Elvis Caged for Brandishing Exclamation Point!
MONDAY: Lunch today is haloumi and the usual veggies on a malted grain bap. Simple but satisfying. My fruit includes tiny Lincolnshire strawberries and slices of gorgeously perfect nectarine, pear, and satsuma. It's a perfect lunch for a hot day.
Things have gone too far! It's time we caged these vicious criminals who maul and abuse the written language! I'm talking about newspaper reporters who use exclamation points and sensational dehumanising words like "caged" to report the news! And let's not forget to at least one word, and sprinkle commas, willy, nilly.
One expects this sort of language rot in sensational rags like the Daily Mail, the Sun, and the National Enquirer. I've found so much amusement in sensational tabloid headlines like "Queen Forced To Eat Slimey Slugs" that I once wrote a Javascript program that randomly produced headlines like "Elvis Gives Birth To Own Grandmother" and "Two-Headed Albino Gorilla Forced To Eat Los Angeles Convention Center".
But if the Los Angeles Times or the Guardian started to write in this style all hell would break loose -- or I certainly hope it would. I'll admit that more and more typos creep into the Guardian these days, probably due to the fact that because of the growing reliance on spell-checking software, actual manual proofreading is quickly becoming a dying art. But never have I come across anything so blatantly SCREAMING as an exclamation point!
So why must the local Sheffield Star resort to this punctuation mark which should be reserved solely for fictional dialogue and casual correspondence? Not that I'm a regular reader of the Sheffield Star; but I do like to check the local job adverts every Thursday, and a local paper should be a good source for particularly local news specifics. But! I feel as though!! I'm being! PUNCHED IN THE FACE! I WISH! Somebody would cage! these villains' exclamation point keys! Or just TEAR! THEM OUT! in a horrendously grisly manner! And while they're at it, burn that damn CAPS LOCK key!
Don't get me started on the misuse of apostrophes. Please don't…
Meeting Colin
MONDAY: Lunch is Waitrose smoked salmon and cream cheese on my local bakery's whole wheat breadcake. As I have no capers at the moment I added a sliced spring onion. I was first introduced to cold smoked salmon in the classic Jewish delis of Los Angeles, and I loved the classic Nova lox and cream cheese served on a decent bagel with sliced red onion and sliced tomatoes. By the time I moved to Seattle my favourite bagel deli also put capers on their lox and cream cheese bagels, which I considered a brilliant addition. But today, as I have neither a decent proper bagel nor capers, I have to make do. Not bad for making do…
TUESDAY: I was looking so forward to a goat cheese sandwich today, but sadly the last bit of the roll of creamy white goat cheese had developed a greenish-yellow sweat, a bit unnatural for creamy white goat cheese. So it's mature cheddar with Dijon and the usual spring onion and red pepper on a large granary roll.
Although I consider myself a diehard city girl I still love nature and all the floral and faunal pleasures of the countryside, the seaside, and the mountains. For the best of both worlds I love encounters with urban wildlife. In the California suburb where I grew up, before all the fields were covered with detached family homes with two-car garages, my brother and I used to be able to go out in the fields just beyond our neighbourhood and catch lizards and snakes, and we'd occasionally spot a jackrabbit scampering through. And our jungle of a front garden was home to plenty of grasshoppers, dragonflies, and butterflies. Sadly, thanks to our entomophobic neighbours who gallantly sprayed their world, along with everyone else's, with insecticides, this wildlife didn't stick around long. By the time I moved away from home to a flat near the beach, the only urban fauna I could hope to bump into was the random gopher popping its head up from the bluff park, or the random feral parrot roosting in a palm tree.
When I moved to Seattle I was overjoyed to find the place teeming with squirrels which, shockingly, I had never experienced in an urban environment. I even called the tree outside our home the Screaming Squirrel Tree because it was populated by territorial squirrels who were always screeching and arguing noisily. After dark my favourites, the raccoons, would emerge along with the occasional possum. When I moved to southeast England I was happy to have a second-story flat overlooking a garden and railway embankment where a family of foxes regularly visited. And when I first moved to Sheffield I passed a dog trotting nervously down my street, and it wasn't until our eyes met that I realised it was a large fox.
