E-mailing Rain and a Flurry of Lunches
MONDAY: I bought my lunch today because I forgot to thaw out my breadcakes and they mush up too much if I defrost them in the microwave and then try to slice them. What a shame, because the fridge is bulging with delicious things that need to be eaten. So I decided since I had to buy a sandwich I may as well go for smoked salmon and cream cheese. But the sandwich shop, which would normally be out of smoked salmon, was out of cream cheese, and I really didn't want my usual Wensleydale with cranberries or Stilton with mango chutney. So I ordered a hot Mexican cheese sandwich. It's tasty, but the single slice of cheese is barely distinguishable, making me doubt that the sandwich will satiate me. Fortunately I brought some little Chantenay carrots and a container full of slices of pear, apple, and mango, and some clementine sections and a couple of giant grapes.
WEDNESDAY: I've got the weirdest sandwich today. I haven't tasted it just yet. It consists of a Sainsbury brown breadcake with taramosalata, cream cheese, Kalamata olives, mixed sprouts, chopped Romano red chillies and chopped spring onion with a few fresh basil leaves and a generous dash of fresh ground mixed peppercorns. And it's…it's quite good! I was worried about the sprouts getting soggy, but I thought they'd help bulk out the taramosalata so it wouldn't sploodge out of the soft breadcake. But they aren't soggy and there's no serious sploodging going on, so the whole construction works! Maybe I should start a new career as an engineer...
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY: After a weekend spent doing horribly boring things on my computer (researching and fixing a temporary glitch in my Mac Classic version of Filemaker Pro, deleting files to free up space, then searching for and installing CD burning software so that I could start to back up my cherished files) I again forgot to go shopping. So I've got another sandwich from my local sandwich shop. As they were out of Stilton and Wensleydale I opted for the cheese with sundried tomatoes and oregano. It sounded to me like the woman said Doncaster cheese, but it seems a bit strange to have cheese from Doncaster, as my own images of the rural fields outside Doncaster are filled with pigs and not cows or sheep. Does anybody make cheese out of sow's milk? I have to admit I certainly hope not. Whatever it's called, this cheese is nice although a bit orange, and I've become so accustomed to white or cream coloured cheeses. And once again there's just not quite enough cheese in the sandwich. But it's nice, a good change, and my sunflower breadcake is dark and crunchy on the outside.
WEDNESDAY: Today's sandwich is using the last of the Bavarian brie with green peppercorns, this time on a chewy Somerfield rustic brown roll with spring onion and roasted red pepper. I'm sitting in my usual lunch spot at the University, in what is called The Street. I can't explain why it's called The Street, as there are no cars or traffic lights. And it's a lot warmer and drier in this Street than it would be in your average Sheffield street right now.
It's a rare sunny day, still gorgeously brilliant even though the autumn foliage is fading, and the rain has paused for a few hours. It's such a shame we have so much excess rain in Yorkshire while Southern California is simultaneously burning to the ground. Although my mother lives safely away from the hillsides and canyons where the fires are currently blazing away, destroying home after home as well as wildlife, she is experiencing showers of ash and has been warned not to go outside unless absolutely necessary. Her dog insists on a walk in the early morning hours, but I think a little exercise, especially in the wee hours, is healthier than none. But as I walk to and from work, inhaling the fresh November air and enjoying a rare day when the rain isn't soaking me through, I can't help thinking it's so unfair that I can't package up even a day's worth of this and post it to my mom.
Considering the fact that even my normally computer-phobic mother is addicted to her WebTV system with which she can send and receive e-mails as well as photos, why hasn't somebody developed the technology to attach to one's e-mails not only graphic, sound, and video files but also smell, taste, and sensation files? That way I could e-mail my mother a short cloudburst. No, wait a minute -- since I have broadband and my mother's system is fast, why not a good ol' thunderstorm? Shouldn't be more than 5 megabytes, I wouldn't think, depending on the compression. In return she could e-mail me a chile relleno burrito from Casa Sanchez. Or if that's too inconvenient, perhaps just one of my mother's gorgeous margaritas.
