Business and Commerce
The Art of Sipping
TUESDAY: Lunch is a sandwich with Edam and Olive Tapenade -- and I'm referring to the ingredients, not the next-door neighbours. My stomach has been burning for the past week so I'm taking it easy today and saving a much richer Camembert sandwich for tomorrow. My fruit includes fresh nectarine, raspberries, and a new fruit to me, sharon fruit, which is a type of persimmon. My local greengrocer described it as tasting like a cross between a grape and a pear. It's very orange, sweet, and juicy, even suggesting papaya, and it looks really nice with the nectarine orange and the raspberry red.
I've just read another complaint about extended licensing hours, and it reminded me that I've been meaning to talk about this for some time. The erroneous assumption on the part of the British establishment is that longer opening hours for pubs, which has gradually come into effect over the years, is responsible for increasing the binge drinking problems in this country. Like toasted crumpets without Marmite that is so illogical, and I've just got to explain why.
When I grew up in California, no bar or shop could sell alcohol between the hours of 2:00am and 6:00am. What this meant was that between the hours of 6:00am and 2:00am one could find some sort of bar somewhere where one could buy a drink. A hardcore alcoholic could head off to the pub at 6 in the morning and stay there all day into the wee hours of the morning drinking themselves into oblivion. But how many drinkers are that extreme? The average person would simply know that they were free to meet friends for a champagne brunch, or for a sandwich and beer at lunch, or perhaps for a mid-afternoon drink, or they could stop after work for a cocktail, or stop for a glass of wine before or after an evening event, or they could even stop off for a beer after working a graveyard shift. There was no urgent rush to get down t'pub by noon or by 7:00pm, because the pub was nearly always open.
The same basic opening hours apply in Seattle and Washington State as well as many other states. In New York and Illinois bars don't have to close until 4:00am, and in the city of New Orleans and the state of Nevada bars can stay open all the time if they like. But in America does one see more stumbling drunks with black eyes puking on the pavement with their knickers around their ankles than they do in Britain? The simple answer is no.
So why is this? Well, I've got my own theory.
When I first moved to the UK I brought with me the habit of sipping my pints leisurely while my British mates would throw theirs down their necks as if there was a monetary prize for the fastest drinker. Wanting to fit into the culture I gradually learned to up my speed, especially when having a session in a pub that closed in the afternoon. Whereas it was natural for me to fit in no more than 2 pints between the 12:00 opening and the 2:30-3:00 closing, I often felt pressured to hurry up in order to keep level with my companions. And during the evening, when pubs stopped serving at 11:00 but allowed another half hour to drink up, I was forever amazed to see the instant queue of customers at the bar the moment time was called, and quite a number of them would order more than one drink for themselves with the intention of guzzling it all in a record time of 30 minutes.
By 2005, when the latest extended licensing hours came into effect, many more pubs were already open all afternoon. Currently, if their applications are successful, pubs can open at noon and stay open until midnight or 1:00am or even later. But the fact that one's local is now open for 12 continuous hours every day hasn't really changed the habit of getting as many down as you can while you can. It's like a dog wolfing its food even though it knows it's the only pet in the household and it has the entire day to dine.
So this is what causes the binge-drinking culture. It has nothing to do with how long a pub can be open -- it's young people who've learned the art of wolfing their beer, often from their own parents. There's already the Slow Food movement, so I think it's about time Britain started a Slow Pint movement. So how about it, CAMRA?
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 Smeared with Marmite".
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…
Battle of the Scottish Buses
WEDNESDAY: This week it's exquisitely quiet in the university library where I work. Lunch on this post-holiday-weekend pretend Monday is haloumi with red pepper and spicy papaya chutney, and some strawberries that actually have some taste: like strawberries, to be exact.
According to an article in yesterday's Guardian, Tesco is not alone in its contribution to Britain conquering America. First Group, the company that owns all the First buses, purchased the Greyhound Bus network last year, and this week it intends to launch Bolt Buses, a budget alternative, in the northeastern US. Meanwhile Stagecoach, First's UK rival, started its Megabus coach service in the Midwest two years ago, adding a second Los Angeles hub last summer with current plans to move into the Northeast and New York City. This is where the battle commences, with First and Stagecoach competing for the lion's share of affordable luxury cross-country bus connections..
It's been a very long time since I rode a Greyhound bus across America. As I got older and could afford it, I preferred to take the train instead. In the US this meant Amtrak, which was probably luxury enough in that sleeping in a reclining coach seat was the only way to travel overnight, as the sleeping compartments were way too dear for the average person. And the glass-ceilinged Dome Car was the place to enjoy the scenery while sipping a cocktail. The only Greyhound Bus-style ride I've taken in recent years was a short jaunt between Portland and Astoria, Oregon, on a RAZ bus. And even though the journey was no more than two hours I am happy to report that there was country music piped in the entire way, which is definitely a classic Greyhound experience..
In this current US bus takeover, I'm afraid I'm rooting for Stagecoach, not just because it was a First bus that ran over me and fractured my pelvis three years ago - although an experience like that obviously might prejudice me a bit. I've always liked Stagecoach better because the drivers seem friendlier in general and they're a hell of a lot more reasonable with their fares. For instance, during a weekday if I catch the 52 bus from Sheffield City Centre to Crookes, the fare on a First 52 is an astronomical £1.70, where the Stagecoach 52 charges only a quid. Seeing as how my current schedule involves taking a bus back from town two times a week, waiting a few more minutes for a Stagecoach will save me £1.40 a week. And when you're living on slave wages like I am, this is substantial..
