’ve seen that and they are so… ..so …how shall I say….   …candid…   I like the  way they stand-up and thump the table.  It’s not that i don’t like America  ….  

Wendy :  Thankyou (pays for yummy pie and leaves with extra free latte)

When I told mumzie that I was suprised to find a Castle named after the English King John in Limerick on an Island called Kings Island in English town,  Mumzie wrote:

John (lackland) as he was called, was so annoyed that his brothers had their own land, dukedoms etc. that his father gave him Ireland.

 King John was born the 5th and youngest son of King Henry II.  All reports of him appear to agree that he was treacherous, cowardly and an ill mannered sloth.  He was excommunicated by the Pope and divorcing his first wife well before King Henry VIII.  He was the younger brother of King Richard I,  Richard Couer de Lion.  He ran Britain while Richard was fighting the Holy wars and Robin Hood was doing his legendary deeds in the North of England.  Wikipedia has an entry specifically on John’s relationship with Ireland.  I suspect you can now see why I was surprised to find a castle named after him,  in a predominantly Catholic nation. 

Mumzie also had some useful insights on the new ripping yarn in 10 episodes for the TV “The Tudors“:

Terrible history, and script….really corny. Got bad reviews here. Hairstyles a bit ahead of the times, more Elizabethan, and they certainly didn’t have underpants, just long shirts that tucked under.