Why am I living in the USA?

Why am I living in the USA?  Well, there are 2 main reasons why I left my home in the North of England and made the big hop across the Atlantic:

1. For love.  I met my American wife online.  We weren’t in a dating site, we just bumped into each other on the social networking site, MySpace (remember MySpace?).  Although webcams and email are great, at some point one of you has got to make the leap, so that you can both live in the same country.

2. For the adventure.  My feelings about the USA are pretty mixed, I love some things and don’t like others, but despite, or maybe because of the ambivalence, I do find it a fascinating and exciting place.  When my wife and I decided that we would be married, we had a choice of her (and her daughter) coming to England, or me going to the USA.  We decided on the latter, mainly because I felt my life, although chugging along perfectly well, had sunk into a bit of a rut.  I relished the idea of doing something completely different, even if that meant risks in terms getting work etc.  (You only live once, right?)
   

Will my wife and I stay in the US forever?  I don’t know.  I do know that my wife would like to travel at some point.  Having become a single parent relatively young, I think she feels that she has delayed a lot of things, so that she can bring up her daughter successfully, and at some point she would like to spread her wings and go other places.

I have no intention of living anywhere except the US for the foreseeable future.  But now that I’ve made a big move once, the idea of doing it again at some point, no longer seems intimidating.  If my wife had some pension money coming in and I could secure a relatively reliable source of income from internet, it might be tempting to live somewhere like Thailand for a while, where the cost of living is currently about 20% of what it is here in the US.  (Okay, the Thailand idea is a bit of a pipe dream, but not an unfeasible one)

In the distant future, nobody knows how things are going to pan out, especially with the world economy being how it is.  As things stand though, I don’t know if I would want to stay in the US when I was older.  From what I’ve seen, old people can have a challenging time in the US, if they’re not wealthy.  The draw of the UK with its National Health Service and social infrastructure might be too tempting, plus I think my wife would be interested to live in the UK at some point.  But we’ll see.  That’s a long time into the future.

Living in the USA: My Culture Shock Top 10

I read with great interest and was amused by the directness of an essay by Sophia Angelique about the culture shock of moving to and living in the USA, after being in the UK, and I recognized much of what she said - although I must admit that I was a little troubled that she was still undergoing culture shock a full eight years after arriving there.

Some of the videos she posted up on there are excellent too.  The one of Stephen Fry (Brit) talking to Clive James (Ausie who lives in the UK) stood out as particularly outstanding and again, much of what they say is very recognizable to me.  (I’ve included the vid at the end of the top 10).

I thought it would fun to summarize some of the top 10 things that can be surprising and difficult for a typical Brit living in the USA, based on a variety of sources including my own experiences and those observations mentioned above.

I’m writing from a purely British perspective, of course, so I don’t know how much you will relate to it, if at all, if you’re non-British, or if you have never experienced living in the USA.  It also occurs to me that younger Brits might find it easier than older gits like me to cope with the culture shock, as I am probably stuck in my ways to some degree.  But anyway, in no particular order, here goes with my top 10.

1. As Stephen Fry points out, coming from a monarchy, you kind of expect the US to have more republican values of “all men are equal”, but in fact American values are quite different from that.  Individual freedom is seen as more valuable than equality and justice in the US which gives it a different value system to the UK (and indeed the majority of republics).  Fry argues in the video that it’s rooted in the way that the American constitution prioritizes things.

2. As I mentioned in a previous blog, it’s difficult to underestimate and understate the importance of religion in American life, whether it’s in everyday life, or in general society and politics.  Outside of respectable religion, I would also say that superstition and hokey beliefs are also much more common too.

3. It’s much more commercial and materialistic here compared to Blighty.  Practices that would be considered mercenary back in the UK are much more commonplace.  Money seems to trump all in the USA, maybe even religion.  It certainly runs the political system.

4. As a Brit, you get told that we’re a class ridden society - and we certainly are compared to places like Germany, The Netherlands, Scandanavia, but in many ways the British class system is nothing compared to the US where there is a stronger sense of hierarchy, and social and economic status really is the be all and end all for most people.