If these two Scottish bus companies already have experience operating coach services in America, how come bus fares in the UK are so much higher relative to the cost of living than they are in the States? Someone once told me that Sheffield has the highest bus fares in the UK. When I first moved to Seattle I was refreshingly surprised to discover how cheap the buses were, and anyone can still ride any bus inside the downtown corridor for free. If you have to catch two buses the transfer system in Seattle and elsewhere is brilliant: upon payment of your fare on any bus you receive a timed transfer which allows you to catch a connecting bus before the transfer expires, which usually gives you 2 or 3 hours. Alternatively, if you're taking a bus to do a ten-minute errand, the transfer allows you to catch a bus back home on the same fare. Why can't they do this in Sheffield? I mean, the day saver passes you can buy save you money only if you're catching 3 or more buses. They're completely useless otherwise, just like a jar of Marmite with a hole in the centre.
Attack of the Tescos
I grew up in Los Altos, a suburban part of Long Beach, California. In my childhood Los Altos consisted of streets and avenues full of single-storey 1950s homes that were accommodated by an uncovered shopping mall and Hiram's grocery store, which was situated on the corner of Palo Verde Avenue and Spring Street. As I grew up Hiram's was eventually taken over by Lucky Supermarkets, while another supermarket called Alpha Beta appeared kitty corner, and eventually on a third corner of the same intersection National Lumber was erected.
After being away for a number of years I wasn't too surprised to discover on a visit that Lucky had become an Albertsons supermarket, Alpha Beta had transmogrified into a Spring Farms supermarket, and National Lumber had joined the supermarket glut by turning into a Stater Brothers. Fair enough -- change happens.
But I was a bit shocked to learn from a friend that one of Britain's Big 4 supermarket chains, Tesco, is infiltrating not just America but my childhood neighbourhood with their new line of Fresh and Easy Neighbourhood Markets. Yes, they have knocked Spring Farms out of the competition and set up shop at Palo Verde and Spring, only a few metres away from my old high school and a mere 1.3 miles from the house where I was raised.
The opening of this new Los Altos Tesco is to be followed in a matter of days by 5 more Fresh and Easy openings, which seems like extremely rapid expansion to me. When I checked out the Tesco website I discovered to my surprise that their first US store opened in November in Hemet, California, an inland town 90 miles from Los Angeles where my grandparents, as well as many other grandparents, lived in trailer parks when I was young. Now that Hemet has expanded into a thriving metropolis of 66,000, I suppose it seemed an appropriate launch pad for a viral explosion of Tescos, as in 4 short months 50 Fresh and Easys have opened in Southern California, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, Arizona. And next year there are plans to open 19 more in and around Sacramento, discreetly infiltrating the California seat of government with their stocks of baked beans, crumpets, and Marmite. Can the Terminator stop this? I doubt it...
It was only last year that the citizens of my local Sheffield neighbourhood succeeded in stopping Tesco from moving in. Commonside was adequately supplied with a corner shop and a Co-Op, with several other small shops and news agents within walking distance and a large Tesco just down the hill. When Tesco announced its plans to install a shop on an abandoned corner previously home to a petrol station, a petition was quickly drawn up against it. In one of many recent examples of the strength of ordinary Brits against Tesco, we won!
And to think that my Southern Californian mother may be doing her weekly shopping at Tesco...
SUNDAY UPDATE: I read in yesterday's Guardian that the Fresh and Easy chain is in trouble, missing sales targets by 70%. So their plans to open 1000 outlets all over the western United States may be in trouble. Locals in Los Angeles have described the Fresh and Easy “convenience stores” as too middle-market, eg. not cheap but not gourmet, while the self-serve checkout machines turn a lot of customers off.
On second thought, I doubt my mother will be shopping there much.
Sunday 5th October 2003: Stand-Up Coffee and Endangered Thin People
I can't believe that after all these years the UK has finally come up with this great idea of a "new" debit card system whereby customers punch in their PIN numbers instead of giving their signatures. Now, how many decades ago did the US start using this system? The UK may be years ahead of the US as far as TV, video, and mobile phone technology, but it's good to see the US is ahead in something.
The Coffee Republic espresso coffeehouse chain has decided to increase their profits by removing all the comfy sofas and armchairs from their cafes. They feel that having comfortable furniture makes customers linger too long over one coffee. Why not just turn all Coffee Republics into Jack-in-the-Box-style drive-throughs? Then you don't have to worry about any sort of seating.
Speaking of fast food, the first European Krispy Kreme doughnut shop (which started in North Carolina in 1937) opened last week inside Harrods. All sorts of celebrities turned out, and in anticipation 2 people had queued all night. Apparently when a new Krispy Kreme opens in the US it's been known for customers to queue 12 days in advance, with lines of traffic forming for several miles. And all this for a little sticky greasy sugary torus.
No wonder there's such a problem with obesity. The Goliath Casket Company offers a special range of coffins for the obese. A typical model is 4 feet wide, requires 15 pallbearers, and can hold a 64-stone corpse. (As a stone is equivalent to 14 pounds, that comes out to 896 pounds!!!)
This is obviously why clothing manufacturers are increasing their sizes. A recent mail-order catalogue we received offers Size 10 as the lowest possible woman's size. I'm a UK Size 4. Looks like I'll have to get at least rich enough to hire my own personal tailor. Or become a nudist...