I look forward to the day when I can send an e-mail to my favourite pizza delivery place - -perhaps Pizza Pagliacci in Seattle -- and have a sizzling hot, crusty pesto and caper pizza ready to enjoy whenever I choose to open the attachment in the reply. What a brilliant idea! Since so many post offices, especially the ones most convenient to most residents, have closed or are scheduled to close, this would make sending a package overseas so much easier. Just plug the compressor into a USB port, pop in that shirt, breadmaker, or iPhone, select Save As Compressed File, customize with the Giftwrap plug-in, and just ATTACH and SEND. No travelling miles during inconvenient times to find a post office, no queuing, no waiting for confirmation of delivery. I suppose it would put a lot of people out of a job, but I would say no more than when e-mail replaced the letter. After all, some people still send letters the old-fashioned way through the post. (For those who are too young to remember the days before e-mail and direct deposits, a letter is one of those things you write on paper and then fold and stick in an envelope and then you put a stamp on it and place it in the slot of one of those cylindrical red structures you find here and there around town. Yes, those "mailboxes" do have a purpose.)
THURSDAY: Mmmm good! Lunch today is Edam with a generous helping of Waitrose Sun Blushed Tomatoes and a bit of fresh basil on a Somerfield rustic roll. It's really nice, although Waitrose's "sun blushed" tomatoes taste suspiciously like sun-dried tomatoes. Perhaps, in the drying of their tomatoes, Waitrose use special SPF 15 oils and rejuvenating conditioners so they don't look so dried out and withered. (Is that Retinol I taste?) Or are the poor tomatoes simply embarrassed into softness? I do hope they weren't emotionally abused, because they sure do taste nice and I want to feel good about eating them.
German Food, Confusing Counties, and Obama's Victory
WEDNESDAY: Lunch today is fresh salmon fillet (left over from last night's dinner) with Philadelphia cream cheese, roasted red peppers, and fresh thyme and basil picked from my window sill pots. It's all freshly made, except for the cream cheese and the bread. If I only lived on a dairy farm and had time to bake my own bread, I could make my entire lunch from scratch. Of course, if I lived on a dairy farm and had time to bake my own bread I would also have time to write a few books instead of these blogs.
MONDAY: After a busy weekend filling out job applications and watching Lewis Hamilton become Formula 1 World Champion, I'm back in my hot stinky library throbbing with an overcrowding of students. I think overcrowding is an appropriate collective term for students, as in a clowder of cats or a murder of crows. I should submit it to the OED.
Lunch is a duo of smoked Bavarian cheese and sundried tomatoes simply because both need to be eaten. I'm being so good and green today. Tomorrow I might treat myself to a totally self-centred irresponsible meal. I'll see what side of the bed I fall out of in the morning.
TUESDAY: Lunch is once again…German. No, I'm not going through some sort of Teutonic gastronomic phase -- it's mere coincidence. This "German" sandwich I'm eating is German brie with green peppercorns and my own non-German roasted red peppers. And as the cheese called brie originated in the Champagne region of France, "German brie" is about as German as Cambozola, which is a soft German cheese made with triple-cream French cheese with streaks of Gorgonzola. And that's about as German as a French person with Italian blood who's become a German citizen. Or perhaps it's trying to be Swiss. Or perhaps it's a border cheese.
The term "German brie" suggests somewhere like the city of Strasbourg, which is close to Germany and has many German features but is located in France. Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace, which even as late as the 20th century had been a territory of Germany, an independent state, and a region of France, suggesting a lot of confusing border changes. I get confused about the UK's own borders. Not the borders between the countries, obviously, because any Scot or Englishman or Welshwoman will be able to tell you exactly where the borders lie. I'm referring to county borders, because even in the relatively short space of history in which I have been alive various county borders, not to mention county names, have changed. For instance, the original "historic county" in which Sheffield was located was simply called Yorkshire. Things really started to change in 1972 when the Local Government Act established "administrative counties", officially splitting Yorkshire into North, South, West, and East, and incorporating the county of Rutland into Leicestershire and Westmorland into Cumbria. With the Lieutenancies Act of 1997 some counties were combined and other county borders were rearranged, creating even more confusion. (In case you're interested, the Association of British Counties promotes a return to the original 86 historic counties.)
Even some people who live in border areas don't honestly know what county they're in. Postcodes don't help, either. For instance the city of Chesterfield, which lies southeast of Sheffield in the county of Derbyshire, has a Sheffield postcode, and the Lincolnshire town of Bawtry has a Doncaster (South Yorkshire) postcode. When I grew up in Long Beach, California, the neighbouring city of Seal Beach was technically over the eastern border in Orange County but it had a Long Beach (Los Angeles County) telephone code. This was confusing enough. But I don't think the Orange Curtain, as we used to call the county line, has altered its position even one whit.