5. American politics.  Things are shifted so far to the right here compared to the UK, I still have trouble working out who’s who.  Often a ranting politician that I think is a rightwinger, turns out to be Democrat.  The loony, foaming at the mouth, religious nut, I discover later is a respected Republican Senator.

6. The lack of infrastructure can be frustrating here, if you’re not used to it.  Outside of the big cities, there is very little public transport.  Whereas you will get shops and pubs in the suburbs of towns and in rural areas in the UK, there is very little of that in the USA.  Not only is it a convenience thing, but local shops, post offices, pubs are where a British community would meet and builds ties.  (It was interesting to read that this was one thing that Brits found difficult about moving to Australia in a BBC article that I read).

7. As Fry points out, America is an enormous place with lots of semi-autonomous states that often have a strong sense of self-identity.  People often have more in common with and identify more with their state than the country as a whole.  (In the UK, of course, we have Scotland, Wales, England and Ulster, but it is different.)

8. Americans really believe in things.  British people tend to be skeptical about pretty much everything.  We make good scientists but poor dreamers.

9. The right to bear arms and the gun thing is difficult to understand as an outsider.  I am not particularly comfortable with all the violence that you get in America movie and drama either, although sometimes I think it just acts as a lazy plot device, it can seem to come uncomfortably close to romanticizing violence.  I am no pacifist, by the way, I just don’t think real violence is in any way romantic.

10. As Fry says, the American ideas of “liberty” and “freedom” are very difficult for a Brit to understand.  For us, “liberty” and “freedom” are essentially concepts, which makes them essentially wooly.  That doesn’t mean that we see them as bad ideas, we just don’t understand them as being solid things.

Ironically, after a year of living in the USA, I quite often feel that I understand it less now than I did when I arrived.

 

The difference between the English and Americans

British English vs American English: Which is best?

Following on from my last blog, where I mentioned how lots of Americans love the English accent, I thought that I would ‘stick my oar in’ on the old British English vs American English debate.  The most recent incidence of this controversy reared its ugly head a couple of months back, when Matthew Engel announced in an article on the BBC website, that he found Americanisms irritating.  This was then countered by American writer, Grant Barrett who staunchly defended American English.  A debate then ensued with British and American readers joining the (increasingly) heated debate.

I must admit that I am pretty much an anarchist on this matter and have never worried much about the influences on, or particular fate of British English.  I never really minded Americanisms appearing in Britain and I would hate there to ever be some sort of national council sitting to decide the official rules for what words can and can’t be officially used, as happens in France.  I tend to think that the whole thing should be allowed to proceed organically without any artificial “rules” being imposed.  I am also generally skeptical of anti American English opinions expressed in the UK and suspect that they are rooted in snobbery to a greater or lesser degree.

Although there has obviously been interplay between Britain and America for four hundred years or so, the American English invasion never really got going until the 20^th Century when American English expressions started creeping into British English via the American Movie/Film industry.  Before that, British English ruled supreme, thanks to the British Empire.  But as the British Empire declined and the increasingly cool American movie/film stars dominated the popular imagination, all sorts of expressions slipped into the UK.  The process became even more pronounced with the American forces arriving in Britain during World War II, American music coming onto the radio, and more recently, American English expressions arriving via computer and internet technology (e-mail instead of e-post etc).

One possible reason for my own relaxed attitude to English is that I grew up speaking with a regional accent and back in the 1970s, when received English  (“BBC English”) was still seen by some as the “proper” way to talk.  In the class-ridden UK, regional accents were generally looked down upon, which I resented (that said, regional accents became increasingly more accepted by the “well-spoken” from the 1960s onwards and are now pretty much accepted).  Anyway, I think it made me more sympathetic to the attitudes towards language found in the “New World” countries, with their generally more egalitarian approach.

Language is, of course, deeply political.  The Celtic nations in the UK have attempted to bolster and/or revive their traditional languages in recent years, which are associated with a sense of independence and pride.  That makes me wonder how Americans would feel if the situation was reversed with English: if their own American English expressions were gradually disappearing and being replaced by British English equivalents?  Since I began living in the USA, I have noticed that there is a small but significant minority in the USA who feel threatened by what they perceive as an increasing Spanish language influence on their country, especially in the South of the country.  I tend to agree with my fellow British expat blogger, Rob, who argues that America has been a multilingual country pretty much from the beginning and so it is a bit late for people to start complaining.

