British Television

Being raised on a steady diet of Mr. Bean and A Bit of Fry and Laurie as a child (thanks, Mom!), I was looking forward to fleeing American cable saturated with Jersey Shore for the comfort of quality programming this side of the pond.  (Or is it programme-ing?)

Before I even arrived in my flat, however, I was receiving threatening letters from the authorities making sure I immediately paid my TV tax.  Even though all TV channels are technically free (with the exception of Rupert Murdoch's channel SkyTV, God bless that capitalist), the BBC is financed via a stiff annual tax on anybody with a television.  Per television set.

Luckily for me, I'm a student, so I'm too poor for a set.  That didn't stop the letters, though.  They kept coming and coming, promising me every time that They Would Find Me and someone would Come To My House To Make Sure I'm Not Watching TV. The worst bit is, I think they actually would have. To avoid that bit of unpleasantry, I returned the letters assuring the sender I wouldn't watch live television, and now enjoy all the same shows on BBC iPlayer after the appropriate delay.  Don't tread on me!

Now.  British comedies.  Where do I begin.  Um?  I'm not so sure they could broadcast most of these comedies on American TV.  I won't go into details, but . . . Let's just say I can't get into details.

"So, you bleep out those words when it's actually broadcast on TV, right?" I asked an English friend.

She looked at me like I had ten heads.  "What words?"

The philosophy is, if it's after "watershed" or about 9 pm, parents should know to keep kids away from the telly because the humor becomes a bit, well, puerile.  It's so puerile, in fact, that on American television it would only be found on premium premium cable such as HBO.  Nope!  Here I can get it for free on the official YouTube channel.

Eventually, another ex-pat assuaged my concerns by reminding me: The Puritans did, after all, leave England.

Oh, well.  I can't complain.  Now I can watch back episodes of Top Gear to my heart's content, and not the cruddy American version either.  Jeremy Clarkson all the way.  Some things, after all, should stay as they are, unadapted across the pond.  God knows I didn't come here so I could watch Geordie Shore.

Moveable Feast

It's a symptom of how busy this year has been that, exactly one year after celebrating Republic Day in India, I am now celebrating Australia Day at an Oxford pub.

It's also a symptom of just how insane Indian driving is that, for the second year in a row my eyes boggled at a clip of the Army Signal Corps in the Republic Day parade.



I actually wish I had the video of what they did last year.  The first few daredevils on the route sat at the top of giant, thin poles, holding on with just their legs as they 'casually' read the paper twenty feet above the ground, at high speed.  Oh, by the way, they were facing backwards.

Wow.  All we're doing for Australia Day is eating lamingtons.

All Greek to Me

I spent last weekend in London celebrating my one-year anniversary of moving to Delhi by reuniting with my old flatmates from our Gautam Nagar guesthouse.  On the way, I did a wander through the British Museum with another friend who happened to be in from Boston.

It's a testament to London's cultural and historical wealth that this was the first time in many trips that I was retracing my steps through a tourist attraction.  Even if I had been to the British Museum hundreds of times, though, I would go back in a heartbeat.  As a philosophy major and a longtime student of Greek antiquity, the giant collection of statues and marbles makes my heart just pitter-patter.  I wandered through, my mouth agape, pointing out every artistic detail I could remember to my Boston friend.

She nodded along for a while, then wondered aloud, "I wonder how the British Museum got to keep all of this stuff.  Shouldn't it be in Greece?"

That is an excellent question, of course, although one I left for the pamphlets at the entrance to explain rather than go into the details of colonialism.  It reminded me of my own trip to Greece as a backpacking undergrad, just a few short months before the Athens Olympics were to kick off.  Even then, I was eager to see Greek history up close, and it was with a deep and profound awe that I looked forward to seeing the epitome of architectural mastery: the Parthenon in Athens.

Photo not mine -- original from linz_ellinas

When I approached the building however, I learned that a few key pieces were missing, or had been replaced by replicas.  It wasn't the real Parthenon, in other words.  The majority of the originals were in the city where I had just made my first, three-day visit, though, sadly, without stepping foot into any museums -- London.

Whoops!  There it is!

Yes, they were all kept in what is now my favorite room on the island of Britain: The Parthenon Room.

I felt a right idiot.

Of course, that wasn't the only odd part of my trip to Athens.  In preparation for the Olympics, the authorities were giving the entire Acropolis a little facelift.  Scaffolding propped up parts of the Parthenon and the Erechtheum.  Approaching the windy southwest corner of the rocky promontory, I noticed a jumble of stones where the Temple of Athena Nike was supposed to be . . . but no Temple of Athena Nike.

