Thanksgiving is a strange holiday for me.  To me, it’s like a holiday that used to be really important, but then everyone in the world stopped celebrating it. 

Of course, it’s just as important as it was when I was a kid, but in England it doesn’t exist.  I just got back from my morning run (still sweating) and just realised that today is Thanksgiving.  To the world around me, it’s a day like any other.

When I first moved here, I told myself that I would hold tightly to my American childhood.  I would cook a turkey every Thanksgiving and have fireworks every fourth of July.  Hell, maybe I’ll even hang a big ol’ American flag in front of my house like I did when I was living in a small town in Missouri.  My house was going to be like an U.S. Embassy—US soil in a foreign land.  Well, the zeal wore off years ago.  Life keeps moving on and you have to move on with it.

But then, again, I suppose Thanksgiving doesn’t have a hold on me just because I was born in a land that celebrates it.  Increasingly, maybe because of age, I find myself less concerned with who I was and more concerned with who I am.  When I sit in meditation, for example, I try to focus on the current moment and leave the past where it belongs—as a construct of my own memory.  In a sense, the Eric Wroolie who I identify myself with—the American kid who likes baseball and fast-food—doesn’t really exist at all.  I have only what I have now.  Even the America I remember changes every time I go back—so I identify more with a memory than with the reality.  But I’m definitely not English—the accent always gets in the way.  In a way, the “nationality” of things is really unimportant.  Whoa, didn’t mean to try to get deep here—it must be the running high.

Well, anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends back in the States.  Today for me will be a day like any other day, but I will occasionally stop and remember that today is actually a holiday and I will think about my family coming together back home.

Last weekend I took my family to the Cornbury Music Festival near Witney in Oxfordshire.  It was my first music festival—there weren’t many (I don’t know if there were any) near San Diego when I was growing up.  There are loads of festivals in England—they call this the festival season.  We saw some great bands like Squeeze, the Blockheads, Joshua Radin, etc.  I get the impression it’s a festival for the older crowds (30s and 40s), but there were some younger crowds too.

Cornbury was recommended as one of the most family-friendly festivals there are.  It has three stages.  This is only the 7th year, but they’ve had some big names play it.  This year the headliners were Jackson Browne and David Gray.  The kids loved it.  This was their first camping experience.

One of the highlights was watching Charly Coombes & The New Breed on the Riverside Stage (the small stage).  I had never heard of them before and there was only a small crowd watching.  They are obviously a pretty new band, but I’m sure we will be seeing more of them.  I’ve already bought their album on Amazon.  Here’s a video I found on YouTube:

It was a great festival and the weather was reasonably nice.  It was very cool to bring some blankets and a football into the Arena where we could watch the bands while kids could play football off the side if they were bored.  I highly recommend it—especially if you have small children.

On Tuesday I gave a talk at the primary school to a bunch of six-year-olds.  Each class year was learning about specific country for the entire week.  The year 1 one classes  (first graders) were learning about America.  So, I went in and gave them a little introduction to my favourite sport—baseball.

I loaded up a gym bag with a few bats, some bases, a couple of gloves, and some balls from my baseball collection.  I gave a short little presentation on what I liked to do at their age.  When I was little, my hero wasn’t Wayne Rooney—it was Tony Gwynn.  We didn’t play football, we played baseball.  I told them about my little league team.  I let them each hold a baseball and feel what the gloves and bats felt like.  I showed them my special foul ball I caught at a Padre game in 1996 after years of taking my glove to the ballpark (still in a protective case). 

Then we went outside to hit balls and run the basis.  I used wiffle balls and a foam bat.  We set the bases out in a small diamond and had all the kids stand in a semi-circle in the outfield.  Each child came up to the plate to hit the ball while the others cheered them on.  I threw underhand and most of them were able to hit it and run the bases.  It was a great time.

Most people in England don’t know very much about baseball (the same way most people in the States don’t know much about Cricket).  It was one of the things I missed the most when I moved here 12 years ago.  No baseball. 

Baseball is such a big part of American life. Even if you are not a fan, you have a general idea how the game works.  It’s woven into our culture.  Television programmes make occasional references to baseball.  We use baseball terms in common speech.  So, when kids over here watch American TV programmes, they don’t always understand when there is a baseball reference.  I was watching Arthur (the cartoon—not the Dudley Moore movie) with my kids and they were playing baseball on the show.  My kids are familiar with baseball, but many of their friends are not.

But kids here love football (okay, soccer).  Even at six-years-old, they knew a lot about the World Cup.

Surprisingly, the classes I spoke to knew a little bit about baseball from Wii Sports.  That was their exposure to it.  At the end of playing with one of the classes, a little girl who hit the ball pretty well said to me “I never hit the ball on the Wii, but I hit the ball today.”  She had a big smile on her face. 

I’ve done my part as ambassador.

I’ve been seeing signs all over the place lately by Thames Valley Police which say “This is a Low Crime Area.  Help us keep it that way.”  On the other side of the sign it tells you to lock stuff in your car and take valuables with you etc.