Anyway, moving swiftly away from the social politics and back to the strictly personal, one practical problem that I have on an everyday level with regard to the British English vs American English debate is, of course, spelling.  When should I use British English spelling, and when should I use American English spelling?  This problem is especially profound when it comes to the internet, which has no national boundaries.  My solution has been to use American English when my writing is mainly aimed at Americans and British English when my writing is aimed at Brits.  And when my writing is aimed at either or both, like with this expat blog, I just spell the words however I like!

Anglophilia: Americans Love the English

I was told by numerous Brits and Americans before I came to the USA that the Americans love the English.  But I didn’t quite believe it until I got here.  Here is an extract from a conversation with my next door neighbour, which is pretty much transcribed word for word:

“Where are you from?” she said.  “You sound foreign!”

“England,” I replied.

“Where?”

“England!”

“Italy?”

“No, England!”

“Oh, England!  I love your accent!  I’ve always wished that the pilgrims had kept their English accents after they got off the boats and we didn’t speak like we do now - you know, with the American accent…”

Okay, the neighbour is slightly dotty, but her general sentiment has been expressed to me over and over since I started visiting US and then living in the USA as a British expat.  Basically, the Americans love the English, and the English accent, although ironically, many Americans can’t locate my own Northern English accent until I tell them where I am from -  I’ve been asked if I am from Australia or Poland many times.

US and UK mugs owned by my wife and I

I guess I should be pleased, but I do find it a little disconcerting sometimes.  I have never been to another country like this.  As an Englishman, I can travel a short distance to parts of Wales, or Ireland, and find people who dislike me because of my nationality and what they perceive it stands for.  Across the Channel, there are French and Germans who will mutter behind your back when you’re at the bar about the “bloody English” (or sentiments to that effect), thinking that if they say it in French or German, no one in your group will understand them.

(Digressing briefly, I once did a similar thing in Berlin, Germany.  There was some awful music playing in a café where I was eating with a German-speaking English friend.  The barmaid had previously been conversing to my friend in fluent German, so I assumed she was German.  Although many Germans speak reasonable English, I was still confident that she wouldn’t understand me when I described the music to my friend as “dross”.  Imagine my surprise when she bellowed at me in a broad Ulster accent: “This music is not dross!  I picked it myself!”)

Anyway, back to Anglophilia, or rather, moving on to its opposite: Anglophobia.  The truth is that there are many negative stereotypes of the English around the world, but these are probably the main ones:

1. The English are arrogant and consider themselves to be superior to everyone else.
2. The English are duplicitous and they play mind games with people (especially when it comes to politics).
3. The English are at best cold and aloof, and at worst, downright cruel, especially with their humour, which they use to berate people that they don’t like.

How true the negative stereotypes are is a matter of opinion, of course, but Americans don’t generally buy into any of them in any significant way, in my experience.  Quite the opposite, in fact, they have all sorts of positive stereotypes (I can feel a little embarrassed sometimes, because I feel sure that I won’t live up to expectations!)

Britain does generally do a good job of projecting itself abroad.  Possibly too well, I sometimes think.  I remember being back in Blighty and working with immigrants from places like India and the West Indes.  They would sometimes tell me how naïve their views on Britain were before they moved there.  They thought that everyone lived in big houses, either in beautiful old cites resembling central London, or in rambling green countryside, and the British people were very polite and civilized.  In reality, of course, lots of people live in grotty inner cities with grey suburbs and the British people can be a pretty surly and miserable bunch at times (unless they’ve had a few drinks in the pub).

There is a tendency in the US culture to look for simple truths and to some extent there is a tendency to split the world’s countries into goodies and baddies, or white hats and black hats, as they say here.  Americans generally prefer cultures that are similar to their own.  I remember reading a survey that showed the American public overall feel most positive about the Canadians, closely followed by the Brits.  I do sometimes feel a little sorry for the peoples that are designated black hats though (generally those people in arab and muslim countries).