I've been in England for nine years now, but it wasn't until the other night that I finally experienced one of the creatures England is famous for. I had spent the evening at my local pub enjoying my favourite local band with friends while consuming a liberal but not ridiculous amount of Farmers Blonde. As I was walking home down a quiet residential street I spotted a tiny furry being on the pavement in front of me. When I stopped and leaned over to have a look, it froze. I said, "Well, hello there! You're so tiny! Are you a hedgehog?" And the hedgehog, still frozen in its spot, watched with alarm the much bigger Me and finally scurried across the pavement into the closest garden. I had been told that hedgehogs usually curl up into a ball when frightened, so this one, obviously a young one, must not have felt too threatened by my gentle, if a bit beer-scented, presence.
I'm sure the average Brit would laugh at my excitement on seeing my first hedgehog. But like my reaction last summer to watching puffins flying around the Old Man of Hoy in Orkney, I was so excited to see nature like this close up.
So go ahead and have a good laugh. See what I care.
Caravan Memories and Bathroom Doors
MONDAY: Lunch on this quiet Monday in the student-sparse library is Wensleydale with cranberries on a sunflower breadcake from a local shop. I had no sandwich makings at home, so I was forced to treat myself. Ahhh, what a shame...
The other night I was staring vacantly at the television. (I say "staring at vacantly" because most times when I find myself sitting on the sofa and the TV's on I'm really not interested in watching it and I just wish it would go away. "Right," says 26-inch Panasonic, "I'm off t' pub. Don't wait up for me." But alas, it's only a dream…)
Anyway, I was staring at a repeat of QI, Stephen Fry's more intelligent than average celebrity game show. The question came up about what links Airstream, Sierra, Fleetwood, Sandpiper, and a few others names…and instantly, propelled by an excited prodding in the childhood section of my memory, I blurted out "TRAILERS! They're all trailers!" As the celebrities all seemed stumped Stephen Fry gave the answer: "They're all makes of caravans." (Which, of course, are trailers in America.) Andrew, who was sitting next to me and usually knows most everything but not this, was impressed that I replied so fast. I explained that my grandparents once lived in an Airstream, and I had a friend who lived in a Sierra and another who camped out in a Sandpiper.
Still, I'm rather perplexed. Why do I know so much about trailers? My Uncle Tom, who's the genealogist of the Mitchell family, informs me at various times during his research travels of new bloodlines, races, and nationalities to add to my already hugely diverse ancestral tree. It could be the touch of Gypsy from way back that has etched all the makes of caravans into my brain. But on the other hand I'm dying to ask him -- proudly, of course -- if he's located any trailer trash in our ancestry.
That might explain why I think of pink flamingos as desirable decor.
TUESDAY: I brought my lunch today. It's only cheddar and spring onion with English mustard on a Somerfield equivalent to a whole wheat bolo roll. But my fruit includes fresh nectarine, fresh local strawberries, and intensely ripe cantaloupe.
Something I've been meaning to complain about is this closed-door policy in Britain. And I'm not referring to immigration or trade or anything so newsworthy; I'm talking about bathroom doors. Why do so many Brits, including the younger generations, leave the bathroom door closed when nobody is in there? How do they expect people to know if the bathroom's in use or not? It's not like there's a door latch which, when engaged, changes an indicator from VACANT to OCCUPIED -- at least not on the domestic bathrooms I've seen.
When I first visited England I still lived in sunny Southern California where the fact that I didn't have central heating wasn't much of a problem. And then I visited the huge stately home of some non-wealthy Sussex acquaintances who simply couldn't afford to thaw the late November chill from their castle by turning on the heating. So I could understand why they closed off all the doors to the lounge in which we were being entertained: it was to keep the heat from the roaring fire in the room with us, instead of letting it waft off and dissipate in the freezer of a kitchen or the frozen wasteland of the upstairs rooms. If one had to pop out to use the loo, one could simply don one's coat, hat, and gloves and pretend one was on a camping trip.