Well, readers, they had taken this gorgeous, ancient temple apart. To clean it.

Don't worry. They were going to put it back together when they were done.

So, if someone isn't putting it indoors in another country with the outside facing in, someone's quietly dismantling it for a week or two. Which, speaking of philosophy, begs an interesting question: if a temple has been rebuilt for the hundredth time last week, how ancient is it really?

Au Contraire

Mike Shatzkin posted an article this morning about the new trend of US and UK publishers muscling into a greater presence in foreign territories simply because publishers in other native languages haven't yet gone digital.  Paired with this week's Economist article about disappearing South African languages, and you start to see a pattern of creeping decay for everything but English.

Ironically, the digital revolution has brought me un peu plus de francais.  Before setting off for Malta, I downloaded the Merrill-Webster French-English Dictionary to my Kindle and, after a little research on Amazon, learned how to switch my default dictionary.  Now I'm zipping through The Comte de Monte Cristo in its original language, buffeted along by the ease in which I can look up unfamiliar words.  (Unfortunately, as my French hasn't been stretched since sophomore year of university, there are many.)  Reading a novel in French seemed a giant task when I started.  Now I've put down the Evelyn Waugh book I'd thought to balance out the project and am reading solely the Dumas until its completion.

My guess is no one will put this in the marketing materials, but it's a personal godsend.  With luck my April trip to Morocco to visit the sis will find me jabbering along with Casablanca locals beyond cab fare and groceries.  Maybe English is the lingua franca, but since that's the one I already know, j'en ai beaucoup plus à apprendre.

Maltese Morning

Having been in America only a short thirty-six hours beforehand, I woke up on my first morning in Malta a little earlier than normal.  I stumbled over to the heavy curtains and drew them open just in time to be greeted by this:

"Oh come on," I said out loud.  "This is just unnecessary."

Malta is just that, in two words: gratuitously beautiful.  The residents demurely apologized for the "chilly" weather as I pulled out my sunglasses for the first time in months and practically lobbed my fleece off the top level of an open-air bus.  Day one found me wandering around the medieval towns of Valletta, Mdina, and Vittoriosa admiring the gorgeous architecture and even more breaktaking scenery.

From Upper Barrakka Gardens, Valletta

St John's Co-Cathedral, Valletta

From Lower Barrakka Gardens, Valletta

From the waterfront, Vittoriosa

Sunset from Vittoriosa

Day two found me traveling to the neighboring island of Gozo for more natural beauty.

The Blue Lagoon, Comino Island, from the Gozo Island Ferry

View of the Mediterranean from Calypso's Cave, Gozo

Azure Window, Gozo

Fungus Rock, Gozo

The most telling feature of the trip, however, came slightly beforehand.  Being acquainted with a Maltese family now living in America and whom I used to both work for and go to school with, I got back in touch to ask their advice on my journey.  What I got in return was a long, thought-out, bullet-pointed list of things to do, restaurants to try, and family connections I should visit on the way.  Their advice led me to some of the best food I've ever eaten, and a ream of photos just as beautiful as the ones above. Afterwards, my classmate saw my photos on Facebook and discovered I had been standing under the balcony of yet another family member.  I was promptly scolded for not stopping by for a meal.

It was well above and beyond what I would have expected.  But, just like the rest of Malta, it was a most welcome surprise.

In-flight Entertainment

Seems like every time my plane encounters turbulence, I invariably find myself clutching the hand of some old woman of exotic nationality and trying to keep her from crying.  God knows I'm not a relaxed flyer myself, but in this kind of situation I find it's best to play your poker face  At any show of nerves, the foreign lady might scream, I might scream, and at that rate the plane would never get down.

(In case you're curious why I hate flying, I can trace it exactly down to when I took this video of our takeoff from Lukla, Nepal.  I literally spent this entire flight delivering my soul up to God.  This is also where my first encounter with a crying Nepalese mother took place.)

I arrived back in England this morning only to forget which side of the road cars drive on, an incident shortly followed by the bungling of a coffee order.  In other words, it's just as I remember.  After one look around, I'm packing my bag for Malta where I'll be for several days scoping out the Mediterranean Sea and . . . well, hopefully doing very little else.  In the meantime, keep watching the skies.

Dum de Dum-de-dum Dum-a-dum Day

Farewell once again to Boston.  And, in the immortal words of Jonathan Richman:

Dum de Dum-de-dum Dum-a-dum Day, I love New England
Dum de Dum-de-dum Dum-a-dum Day, oh New England

And now . . . back to Old England!