Anyway, having said all of the above about Anglophilia, one question still puzzles me: If the Americans are so positive about the English, why does every other American movie seem to cast an Englishman as the leading bad guy?  ;-)

British Expat Blogger Reflections

Looking back over the past six months, I think I was a little naïve when I began this British expat blog.  I just thought it would be a bit of fun and that I might get some views and interesting comments from around the world, as well as keep in contact and report back to friends in the UK about living in the USA.  It has been fun, of course, but after a while you also realize that the topic area can be a bit of minefield.  That’s because you are dealing with issues of national identity and people can get very passionate about that stuff – hell, people have fought wars over it throughout the ages!

I have at times been accused of making sweeping generalizations, getting my facts wrong and being deliberately provocative– all of which are probably true to some degree.  I will admit that there is a streak in my character that makes me want to poke things with a big stick sometimes, just to see what happens, even if I risk getting bitten.  My priority has always been to try and make my blog engaging, however, even if I risk ruffling feathers on occasion, as the thing that I always fear the most is my blog being bland.  I do love getting comments from different corners of the world and hearing other experiences and viewpoints and see the comments as being integral to the blog’s success, as they can often be as or more interesting than the actual original blog post!

I have generally tried to skirt around politics and race, so far, though, which has probably helped me to avoid any serious controversy.  I was genuinely taken aback by the depth of anger expressed against African Expat Wife in her post: Busman’s Holiday Travel Writing.  Sure, I know that there is a negative legacy from British colonialism and I am in no way qualified to talk about the rights and wrongs of Kenyan issues, but it did all seem a little harsh.  Anyway, African Expat Wife wrote a second post clarifying her position and that seemed to clear the air.

Returning to my own expat experiences.  I do have American friends that I know, or have known over the years back in the UK who have experienced a similar thing to me in reverse – dealing with the British visa bureaucracy, moving to Britain, adapting to British culture etc. and, of course, I do read American expat blogs about their experiences of the UK.  British expat experiences in the USA and the American expat experiences in the UK are like strange mirror images.  I thought the American comedian and expat, Reginald D Hunter gave some pretty astute and hilarious interpretations of British and American differences in his Live at the Apollo stint.

You can pretty much reverse the experiences of Reginald D Hunter, if you want to know what it’s like to be a Brit in the USA.  As he points out, English people have a tendency to say one thing, but mean something completely different, which can certainly cause misunderstandings.  I am fairly confident that the people who know me well, such as my wife, usually have a grasp of what I am getting at and can distinguish when I am joking and when I am serious - but I sometimes wonder if Americans who don’t know me so well walk away from our conversations with a completely different impression of what we’ve just been talking about to my own.

Freedom of speech in the USA (compared to the UK)

Here are some of my thoughts and impressions on freedom of speech after living in the USA as a British expat for a time (note that although there are many similarities, for the sake of comparison, I am focusing on British and American differences).

Anyway, generally speaking, I would say that freedom of speech in the USA is seen pretty much as an absolute and the vast majority of Americans are proud of it.  They are also scared of losing it, however, and many, if not most, Americans across the political spectrum appear to believe that freedom of speech is under constant threat and has to be defended.  Were freedom of speech to be compromised in any way, according to many Americans, it would be the beginning of the end of it. 

In the UK, on the other hand, people are genuinely proud of freedom of speech, but is seen as a slightly more relative idea and generally dealt with in a more pragmatic way.  British people also tend to just take their freedom of speech much more for granted than Americans do and there is no particular fear of losing free speech generally, certainly not in the way that Americans appear to fear its loss.  The idea that it is a free country and you can say what you like is deeply ingrained in the British psyche, I would say, but there isn’t a great deal of passion in relation to it generally - in fact the British attitude seems virtually apathetic compared to the USA. 

Metaphorically, I would say that Americans see freedom of speech as a very solid thing, rather like a canon ball (or maybe a brittle canon ball that can be broken if roughly treated?), and the Brits see it as something a bit more squashy, like a bean bag.