In cases like that, door-closing makes sense: to conserve heat and reduce fuel costs. But this does not explain the infuriating habit of keeping the door closed to an empty bathroom. And it's not the elderly Brits I'm railing at, because they may have been brought up with the toilet outside away from the house, and therefore they may still harbour the opinion that a toilet belongs out of sight and not displayed as a feature of one's house. All well and good, although some people actually have this attitude about their children and pets -- but I won't start on that one. The door closers I object to are mostly young people I've known who have no logical reason to leave the bathroom door closed when they vacate the room. My god, it's the 21st century, and top Italian designers enjoy the rewards of well-attended exhibits of their gorgeous and sensual bathtub, sink, and toilet designs. There's nothing to be ashamed of -- everyone has to use the toilet now and then, even the Queen and the Pope. I suppose androids wouldn't necessarily have to, but if there were androids I would think they'd have much better things to do than to come over to my house and make sure my bathroom door is shut.
I'm sorry -- bathroom doors are meant to be open and inviting when the room's not in use. If the bathroom has a window the sun can shin in, providing money-saving solar heat, and the air stays fresh and healthier.
Okay, I'm going to stop talking about this now because I'm in danger of becoming so obsessive I might start going around opening bathroom doors that are closed for a good reason. So consider yourself warned…
Becoming Historic
TUESDAY: Lunch is one of my usuals: basil marinated tofu and cream cheese on one of my local bakery's breadcakes. I watched a bit of a documentary last night on Richard Burton -- the Victorian explorer, not Liz' ex. I remember my father becoming fascinated with Burton's travels after reading a book on the subject while on a business trip. Sadly I didn't pay much attention as I was still at the point in my life where I had very little interest in the subject of history.
I attribute this lack of interest in history to the fact that I grew up in suburban Long Beach, California, in a house built in the 1950s and kitted out in Danish Modern. My neighbourhood was devoid of social history, being a brand new residential area in what was once soybean fields. It wasn't until I was well into my twenties that I first visited Rancho Los Alamitos, an early 19th century Spanish adobe ranch house which is today surrounded by my alma mater, the 1950s-built California State University at Long Beach. Soon after this awakening I learned about the Tongva tribe who lived in Long Beach centuries before my childhood home was built, and long before Los Angeles's freeways began to spread across the landscape.
But this was local history. I still felt no connection to or interest in standard American history, eg. Revolutionary officers crossing rivers in their tights and fancy hats while making grand poetic statements. I mean, coming on! Growing up in 1950s California suburbia, spending the summer barefoot at the beach, and spending my allowance on rock concerts and records, why would I give a toss about Abe Lincoln growing up in a log cabin or Betsy Ross sewing a flag?
When I started travelling to Europe I gained more of an appreciation for history, as the history over here is just so much, well, longer than the history of the United States. You've got so many different eras and ages, and the range of architectural styles left behind is staggering. My real epiphany came when I was working in Sheffield as a photographer of antiques and I was looking at an old tablespoon. The tablespoon was manufactured in 1764; and I suddenly realised that this spoon I was holding in my hand was being utilised most probably by a family for daily meals, just like we use our tablespoons today. But this was happening 12 years before the nation where I was born even existed!
It's this personal aspect that makes history real for me. I mean, I've seen lots of historic sites like Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedrals and Notre Dame in Paris and even the Skara Brae Neolithic Village in Orkney. But shortly after I moved to Sheffield a friend loaned me a video of Sheffield during the Blitz; and that's when I realised just how historic my adopted city is by the fact that much of it was blown away by World War II bombs. That's why so much of Sheffield looks relatively recent, with very few buildings dating back before the Victorian era. It makes one wonder what the city looked like before it was all blown to smithereens. Having worked on a research project on the Sheffield Flood of 1864 I am now really curious to find out even more about the city's history.
My god, what's happening to me? Why am I gaining this respect for history? Is it became I'm becoming a bit historic myself? Uh oh…
Where Am I? Top or Bottom?