It strikes me as funny because very rarely are you told that you don’t need to be vigilant.  The sign in the picture was posted in a park.  I walked into the park with my usual level of caution (don’t talk to strangers, etc), but then saw the sign and realised I could take my wallet out and start counting my money right there on the street.  There are no signs like this posted outside the park, so I assume this must be some kind of sanctuary against crime!  Once I leave the park, I need to be careful again.

I wonder how much this sign campaign cost.  I’ll bet it is a ridiculous amount– in the tens of thousands of pounds county-wide.  I wonder how much crime it actually stops.  Someone must have said “Let’s put signs up everywhere where there is little crime, just in case.”  How will they know it works?  If it is still a low crime area six months from now, does that mean the sign campaign was successful? 

Or . . . is it merely a CV point for an public official to say they are “doing something about crime”?

This sign is posted in Oxfordshire in England, but you get the same kind of stuff in the States. 

Growing up in San Diego, there were always public service signs and posters up everywhere–most of the time, no one paid any attention to them.  In school, the hallway walls were plastered with posters of Rob Lowe and Brooke Shields that had giant slogans telling you to stay away from drugs, smoking, sex, etc.  No one ever stopped to look at these posters– they were always just there.  Someone somewhere spent a ton of taxpayer money to produce them, but no one cared.

California is broke.  Republicans in the state refuse to raise taxes any further and the voters agreed with them in a recent election.  I think these kinds of ineffective programs are the reason why.  While the Democrats want to make out that Republicans are against paying teachers and firemen, the reality is that Republicans are against wasteful spending more than anything else.

Sure, putting up signs everywhere to reduce crime sounds like a good idea–but it also sounds like an expensive idea.  The problem is there is no way to measure how effective they are.  Our governments are so far in debt, that these kind of luxuries need to be looked at. 

I didn’t mean for this post to be a rant– just a picture of a funny sign.  I’ll try to post a picture of this sign in a few weeks– after it has been vandalised.

I used to watch the tonight show every night. I missed a lot of school from oversleeping. At the NBC studios in Burbank, I saw Jay Leno a few times while he was guest hosting for Carson. When O’Brien took over for Letterman, I thought he was awful– but six months later, he had his own style and was funnier than Letterman.

I miss the late night TV while living in England. This week, Conan took over for Leno as host of the Tonight Show. This is the opening for the first show. Looks like it will be very good.

My 11-year anniversary as a British resident passed this weekend.  11 years ago, I came to the UK without a job and without a plan of what I was going to do.

As I write this, it is Monday morning.  I am heading into London very early because I have to make time in my schedule for a meeting with the Chinese British Business Council.  It is 5:45am.  The sun is already in the sky and it is a beautiful morning.  I’m always surprised with how early the sun rises here in the summer time.  I know summer days are longer, but Summer days in San Diego are nowhere near as long as they are in London.

11 years ago, at this time of year, I remember going to bed in a very jet lagged state with a single plan – I was going to get up early, get dressed, and try to find a job.  I woke up in the morning with the sun shining through the curtains.  I went to the bathroom, took a shower, and got dressed.  I looked a the clock and was shocked to find that it wasn’t even 5 o’clock yet.  No one would wake up for a few more hours.  The streets were quiet, but the sun was shining.  Outside, it looked like the type of day where you could have a picnic. 

Today, on driving to the station (I didn’t take the bike because I’m in suit-mode), the Radio 1 DJ commented “No one is awake at this time of morning because they want to be.”  But, again, the sun is shining, the streets are empty.  I don’t know why no one would be awake at this time.  Is there really a reason to ignore a beautiful morning because of what the clock says?

The English Summer is here.  We get long days.  We get optimism—but still peppered with English pragmatism (venturing on pessimism) — “Yeah, but it will probably rain this weekend.”  We get beer gardens at the pub.  We get daylight until 10pm.

I get the impression that train managers have their favourite warnings to give during train journeys. There are a few standard warnings, but then there are the “Where did that come from?” warnings.

Last year, a train manager came onto the speaker and talked for nearly 5 minutes about how important it is that we don’t flush the toilet in stations. Saying it once, I can understand, but this guy wouldn’t let it go. “I must stress that you must not flush toilets in stations. It is acceptable between stations, but not while stopped in a station. I repeat, that flushing toilets in the station . . . “ and on and on he went.

Why can’t I flush the toilet at the station? Is there a trap door that drops under the train and leaves a turd in the middle of the tracks? Is it so we don’t have to stand on the platform waiting for a train while trying not to acknowledge the huge dump in the middle of the tracks? Toilet paper and all? If it is a trap door, why is it okay to do it while travelling through the residential areas leading into the city? If we aren’t allowed to flush in the stations, can you still use the toilet without flushing? Do they just leave it there until the train leaves again and they can dispose of it away from platforms?

The only reason people run to the toilet before leaving the train is that the toilets at Paddington station cost 30p to use. 30p is not a lot of money, sure. But there’s the whole problem of fishing around in your pockets for the right change when you’re dancing around with a full bladder.

Anyway, this is not about train toilets.