Hate Speech

One of the main ways that freedom of speech is perceived in a subtly different way in Europe, compared to the US, is in regard to extremist politics.  Pretty much all European countries have laws against stirring up religious, or racial hatred and people generally  perceive this as a necessary evil, rather than an infringement on their rights.  The reasons why these laws are there are fairly obvious, when you consider that historically so many European states were ruled by Nazi or fascist governments during the 1930s and 40s.  This means that there is an underlying fear of rabble rousers stirring up hatred against minority groups and causing social disorder or worse, especially in countries like Germany and Austria.  Britain has relatively mild laws on hate speech, but they are still there.

America was founded by people who had either experienced religious or political persecution, or wanted to do their own thing.  So American ideas on free speech are more shaped by that experience.  World War II also had a different impact on the USA to Europe. 

It is also true to say that the American constitution was a positive assertion of freedom of speech as a value, whereas in Britain it was an historical development, with freedom of speech being achieved by default through restrictions being gradually removed.  (Until the European Human Rights Bill was sealed into UK law recently).

Koran burning

Out of all the places that I could have chosen to live in the USA, by chance I happened to end up in Gainesville, Florida, where the notorious Koran burner, Terry Jones and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center are based (the group are actually atypical of Gainesville, which is a liberal college town).  It was interesting to see how the Americans handled the situation.  The first time round the media blew up a storm and top American officials ended up almost pleaded with them not to burn the Koran, with top army officers and even the president trying to persuade them of their folly and the potential damage they could do to US troops and US’s image abroad.  In the end, Terry Jones called off his first book burning.  The second time around, however, the media and officials more or less ignored the book burning and it went ahead with limited publicity. 

In the UK, on the other hand, when there was a similar book burning by extremists and film of it put on Youtube, the people who did it were arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred.  The differences in approach are pretty stark.

Summary

Overall, although I respect absolute free speech, I am probably still more at home with the pragmatic and relativist Brit approach at the end of the day.  Some parts of US culture are difficult for me to understand.  For instance, why the US allows publicity seeking hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church to operate directly at funerals of young soldiers who have died.  I accept that they should be allowed to express their view of the bible, no matter how distorted and disturbing they may appear, but why it is so essential that they have to do it so close to a funeral is difficult for me to grasp.  I mean if they were forced to demonstrate two miles away, rather than under grieving relative’s noses, would it really signal the death of free speech?  (Having said that, Britain has had its own problems with radical Muslims launching demonstrations at funeral homecoming parades held for British troops who have died in conflicts abroad.)

I guess the strength of the American approach to free speech is that because it is very nearly absolute, there is little room for it to be chipped away or reinterpreted in a way that reduces it.  The weakness of it might be (at least from a Britisher’s viewpoint) that it can appear to pander to extremist elements and publicity seekers at times.

Playing tennis in the USA - British and American differences

I’ve started playing tennis in the USA recently.  Back in the UK, I played a lot of badminton.  Badminton is a great game for northern Europe as it is an indoor game, meaning that you avoid the cold and rain in the Winter months, unlike with rugby and football where you get very muddy and freeze your balls off, at least in my experience.  It took me a while to get my badminton game back together after many years of not playing seriously, but I got better and for a time I was captain of the Headingley C Team, which sounds almost grand, but in practice means doing an awful lot of phone texting to remind team members where the next match is and what time they should show up.  Now that I am over here, however, I have packed in badminton and I am playing tennis in Florida.  With Wimbledon underway back in the UK, I thought it might be fun to compare British and American differences when it comes to tennis.

Playing tennis in Florida is obviously a much hotter experience than anything you get in the UK.  I’ve bought a baseball cap to protect my eyes and head from the sun and have considered getting sweatbands.  Basically, you have to play tennis either in the evening or the morning here, unless you want to sweat to death.  The chances of play getting rained off are lower, however.

There is more high fiving and fist bumping in American culture and less hand shaking.  In England things are more formal and reserved in this respect and the only physical contact is usually a bit of hand shaking and maybe a gentle pat on the back.  I don’t really mind the American way, as I can get fed up with the stiffness and formality of British culture sometimes, but I am still adapting and trying to work out what is appropriate here!

Badminton takes a heavy toll on the knees, as you are moving fast and constantly changing direction.  Tennis means less stress on the knees and legs generally, but more strain on the elbow and shoulder of your racket arm.