WEDNESDAY:
A beerless bar might,
and a gearless car might,
but I can't go on
without my Marmite.
Sorry -- just reminding myself to stop at the shop because I'm out of Marmite. Lunch is a leftover Co-Op salmon fish cake sandwich on a fresh breadcake from my local bakery. The fishcake is quite good, with lots of fresh salmon mixed with smoked salmon, and it's held in with low-fat cream cheese and has a garnish of lettuce and red pepper. My fruit cup contains excellent strawberry and nectarine slices. I do love the summer fruits.
I could easily write this week about how I'm mystified as to why so many patronising personalities end up working in university libraries, but I'm not going to.
FRIDAY: Today's lunch is late and therefore in danger of being devoured instantly. It's a bit of a challenge to eat, as it's basil-marinated tofu, cream cheese, and chopped red pepper and spring onion on most of a long skinny baguette, cut at various angles so it will fit into my square plastic container. So today's lunch is a bit precarious.
One of the things Brits tend to assume about Americans -- aside from the erroneous assumption that 95 percent of the population are massively obese right-wing Christians -- is that all of the cities are built on grids. It's true that many of the roads of the newer cities are arranged this way, especially when the geography is flat and boring. But there's usually quite a bit of variation from horizontal streets crossing vertical avenues, especially when the landscape is hilly and/or marked with rivers or lakes. And the capitol of Washington, DC, like some of the world's oldest cities, was built on a series of spokes and hubs. I grew up in a city where the Pacific Ocean was to the south and the entire city completely surrounded a hill which was its own city, so this could have led to me being geographically disorientated later in life. Of course I was the type who would get lost driving the perfect grid of inland Orange County in search of Disneyland simply because every intersection looked exactly like every other intersection. For a British comparison try finding your way around the cloned roundabouts in the Edinburgh suburb of Livingston and you'll understand.
Regardless of this I still become extreme confused navigating the streets of Sheffield because I'm used to thinking in terms of North, South, East, and West, not to mention being aware of street names. Whereas in America one will give directions by saying something like "go down 3 blocks, turn left at the signal onto Elm Street, then go 2 blocks and turn right onto 34th Way, and it's the 3rd house on the right", somebody in the UK might say "Go down the main road until you come to the second set of lights, then make the second turning and keep on past the Red Lion until you come to a junction and make the third turning and keep on up the hill until you come to some shops on the left, and it's just opposite the Co-Op." So what's the name of the street you want? Who knows? It doesn't matter -- only taxi drivers are required to know the names of streets. When I spent a year in Sheffield delivering pizza and home improvement fliers door to door, I got to know the streets in the western half of central Sheffield like the back of my hand. As a result, because of my Knowledge, everybody in my neighbourhood knew that anybody who was searching for a certain street by name should consult me.
Another thing that confuses me are the terms "top" and "bottom", as in "the top of Fargate" or "the bottom of the Moor". It's been explained to me that these terms refer to the elevation of the street, which makes sense in the case of where I live, because my "top" half of the street is up the hill from the main drag, whereas my friends who live on the other side of the main drag live on the "bottom" part of the same street because it's down the hill. But this is all fine and good because I live on the slope of a hill. I still can't figure out why "the top of Fargate", for instance, is called this because I can't distinguish any notable elevation change when one walks from one end of Fargate to the other, and I'm not in the habit of carrying a pocket altimeter or even a spirit level with me.
As to which way is North, South, East, or West, on a sunny day I can make a good educated guess; but when the sky is evenly tinted with grey I can only really guess that a particular 180-degree direction from my particular standpoint has at least a bit of North in it, or South or whatever.
I suppose, so I don't seem like such a disorientated foreigner, I should start carrying a pocket compass as well as a spirit level…
Marmite on the Moon
TUESDAY: Lunch is mushroom tarragon paté and cream cheese on a sundried tomato rustic roll. I know it sounds a bit odd, but I do like to prove that us pescaveggies can eat a wide variety of fascinating and delicious things.