Never Fails

Just in case I'd forgotten what a real winter feels like . . .

It's what we Bostonians call a "Nor'easter".  And, yeah, a good number of people went to work anyways.  Including several gentlemen I saw wearing cross-country skis and snowshoes.

As for me?  I'm a student!  I've been inside watching movies all day.  Pass the popcorn.

The Desert Island List

Now that my brief sojourn back in America is winding down, it's time to consider what American groceries to smuggle bring back into the UK.  More than once, I've wandered the aisles of Tesco pining for a Trader Joe's.  Soreen Malt Loaf and crumpets just can't compare to the comfort foods of home.

This afternoon, I bit the bullet and made my shopping trip.  In America we have a term, "Desert Island List".  It refers to the short list of things you would choose to take if you were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life.  Consider this my Desert Island List, British Isles edition:
 - large bags of mixed nuts (2) - necessary because they are twice as expensive in the UK
 - dried edamame - the Brits have no appreciation for soy products
 - peanut butter - because it tastes terrible in the UK (no wonder they don't like it)
 - dried cherries - to remind me of my home state of Michigan
 - one more package of each of the above, in a chocolate-covered version (not kidding)
 - sweet potatoes, cornbread mix, and canned pumpkin - Southern US staples
 - various spices - sorely lacking from most UK meals

Who knows? On the return trip I may have a suitcase full of McVitie's and Cadbury.  Not that this would stop me from falling on the first plate of nachos I could get my hands on.

What I'm Reading

As I wend my way through lunch dates and post-work drinks, it occurs to me that this is undoubtedly my last chance to enjoy four weeks of carefree irresponsibility.  Nine months from now I'll have completed my degree, and it will be back to the working world having reached my ultimate educational goal of a Master's.

Never to be a lazy student again.  How do I take advantage of my time?  By sleeping in, by spending American currency I won't touch again for nine months, by revisiting favorite bars and restaurants, and by reading.

I've just finished Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, a purportedly true story of an Australian escaped convict who spent eight years in Mumbai as a gangster / Bollywood actor / slum doctor.  From skimming the first few pages I've been recommending it left right and center to friends, but only now have I gotten a chance to finish reading.  It's almost 1,000 pages long, which by the end left me wondering if anyone thought I was crazy for subjecting them to so much book.  It's also the reason I had to finish quickly.  I couldn't take something that big off the continent.

It was an enjoyable 1,000 pages, though, and I certainly appreciated it now on my almost one-year anniversary of my departure for Delhi.  The book was so long because of the diversity of the characters, the events, and the setting.  You can't consolidate such an amazing experience into any less.  It's the kind of book that makes you appreciate your own cast of characters, and the way it grows and grows every year.

The best way to show that appreciation, of course, is to call up old friends and set up more lunch dates.  It's good to be back, at least for a short time.

The Gift That Keeps E-Giving

True to form, I bought almost every single one of my family's Christmas presents in a bookstore this year.  (The one notable exception was the Top Gear Stiggy Toffee Tin I bought for my boyfriend at Tesco.  Fantastic. But I digress.)  At one point I was even so brave to 'gift' an ebook to my younger sister.  But horrors!  The Amazon UK Kindle bookstore wouldn't let me send any ebooks!

Undaunted, I simply switched my account back to the US by tying it back to my US credit card.  The result was like the change from night to day.

As it turns out, the Amazon UK ebook store and the Amazon US ebook store are nothing alike.  True, they're different markets, but I didn't realise that by reconfiguring my Kindle to my Amazon US account I would gain thousands of books in the library and new features like gifting and, now, lending.  Now I even have Kindle bestseller lists and personalised recommendations to help me search, which is pretty significant when there are no physical books to browse through.

No wonder my English friends are still a bit curious when I rave about my ereader.  With a noticeably more dismal online shopping platform, it's not that difficult to imagine a lingering preference for brick, mortar, and binding.

And, by the way, Sis: you're welcome.

New England New Year

Happily back in Boston to celebrate the beginning of a new year of adventures.

Note that this was all made possible despite a foot of snow dumped on the city a few days before my arrival.  Unlike London, however, Boston was able to clear the runways and I arrived without incident.  Let me put this in writing: it is great to be back.  I missed this city more than I realized, and at midnight on January 1 (er, 1 January) I was only more resolved to begin 2012 right back here where I belong.

The first step is to nurse my hangover on the couch watching the Bowl Games with my loved ones.  If 2011 continues how it began, I think I'm in for a good year.