When I was very little and first in love with maps, I used to imagine myself travelling through America and the world, using a pen or just my finger as the scaled-down embodiment of Me, happily running along and hopping over the borders. I was so disappointed when I crossed my very first border -- between the states of California and Nevada -- and discovered there was nothing physical to mark it other than perhaps a sign. Ah, well, I can still pretend...
WEDNESDAY: I'm hungrily wolfing down my Wensleydale with Cranberry sandwich. It's good and I wish there was more. I stayed up late last night to watch the US election returns. After seeing that Obama was climbing ahead at a safe distance from McCain I went to bed. This morning the news of the landslide victory made me so happy I didn't even mind coming to work today. I am just so relieved that Obama is the next President of the United States. I think it's so important in so many ways. Not just because he's the first black President and the first Democratic President in awhile, and not just because he's promised to change America's global image from that of a rich and powerful military force to a land of equal rights and democracy. I'm also relieved for my own personal reason. As an American citizen living in the UK I am constantly faced with Brits, including friends of mine, who picture America as a land packed to the gills with right-wing Christian gun-toting rednecks the size of walruses, and they seem to think that as I'm one of only a small handful of normal intelligent (and thin) Americans I must have moved to the UK to get away from all of that right-wing insanity. Well then, how does one explain this election result? If America is full of right-wing Christian gun-toting rednecks, who were the Americans who just elected a black Democrat in a landslide?
I rest my case. Bring on the champagne!
Creating Little Blips in Nothingness
MONDAY: Due to some rather mismatched fridge contents that need to be eaten, and the fact that my Co-Op rolls are too dried out and hardened for most of my filling options, lunch today is Bavarian smoked cheese with red peppers, spring onions, and an olive-feta mixture. It's a bit of a strange union which suggests standing on a dry hard mountaintop and yodelling to bouzouki music. And it tastes surprisingly right. It's accompanied by a fruit mixture that suggests insects, or perhaps a cleverly numbered shot out of the Peter Greenaway film Drowning By Numbers: very ripe blueberries and their stringy stems, kiwi slices with their dark membranes, and prawnlike clementine segments.
As escape from complaining about my job, I'm going to venture into the bizarre world of 21st century advertising. A few weeks ago I was struck by a full-page full-colour glossy ad in a magazine showing beautiful Norwegian fiords and picturesque scenes captioned with the simple message "Come to Norway.Co.UK". I imagine I wasn't alone in assuming this ad was supposed to be advertising the country of Norway. But no, it clearly was advertising the website of Norway.Co.UK. Come on, it's so easy: just turn on your computer, open your browser, go to Norway.Co.UK, and you'll see lots of beautiful pictures and you can even watch some videos. And it's all for free and so close to home! In fact, it is at home, so you don't even have to worry about transportation or booking accommodation. It's the new armchair travel for people who can't be bothered to actually leave their home. No tickets or passports or foreign currency required.
Although I have yet to check out SecondLife I do have a Facebook account simply in order to contact local friends for whom I don't have e-mail and to see their photos of recent events. But I never "do" anything on Facebook. What I mean is whenever a friend sends me a "kiss" or "flowers" or invites me to "sumo wrestle" or "take a movie quiz", I always "ignore" their request because I'd rather be doing something in real life. (And I don't mean RealLife.Com.) Life is too short to spend all of it in front of a computer.
Back when I designed websites, because I didn't have my own server I never knew where my clients' websites were parked. What this meant was that I was creating HTML files, GIFs, and JPEGs which all boil down to 0s and 1s, or Ons and Offs, stored on the hard drive of a computer that could be anywhere in the world. But this didn't concern me because I was getting paid for what anybody in the world with a computer and browser could see if they typed in a URL, and what they got was a visual image on their computer screen, sometimes with audio accompaniment emanating from their computer's speakers. But where was all this information, and in what form?
It's a strange feeling to be paid for creating tiny electronic flashings of 0s and 1s activating electronic logic gates somewhere on this planet. It's like being paid for nothingness. It's like living in nothingness. It's like…nothingness.
Or perhaps just "nothingness".