I still find some of the pronunciations amusing.  “Deuce” virtually rhymes with “juice” in England but the vowell sound is more like “moose” in the US.  I am going to stick to my English pronunciations, however, having resolved before I began living in the USA to follow the maxim of my hero, Quentin Crisp and to: “On no account learn the language, the more English you sound, the more likely you are to be believed.”  This is somewhat undermined, however, by many Americans mistaking me for an Australian!  (Some people don’t get the Northern English accent, apparently!)

(Another American expression that has caused me confusion is "I'm good".  In the UK "I'm good" usually means "I'm ready" or "I'm up for it", whereas in the US, it more often means the opposite: "I'm done" or "I've had enough".)

I would like to play some matches for the local club, but I need to get a lot better and I am still trying to remember how to play some of the shots.  My service still needs lots of work, for instance.  I am getting there, however.

As well as playing with a local club once a week, I also play with my wife once or twice a week.  We go to a local court, which hasn’t been properly maintained, but is within walking distance.  It is cracked and overgrown, but it has a net and you can just about work out the markings, so it is okay for a knockabout.  (Sometimes we follow up with a dip in the pool, which is rather nice!)

As far as the professional game goes, there are numerous British and American differences that I could name, but the main one, as Rob at The Inconsequential Opinion pointed out, is that unlike with the Americans, the Brits never win at Wimbledon!  Well at least, we haven’t had a winner since Virginia Wade back in 1977, an event that I only vaguely remember from my childhood!

British TV vs American TV and how I watch BBC iplayer in USA

Having sampled some of it on my multiple trips across the pond, I must admit that one thing that I wasn’t looking forward to when I finally started living in the USA was American TV.  I am almost ashamed to admit this, as time and time again, when it comes to British TV vs American TV one of the cliches that you read and hear is British expats saying is how bad American TV is and how much they miss Coronation Street, Bruce Forsyth, the X Factor etc.  It all sounds a bit sad and pathetic to me.  For me, it wasn’t the soaps, or Brucie, or the British talent shows that I was worried about missing: it was the channels like BBC 4 TV, where you can watch a documentary about the history of the British Skiffle Movement, the story of evolution since Darwin, or watch a live performance of Shostakovich’s 8^th Symphony. 

Maybe I am sounding like some sort of cultural snob, but I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I am knocking all American TV.  America does do some marvelous documentaries, the ones by Ken Burns springs to mind.  But American public television relies on donations, so quality documentaries are relatively few and far between, especially for a country of this size.  In terms of comedy and drama, however, American TV excels and two of my favourite shows: Curb Your Enthusiasm and House MD are produced here.  (95% of American TV is utter dross, of course, but that is true of British TV too, in my experience.  But I find it generally doesn’t matter, as you can usually avoid the dross with a handheld device known as the remote control.)

Which brings me to my actual problem.  My difficulty isn’t with the quality of the American TV programs that you get, it is with all the bloody adverts!  They are loud and they go on for ages and ages.  In fact, American TV can sometimes seem like one long series of adverts with occasional breaks for the programs.  It really is that awful!  I know now why Americans have a reputation for channel hopping, they are trying desperately to avoid being bombarded to death by all the endless ads. 

Anyway, back to my beloved BBC (who incidentally, don’t show any adverts in the UK).  After messing around with various free proxy servers and getting no joy, I found a free program that enabled me to get BBC iplayer in USA called Expat Shield, by tricking the BBC computers into thinking that my laptop is in Scotland, rather than Florida.  We also bought a new flat screen TV with a socket it in the back so I could put my laptop through it.

But after all that, the irony is that I hardly watch BBC iplayer or live British TV that much.  The truth is that I can watch the world news on BBC America, all my favorite British comedies like The Mighty Boosh and Never Mind the Buzzcocks are available on Youtube, and big events like the Royal Wedding and the European Cup Final are shown on American TV.  Plus there is always Netflix to stream movies and the library to borrow DVDs from.  Still, it’s reassuring to have the BBC option, I guess.