Speaking of fascinating and delicious brings me to the namesake of this blog: Marmite. For any readers who have never met Marmite, it's a brewer's yeast extract first introduced in 1902 in Burton-on-Trent, from whence Bass Ale and many other famous British ales originated. If you want to know any more, check out my Marmite page or the Marmite FAQ.
The other day I was talking to a workmate about how years ago, after discovering the gooey black magic of Marmite during a holiday in the UK, I was excited to find I could buy Marmite back in America. Perhaps not at the average corner grocery, but at my gourmet liquor deli in California and at an Italian deli in Seattle. (Of course Marmite isn't Italian; but this deli stocked a wide range of European goodies.)
As Marmite is such a unique substance, with their advertising motto saying it all -- you either love it or hate it -- it has become one of those comfort foods from home that Brits sometimes pack when they travel to other countries, along with HP Sauce, Henderson's Relish, and good old fashioned English tea bags. I generally find this habit a bit offensive. I mean, if you're going to visit another culture you should do as they do and not foist your own culture upon them. But in the case of relocating to another country and living there for awhile, I can see how one might be tempted to bring along a treat from home.
Which brings me to the original topic of our conversation: just how far abroad has Marmite actually spread? Further than the edges of an American slice of toast? Do Canadians eat Marmite? Does Vegemite have a monopoly on Australia?
I decided to do a little investigation on the Internet to find out which nationalities speak Marmite. Obviously the French do, as the French marmite is a rounded earthenware cooking pot which inspired the yeasty spread's name. To this day there is still a picture of a marmite on the label. What I learned was that one can purchase Marmite at several shops in Paris, although according to one blogger the French describe Marmite as déguelasse which means "gross". But this comment could relate to the 50% of the French population who would statistically hate Marmite whether they've tried it or not. And the other 50% might love it. This is of course assuming the Marmite love/hate thing has travelled across the Channel.
What impresses me is the fact that Marmite can be purchased all over the world. It can be found at many shops all over the USA, Australia (where it's called OurMate), and South Africa, and at any grocery store in Canada. There are three German cities where one can purchase the black goo; one source in Rome; one shop in Gothenberg, Sweden; two places in Norway; and one shop in Auckland, New Zealand. It can also be purchased in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Cyprus, Israel (where the more liberal Jews consider it kosher enough), Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and all over Singapore. And although it's not strictly sold in the Czech Republic a similar product made by Tesco is available.
Whether you can buy Marmite in Greenland or Antarctica is debatable. And I wouldn't expect to find it in Madagascar or Bolivia or Togo. But who knows? I suppose wherever the Brits travel is fair game. I seriously doubt one can find Marmite on the moon -- unless, of course, one of the astronauts happened to leave a jar up there along with all those Hasselblad cameras.
I wonder if there have been any Marmite-loving astronauts. Imagine if one had accidentally let a jar of Marmite escape into the cosmos, perhaps when she or he was conducting an experiment with Marmite while taking a space walk. Among all the thousands of satellites, objects, tools, gloves, and other debris orbiting the Earth, there might be a jar of Marmite -- a theory I expect you can either love or hate.
Bagpipes and Apologies
MONDAY: Today's lunch is a homemade trout pate sandwich in a really really chewy rustic roll. I feel a bit like a cat, gnawing and tugging away at my yummy and fragrantly fishy sarnie. If only I could polish this off, give my face a quick wash, and go curl up in a sunny spot for a nap…but alas, I must resume my low-paid human existence.
In a story in a recent Guardian historian and piper Hugh Cheape claimed that Highland bagpipes were invented by the Scottish middle classes in the early 1800s, and therefore they could not have been played at the battles of Culloden in 1745 and Flodden in 1513. This is interesting news to me for the following reason.