More Whingeing About My Job, with a Defrosting Interlude
MONDAY: Lunch today is basil marinated tofu and cream cheese with chopped red pepper and lettuce on a Tesco malted grain bap. My fruit is a strange equinoctial mixture of summer abundance and autumn fruit shortage: raspberries, blueberries, apples, and grapes. Although I love October, particularly for its bright orange sunsets, psychedelic foliage, and suddenly crisp cold air, it is a depressing time for fruit as peaches, nectarines, berries, melons, and mangos all fade away leaving the standard winter apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes. I mean, I like all fruit (except for watermelon, and I'm sadly allergic to grapefruit). But I find apples and grapes as exciting as potatoes and carrots, whereas mangoes, cantaloupe, and raspberries are more like artichokes, purple broccoli, and sundried tomatoes. Know what I mean?
I'm back this week working at my regular campus library. I'm not very happy about this, as the work here is physically more exhausting while being devoid of mental stimulation. And the one room in which I am confined to work seems to be kept at a nice toasty 80 degrees F (27 C) with no air flow, so not only is it impossible not to sweat gallons but it's also very difficult to breathe. Add to this the subject matter: at the city campus library I was surrounded by 6 levels of art, literature, marketing, science, architecture, technology, cinema, urban studies, photography, computer science, tourism, and food studies among other things, while here it's one stifling room full of nursing and midwifery texts. Ho-f***ing-hum.
As I've said before, I desperately need a new job -- a real job, I should say, with annual leave, holiday pay, and sick days, hopefully by the Christmas break. I was so close a week ago, interviewing for a job I wanted so desperately I could taste it. Oh, the challenge, the fascinating subject, the use of my mind and my skills, the human respect for a change! As I was so hungry for this job I managed during my interview to refrain from drooling, although I did have a bad cold and had to pause the interview twice in order to noisily clear my sinuses. My feedback was good and positive, so I can only assume the candidate who did win the job was perhaps a current member of staff who happened to be an XML expert, and that the interviewers weren't put off by my impressive production of snot.
WEDNESDAY: It's the same lunch as Monday. Yesterday was a break of some very ripe Stilton with a bit of mango chutney. Having a different sandwich each day, even if I'm only alternating between 2 varieties per week, seems to be the only way I can distinguish each boring day of the week, shelving the same books on the same shelves and answering the same questions. This is only the third day of my Return to the Smaller Campus and already I'm scratching notches in the walls, counting off the days until my release. Oh Lordy, come soon, come soon…
I remember the days when, if you had a job and did it well, you could easily get a promotion of at least a pay rise. Nowadays you have to fill out a long self-lauding and time-consuming application and then, if you're lucky enough to get shortlisted, you must be interviewed by a panel who are bound to ask you at least one completely irrelevant and seemingly meaningless question. And then the panel decides between the candidates, and one of them phones the losers to let them know that someone more qualified got the position. I even know of people who have a job but who have to re-apply and go through this whole process just to keep their job. What this says to me is that it's not worth doing a job well and with enthusiasm because you are no longer guaranteed of being rewarded in any way. I'm wondering if this is the difference between the job market of the 21st Century and that of the late 20th Century, or if it's a more insidious difference between the job market of the UK and that of the US. As I haven't lived in America since the 20th Century I really must ask an American friend if they or any of their associates ever need to fill out a long self-lauding application in order to keep their jobs…
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY: Lunch today is Wensleydale with cranberries on a sunflower seed breadcake from a sandwich shop on my way to work. Yesterday a brand new fridge from Curry's was delivered. We were very excited about this because not only did the door on our old fridge no longer close, costing us an exorbitant amount in electricity, but the non-frost-free freezer had become a no-go zone, with a broken flap on the top compartment and 2 drawers that were nearly impossible to open unless you were pulling them with the help of a team of huskies. As the new fridge was arriving between 11:30 and 3:30 we spent the morning defrosting the old fridge, attacking the permafrost with machetes and brute force and carting away so much ice that if it melted it could flood the Peak District. As we gained headway we found some frozen treasures: a packet of salmon fillets from several months earlier, a packet of prawns missing for months, and what appeared to be the carcasses of 2 woolly mammoths.
The new fridge arrived and was installed by 1:30, but we still had to wait another 4 hours for the gasses to settle before we could turn it on. Considering that by this time much of our refrigerated and frozen food needed to be disposed of, I decided it best if I bought my lunch today, just like regular working people.