10 completely untrue sheep facts

Having gone on rather a lot about alligators since I started living in the USA, and given that this British expat blog is called From Sheep to Alligators, I thought that in the interests of fairness if I should dedicate this post to those splendid woolly quadrupedal, ruminant mammals from the North of England, otherwise known as sheep.  Rather than risk boring you with reality, however, I thought that I would amaze you with my 10 completely untrue sheep facts!

 

1.  Sheep are predominantly nocturnal animals with specially adapted eye lids that help them to identify their favorite prey in the dark.  Their diet typically consists of worms, spiders, hedgehogs, and men walking home from the pub. 

2.  The Eiffel tower in Paris, France, is made entirely out of wool.  It was knitted in 1872 by Marie LeBouche, wife of the famous Belgian biologist and philosopher, Francois LeBouche.  The design is based on pattern from Scotland.  

3.  We all love to open our electronic mails and surf the interweb, but did you know that the “http” that begins each website address was invented by a sheep called Tony? 

4.  Sheep were valued in ancient Japan for their physical dexterity, ultrasonic hearing abilities and basket-weaving skills.  They were also believed to possess psychic powers! 

5.  The sheep mating season occurs in late July and early August with a typical ewe (female sheep) laying somewhere between ten and twenty eggs.  Young sheep, known as lambs, build intricate webs which they use to catch flies, which they live on until they are old enough to leave the nest. 

6.  The oldest male sheep ever known was called Franklin, who reached the ripe old age of 87 years old.  After opening a successful chain of health food shops during the 1970s, he  died tragically in 1983 after being implicated in a financial scandal. 

7.  Sheep have existed since the time of the dinosaurs.  Ten million year old sheep fossils have been discovered as far a field as the deserts of South Yorkshire and swamps of North Wales.  Ancient sheep possessed elongated canine teeth which they used to inject a venom twice as potent as that of the black widow spider into their prey.  These “saber-toothed sheep” grew up to 3 metres (10 ft) tall. 

8.  Tough guy actor, John Wayne was phobic of sheep and once refused to go out on a film set in New Zealand because of his fear of being savaged.  “It is the way that they look at me,” he told one Aukland reporter. 

9.  Gambling is a serious problem amongst young sheep.  Although exact figures are difficult to collect, it is thought that as many as 75% of lambs have addiction issues. 

10.  Black sheep were the victims of prejudice in the 19^th and 19^th centuries with their dark color being labeled as the mark of the devil…  Hold on a minute, this fact is true!

The Perils of Writing a British Expat Blog

Living in the USA and being a British expat blogger is generally fun.  But there are perils too associated with writing a British expat blog.  Probably the hardest thing for me sometimes is finding the balance between how you treat your homeland and how you treat your host country.  If you appear to treat either of them too unfavourably, people get upset.  Even praising one country can appear to damn the other in some eyes.

I could, of course, make my opinions and humour (humor?) as bland as possible and avoid all possibility of controversy, but that’s not me, and frankly, I personally prefer to read an expat blog where someone actually says something.  Experiencing the expat blogger’s impressions, opinions, viewpoints is the whole point reading a blog, methinks?

I guess one of the things that can make things awkward is that many Americans and Brits tend to have fairly two dimensional views of each other, regardless of whether it is positive or negative, especially if they have not traveled to the other country.  Brits can find amusement in American naivity of Europe, but the British idea of America can be a simplistic amalgamation of New York, the Deep south, and the Midwest bible belt, with no real idea of how these places fit together (or don’t fit together, as the case may be!) 

Some subject areas are certainly thornier than others for a British expats blog writer.  I think at some point I will have post a blog about my impression of American politics.  That is almost bound to annoy some people.  In general terms, I must say that British politics seems rather civilized compared to the raging cauldron of hate that is often modern American politics, where even the blandest of statements by a politician can kick off a fierce argument between left and right.  Americans are certainly committed to the idea of democracy and their constitution, but I am not always sure as an outsider that their system works very well, not at present, anyway.