As a "Heinz 57" -- as they call us melting-pot Americans with a zillion different nationalities and races in our background -- I suppose I've always considered myself to be a bit more Scottish than I actually am. After all, just because my father's father's father's father's father ad infinitum had a Scottish surname doesn't account for the fact that the Mitchell genes I've inherited have been diluted by my mother's genes, not to mention my mother's father's and mother's genes and my father's mother's genes and all of their various fathers and mothers, on and on throughout the infinite pyramid of genealogy -- and I haven't even taken all the adoptions into account. So that feeling of ancestral pride swelling in my breast whenever I hear the Scottish pipes may be no more than oesophageal reflux. Must have been the Marmite...
I first became excited about bagpipes when I was a young girl. As my father played the trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn, and my big brother and I were both mutually inclined, I grew up in a house full of musical instruments. One night my father took my brother out to a music shop to see about buying a new guitar. They didn't return until after I'd gone to bed. When I awoke the next morning I told my mother about how I dreamt my brother was standing at the foot of my bed cradling a set of Scottish bagpipes and doing a stunning aural impression of a neighbourhood-wide cat fight. And my mother, with a tired but tolerant smile, told me that was no dream.
Since that time I've become acquainted with the wide world of pipes, especially the Greek pipes or tsambouna of my folk-dancing days and the wonderfully alluring Uilleann pipes of Ireland, both of which are played without blowing into anything. So I suppose my special appreciation of the Scottish pipes may be down simply to an admiration for a strong set of lungs.
WEDNESDAY: Ah, lunch! Lunch yesterday was a wonderful brie from the French cheese stall at the Continental Market last weekend. Sadly they'd run out of what I call "walking camembert", eg. a gloriously fragrant camembert that ages rapidly in the fridge, eventually bursting out and walking across the floor. But the same fromagerie's brie is a good second-best, perhaps not blessed with legs but at least with flippers. Today's lunch is a good strong cheddar with the olive tapenade I bought from a Greek stall. I have to admit it is nearly as good as my own tapenade, which is saying a lot.
I feel like I've lived in the UK long enough to become adept at the British art of apologising. And I'm not referring to the apology as an expression of regret and humility for having offended someone or done someone wrong. I'm referring to the custom of saying "Sorry" in situations where an American would say "Excuse me" -- specifically when trying to maneouvre past others in a crowded or narrow space. Obviously in the UK one finds more crowded and narrow spaces than in a lot of the United States; but the passive "Sorry" as opposed to the active "Excuse me" seems to require a certain amount of timing to execute it properly. For instance, in America, when trying to get past a group of oblivious people on the pavement, I'd simply say "Excuse me" as I push my way through, with my statement acting to alert others as to my presence. This tactic is used all over America, although there are some variations. For instance, an ex-workmate of mine from Detroit told me his family tend to use the more direct "BEEP-BEEP! COMIN' THRU!" as they barge through their obstacles.
But if a person says "Sorry" it really needs to be said either a fraction of a second after the apologiser passes by her obstacles (with a tasteful amount of regret implied), or else said somewhat timidly, as if interrupting a conversation, before attempting to pass. These are simply my general observations and not rules, of course, as sometimes I've witnessed both the obstructed and the obstructers dancing about self-consciously like mating birds, generating an entire chorus of Sorrys.
I've become quite comfortable with "Sorry". But what really irritates me is a phrase I hear over and over again in the library where I work. If I or someone else is slightly blocking an aisle of books and somebody else wants to get through, they often say, "Can I just squeeze past?" To me this is insulting, as if my massive 7-stone-9 girth is obstructing so much of the aisle that another person is forced to make themselves as thin as possible to "squeeze" past me, conjuring up visions of a rat flattening itself into a pancake in order to slip through a locked desk drawer full of biscuits. And when the "squeeze-past" requester happens to be the size of a three-bedroom house, I'm afraid that vision of a wafer-thin rat just flies out the window, and I'm left not insulted but trying to keep myself from bursting out laughing.
No, this "squeezing past" just doesn't cut it. "Sorry" is much better, although I think I'll stick to my very effective "Excuse me", especially when followed by a mildly grateful "Thanks" or "Cheers".
Or perhaps I'll start saying, "BEEP-BEEP! COMIN' THROUGH!"