THURSDAY: Lunch today is avocado and cheddar on a nice chewy Somerfield roll, seasoned with cumin, chilli powder, and cayenne. As I was feeling a bit out of focus this morning I forgot to add any crunchy vegetables. Still, it's quite tasty, although it's disappearing far too quickly.
I'm afraid I haven't stopped whingeing about my job. As I have been fighting for the past year for my rights according to the European Directive on Part Time Employment, it has come to the point where the University finally recognises I've established continuity and therefore my status as a "casual scum-sucking slave" should be changed to "permanent part-time employee". YAY!! Only problem is they seem to think the only benefit of this change is that I'm guaranteed 25 hours each week (I'm currently guaranteed 24) and that I can now get sick pay if I'm ill, which happens rarely. But the point in this battle has been to gain a position where I can get paid holidays and annual leave, benefits to which every part-time permanent employee I know in Britain is entitled. But no, say the University. I escalated this battle for my rights so that not only can I look forward to someday being able to take some time off to go visit my 85-year-old mother in California before she dies, but also so I don't go hungry and intensely overdrawn over the two-week Christmas break when the University is closed and I'm not allowed to come in and slave away like Satan's -- sorry, Santa's -- little scum-sucking helper. But battling all the time is taking its toll on my health and well-being, and I really could use some R&R…
FRIDAY: As I ate lunch at home today, it was a quesadilla made with a mixture of avocado, cream cheese, mature cheddar, red pepper, spring onion, and mushroom and seasoned with plenty of Tabasco sauce. This afternoon I learned that the wheels are starting to churn, and I'm hoping I get some satisfaction soon. Stay tuned…
P.S. I promise I'll talk about something more entertaining next time. I promise!
The search for chiles in a chilli world
WEDNESDAY: Lunch today is a fresh local bakery granary breadcake with vegetarian turkey slices, cream cheese, spring onion, and sundried tomatoes. What a nice change from cheese, with the oil from the sundried tomatoes adding a nice bit of moisture to the dry Quorn slices.
THURSDAY: As this may well be my last day at the City Centre campus, I decided to treat myself to a slice of pizza at Alfie + Bella. Sadly there was none of their gorgeous goat cheese and artichoke pizza, and of the 3 choices 2 were meat pizzas. So I've settled for a slice of margarita which, although not terribly interesting, is still quite good. And a "slice" is actually 2 slices here. As the University term starts next week this popular café is absolutely buzzing today, and my cold-infected ears are throbbing from the din.
FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY: Lunch on this runny-nose day is a very runny Mediterranean houmus and cream cheese on a Tesco malted grain breadcake with chopped red pepper, spring onion, and pimiento-stuffed olives, seasoned liberally with cayenne. It's surprisingly delicious, just a bit splooshy considering I keep having to stop to blow my nose.
Seeing as how I'm trying to start writing a coffee column and studying for an exciting job interview, I think I'll keep it simple this week. Instead of discussing the global economic crisis and the bizarre turn of the Presidential election I'll just complain some more about food.
This weekend one of the newspaper magazines featured a recipe for stuffed poblano chillies. Naturally this recipe sounded delicious to me, as I've missed my own chile rellenos, made with poblano chiles*, ever since I moved to the UK. I can manage to make refried beans and tolerable burritos only because I can purchase pinto beans and tolerable flour tortillas in the country, even in Sheffield. But to make a proper chile relleno one needs fresh poblano or pasilla chiles, or Anaheims at the very least. But where am I to find any?
(*As the Brits spell it chilli and the Americans spell it the more correct chile I'm using both spellings, depending on whether I'm speaking from a British or an American reference.)
Obviously the majority of Brits who read this newspaper recipe live in or around London, where I imagine all sorts of "exotic" produce can be found, even if it's only in one tiny ethnic grocery hidden away in an unexpected backstreet. Perhaps there's even a tiny Mexican community hiding somewhere in the greater London area. When I first moved to the Pacific Rim city of Seattle I was surprised to learn that the second most commonly spoken language in Seattle homes was Spanish due to the large Mexican community, which explained why there are so many good Mexican restaurants in Seattle.
I doubt, however, that there are many Mexicans or central or southern Americans living and shopping in South Yorkshire. (I have met one Mexican in Sheffield, during the last World Cup, but he was a visiting student.) As a result I doubt there are any shops that sell fresh poblano chillies.