As well as politics, there are other American and British differences.  The whole concept of America as a nation state is different from most places in the world for a start, including Britain.  You don’t often find me quoting Margaret Thatcher, but she said that Europe is founded on history and America is founded on philosophy and that is absolutely true.  Americans will argue until their blue in the face about what exactly the their constitution means and how much it is fixed and how much it is a living document open to change.  It’s important because in some ways, the constitution *is* America.  If you aren’t in keeping with the philosophy espoused in the constitution, you can be labeled un-American, a concept which is essentially alien to the Brits, who don’t have a constitution and are British by virtue of being born there regardless of any beliefs – sure, you can be labeled unpatriotic in the UK, but you could believe in communism, or some other form of totalitarian system that is contrary to mainstream British values and still wouldn’t be called “un-British”.

Whatever you think of it, America is certainly an interesting place.  Millions of diverse people sharing an area of land with nothing in common apart from that they are all supposed to agree to a few basic tenets.  Going back to Thatcher, she described Bolshevism as a big social experiment.  I kind of think of America that way too.

My new UK expat blog: I got my K1 Fiance Visa, now I'm living in the USA!

Arrival

Welcome to my new UK expat blog!  It’s been a packed 6 weeks since I arrived to start my new life and began living in the USA.  Once I'd got through my K1 Fiance Visa interview and received my immigrant visa from the USA Embassy in the UK, my plan was to come over to Florida in time for Christmas.  But I nearly didn’t make it, due to the heavy snow in Europe and I had to spend an unscheduled extra 24 hours at Dublin Airport en route from the UK to Florida.  I should have guessed what was about to happen when I saw the flakes fluttering down onto the runway as we came in from Manchester.  The worst thing was that they made us board the plane (pictured below) and wait around, before ordering us off it again 2 hours later.  Then they told us that they were closing the airport down because of the weather and we had to leave the building complex.

It’s no fun being amongst a crowd of angry and upset people, especially when there are thousands of them, it’s snowing heavily outside, you don’t have a penny of the local currency, you’re lugging around two heavy suitcases, one carry-on and a large guitar, and you’ve no idea where you’re going to sleep that night!  On top of that there were people still arriving at the airport, unaware that the authorities were trying to evacuate it, due to fears of overcrowding!

Anyway, it all worked out in the end, I got a lift to a hotel in a van full of Americans and Irish and my plane was rescheduled for the next day.  Aer Lingus have since told me that they’re going to refund my accommodation expenses.  I’d always fancied visiting Dublin, but that wasn’t what I had in mind!

Marriage

The journey to Orlando was uneventful after that and I came through customs without any problems, although it was pretty time-consuming.  Upon arriving in the US port of entry on a k1 fiance visa, the official kept telling me that I needed to get married within 90 days, or I’d be kicked out of the country.  I told him that I was aware of the US immigrant visa restrictions and that, despite not having fixed a date for the ceremony, I planned to get married very soon! 

Abby and I have been seeing each other for over three years, ever since we met on MySpace.  We were both involved with the poetry/writing scene there and became romantically involved, communicating with webcams on Skype each evening.  Six months later I flew over to the US and we met in person for the first time!  It was a little nerve-wracking, but luckily we hit it off.  After that we met up every 4 months, me visiting there and Abby and her daughter coming to the UK.  But living three thousand miles apart was never going to be a serious long-term option, so I applied for a fiancé visa.

We tied the knot a month ago in mid-January.

Money and Poetry

I had to give up a decent job to move over here (I worked for the library service back in Yorkshire) and am currently unemployed.  I brought some savings with me, but psychologically I feel a little self-conscious about not having any income coming in.  So I thought I’d look into ways of earning online and came across Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.  It looked interesting.  I’ve since blogged about it on hubpages (I’ve posted the cheesy pic I used for the blog below! Hehe!), basically you perform tasks on your computer and receive small payments that you exchange for Amazon giftcards.  The first day I tried it I did a dozen tasks and received the grand sum of 34 cents!  I now make about $9 on a good day, which usually takes up 2 or 3 hours of my morning.  It doesn’t make a massive difference to the household finances, but it does pay for a few little luxuries that we wouldn't have had otherwise! 

I’ve also been involving myself with the local writing and poetry scene, performing a couple of readings at a local café bar with Abby, and have also made moves to do some (unpaid) work with a local writer’s group, which I’m looking forward to!


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