So I did what anybody would do in this day and age when searching for something locally unavailable: I went online. I managed to find 2 UK websites offering fresh poblano chillies, one located in Dorset and one in Devon. But I was turned off by the prices: £1.10 per poblano, or £2.50 for a packet of 3. One of them even offered serrano chillies at £2.20 for 6. Considering I used to buy these small hot very useful chiles in Seattle at a ridiculously low price -- 6 serranos would have cost only a few cents -- I was a bit put off. To make chile rellenos for me and my two housemates I would need 6 poblanos minimum -- and since I need to blacken them over a flame and then stuff them I prefer each of my poblanos to be the appropriate shape which can be assured only if I choose my own poblanos.
In the interest of getting English people interested in having fresh poblanos available, I'll describe the basic chile relleno. (Sorry -- I must go into the American spelling for this.) You take aforementioned poblano chile -- or pasilla or even the mild Anaheim, which are all large chiles which are mildly hot. Then you blacken the chile under a grill or over a flame until the skin is black. Then you wrap it in wet kitchen roll for a few minutes, remove the skin and the seeds, then stuff it with a fat strip of white cheese (I add some raisins or sultanas), dip it in beaten egg, fry it on both sides in a small amount of olive oil, and serve it with a sauce made of sautéed tomato, onion, garlic, serrano chiles, and coriander leaf. A little dollop of sour cream is an excellent garnish. If you don't have serrano chiles, which you won't have if you live in South Yorkshire, you can use any small moderately hot green chilli. (There I go again -- now I'm talking about British chillies. Don't worry -- I'm as confused as you are.) But you must have poblanos or Anaheims. You just can't make a chile relleno otherwise.
I'm going to try to talk a chilli-growing acquaintance into growing poblanos because he's eaten them as well -- during a trip to the Americas, obviously. In the meantime I'm hoping that enough local people read this blog and get the urge to try chile rellenos, in which case there could be a big push to get poblano chillies in our greengrocer shops.
¡Olé! ¡Vámanos! ¡Mas poblanos, por favor!
The Teletext Theory of Existence
TUESDAY: I'm too busy to postulate, compare, or gripe today, but I've got to mention my lunch. It's brie, cashews, sun dried tomatoes, and fresh dill on a Sainsbury flat seedy roll. Mmmm, good! it really is. I'd sell this in a cafe if I had a cafe, or at least in a sandwich shop. I could call it Cashew Dill Brie Sandwich with Sun dried Tomatoes or something equally descriptive. Or else perhaps just Fred.
WEDNESDAY: On this inaugural day of the Large Hadron Collider my sandwich is a simple one: Stilton on seedy roll with the merest hint of mango chutney. Like a simple beam of blue and yellow particles all going in one direction it's not meant to chart new territory or to prove the existence of anything. It's only meant to taste good.
This morning at 8:28 BST the scientists at Cern in Switzerland turned on the Large Hadron Collider, sending bundles of protons around the 4.4-mile-long inner ring. At around 11:00 a stream of particles was sent in the opposite direction. Fifteen minutes later I was chatting with my workmates about what all this means and could mean. I suppose "chatting" isn't the right word: "expounding, babbling, and foaming at the mouth with zeal" is probably a more accurate description of what I was doing. We spoke of the proof or disproof of string theory and the Higgs boson. Everybody instantly warmed to the idea of string theory being validated, specifically the proof of extra dimensions existing beyond the ones of which we are physically aware. As we moved books along the library shelves we imagined an alternate life form, perhaps even extraterrestrial, sitting at cafe tables and sipping cappuccinos in the exact space where we were shelving books, perhaps aware of us but perhaps not. I was leaning toward the idea that we would each be unaware of the other because in my mind I was just then formulating my Teletext Theory of the Universe.
For Americans who aren't familiar with Teletext, it is sort of a plain-text information, news, and directory system available on UK and European televisions. Because there is a time delay between the actual display of one line of raster data in a broadcast TV signal and the next, Teletext information can be broadcast in the vertical blanking interval (VBI) which occurs between image frames. (For those wondering why this didn't take off in America, it's probably because the higher-definition PAL television system used in the UK consists of 625 scan lines and the NTSC system used in America is only 525 scan lines.) What this means is that when we switch our TV to Teletext, we can access information completely separate from the regular television broadcast because it is displayed alternately, eg. at a different time in different scan lines. So if we have 10 space-time dimensions but we're only using 4 of them, it makes sense that somebody else could be using the other 6 dimensions -- sort of like a timeshare universe.
As one revelation progresses into another, I'm afraid I must expand on this theory. In the UK more people live in less space than in America, so the UK portion of the universe could be more high-definition than the American portion. Would that mean that those of us here in Yorkshire are sharing our space and time with significantly more life forms than Californians are? Does this mean Brits have the potential to experience significantly more telepathic episodes, hauntings, and other paranormal experiences than Americans? Or is it simply because the Brits are more likely to be barking mad?
I'd like to expound further, but I've just received a conference call on my mobile from Uri Geller, Isaac Newton, and Cleopatra which I need to attend to before Amelia Earhart texts me back…
Us v. Them
WEDNESDAY: As a change from cheese, lunch today is a tuna sandwich. As my old California workmates would know, I'm really not a fan of tuna and mayo, and I am a bit particular about my tuna sandwiches. For one thing, I prefer tuna steak (or albacore in the States) and I much prefer it in brine rather than in oil. This morning, however, the only tuna in the house was tuna chunks in oil, so that's what I've used, draining it well. Then I mixed it with capers, a dash of caper vinegar, and chopped red pepper, and seasoned it with fresh coriander leaf, dried thyme, cumin, and cayenne. I make it differently every time depending on my mood and the available ingredients. And to keep it from falling out of my breadcake I use a thin slather of cream cheese for glue. As far as this blog is concerned it's Tuna Sandwich Experience No. 3. For fruit I've got some cantaloupe -- possibly my last cantaloupe of this gloriously tropical summer fruit season -- and some plump red grapes. And I'm eating it all in the newly lilac-and-blue staff room livened up by the same old fridge hum and air circulation buzz, not to mention the sound of Edward tripping over one of the new coffee tables.
This past Friday I was interviewed by phone on BBC Radio Sheffield. The last 2 times I was on Radio Sheffield I was prepared and eager to talk about coffee and tea. This time, however, I was sleep deprived and slightly hung over from my Thursday evening festivities, and the questions I was asked about the American Presidential campaign just didn't inspire my struggling mind. For instance, I attempted to answer the question about the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, but as soon as I started I was so bored with the question that I was even more uninterested in my reply. They're 2 different parties, that's all, with the Democrats generally more liberal than the Republicans and the Republicans generally more conservative than the Democrats. But there are always exceptions, as there are with any generalisations.
Which brings me to this week's subject. (I suppose it's more of a beef, although being a pescavegetarian I prefer the taste of subject.) This week I'm talking about generalisations and stereotypes directed toward enormous chunks of the population -- for instance, the believe by many Brits I've encountered that America is a land full of obese Bible-bashing gun-toting Bush-loving conservatives who are anti-abortion and pro-capital punishment. Now, I could argue that there are quite a few thin atheist Bush-hating liberals who are pro-abortion and anti-guns and capital punishment. But what about the slightly overweight Socialists? And what about the staunch Democrat pro-hunting self-called rednecks you find in some states? What about the Unitarian single moms who voted for Ross Perot in 1996? What about the middle-of-the-road beer-bellied apathists who don't have an opinion on abortion or capital punishment but who vehemently hate guns? I used to think of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as being more liberal and the heartland of the country as being more conservative, but how does that explain the California Conservative Movement or that great progressive from Texas, Molly Ivins?
Here in the UK there are stereotypes involving Northerners v. Southerners. When I lived "down South", eg. in Kent, and we were planning on moving to "the North", eg. Yorkshire, I was warned by my small number of Southern friends that I would find life miserable "up there". They honestly believed that in the North the pubs were filled with men while the women stayed at home cooking -- Yorkshire puddings, obviously -- and cleaning. When we moved to "the North" we were surprised to find not only a warm and friendly population whom we befriended instantly, but also pubs that were filled not only with men and women, but with women who were drinking full pints and appearing to have a good time, as opposed to the Southern women with their half pints I always saw who often looked angry, thoroughly bored, or at least like they were dealing with a mouthful of Marmite. I know that could be construed as my own Northern and Southern stereotypes, but it's my honest observation. Obviously I realise there are happy full-pint-guzzling women in Kent and miserable half-pint-sipping women in Yorkshire. So you really can't make generalisations about anybody anywhere.
I'm just glad I live in the North, away from all those sour-faced provincial "Souv'ners" with their million-pound homes and those horrid accents…