Last week, a train manager spent a few minutes explaining to passengers why it is a bad idea to put our head out the windows while the train is moving. It wasn’t a joke, she was serious. I suspect someone must have done it and she saw him and didn’t want everyone else to jump on the bandwagon. She talked at length about how close some objects pass to the train and how it could result in injury. We sat there, many people in their business suits and blackberries, being lectured to like children. It went on for over a minute.  When she finished talking(“I must stress, once again, that you must not hang your head out of the train window while the train is moving. Thank you”), someone sitting a few rows behind me added, “Yeah, and don’t mess around with the electric sockets.”

In May, I will have lived in the UK for 11 years. 

A few days ago someone commented on the fact that I still have my American accent. I hear this from time to time. In England, I think I will always have this accent, but to my family I’m always acquiring an English accent.

So, the conversation always goes like this:

“How long have you been in the UK?”

“Just over ten years.”

“You haven’t lost your accent at all.”

“Well, I practice monologues in front of the mirror before leaving the house every morning.” This is my canned witty remark. I always say it. It’s a reflex now.  Kind of like how you automatically say “fine” when someone asks how you are. I’ve had this exact exchange (verbatim) at least a dozen times.

The truth is that I’ve lived in lots of places where there was a different local accent to the too-much-tv-so-you-can’t-really-pinpoint-where-I’m-from accent that I  have. I spent most of my life in California, but I’ve always lived for at least a year or more in Massachusetts, Texas, and Hawaii. Each place has it’s own accent. But I’ve always felt I would be mocking people if I tried to talk like them.

I remember when I was in the Army stationed in Hawaii. There was a guy who rarely left the base, but came in one night with a Hawaiian accent. “Hey brah,” he said and tried to work it into normal conversation. “Let’s go get lunch, yeah brah?” It was disgustingly phony. All you wanted to say was “Yeah, I’d like to go to lunch.  But you’re an idiot.”

There was also a time I was doing volunteer work for the campaign of a guy running for Tax Assessor Collector in San Antonio, Texas. He didn’t have a very strong Texas accent, at least no stronger than other people I knew there. But when he spoke to possible voters or contributors on his campaign, he would adopt a heavy Texas accent say things like “Aw, shucks” and get very folksy. I hated to watch it. He changed right in front of me.

I think about these people when I think about trying to put on an English accent.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some words I’ve started using that I didn’t realise I started using. Like I go on a holiday instead of a vacation. I go to the toilet  instead of the bathroom. These are things I didn’t adopt intentionally. They are very similar to the words I used in the Army. I went on leave and I utilised the latrine. I think this is why my family back home thinks I have an English accent.

There are certain things I’ve never gotten used to. For example, I don’t ever say cheers for thanks. And I don’t ever use the word mate to talk about my friends (with one notable exception). These all felt very phony to me. If I tried to use them, everyone will see how hard I’m trying to be like them. So I don’t.

A few years ago, I did buy an audio book called Access Accents: An Accent Training Resource for Actors. They didn’t have an English Accents for Software Developers, so I had to go with this. There were tapes for all kinds of English dialects, but I chose Recieved Pronunciation: the posh one. I tried the exercises and tried to use the accent with people who didn’t know me. When I used my new phony accent with people who do know me, I felt like they may have been offended and that I was somehow mimicking and mocking them. The English accent fad didn’t last long. I’ve seen enough tv and movies where I hear people talk about terrible English accents by American actors, that it actually scares me to try.  Anyway, the audio book wasn’t very good, if you are interested.

I once met a struggling actor when I was working in a factory packing boxes of yoghurt. He was a student, actually, and was working to support his expensive taste in clothes and grooming (I never knew before that anyone would spend more than £10 for a haircut). He was very interested in my accent and was working to try to adopt an American accent for when he was a famous actor. One night, he asked if I would like to hear it.  Sure, I said and waited with anticipation.  Then, he started talking in the most nasally and annoying voice I think I’ve ever heard. I tried not to show it, but it was actually insulting.  It’s bad enough listening to yourself on tape, but far worse to hear someone trying to talk like you. That put me off a lot. I would hate to make someone feel like that by attempting their accent.

For so many years in the States, I’ve watched people fawn over the English accent.  It’s sounds so naive now, but I think I was expecting people to like my accent when I got here.  It’s different, though.  The American accent is often seen as annoying by people outside the US.

But, ultimately, I know my own experience in the States with people who have non-local accents: people assume they are slow and don’t fully understand
what’s going on. They want to correct how you say something, but then don’t want to be rude. Perhaps I should try harder to adopt the local accent. But after nearly 11 years, it’s slow in coming.

So yesterday, the big news here in the UK is the heavy snow. I made the trip into London yesterday as usual, but found lots of trains cancelled and had to wait a long time to get in. The snow meant I couldn’t ride the motorcycle for any of the trip.

Things were so bad that we only worked a half day anyway and tried to make the difficult trip home.

Now, it’s 5:45 am and I’ve been looking through websites trying to determine whether it is worth making the effort at all today.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday:

Everyone says the same thing: in lots of places, this is nothing! True. I can’t imagine them closing down Minneapolis for this kind of snow.

I tried to act all tough– like I can handle this easily because I’m American and we see this all the time. Of course, I grew up in California– so I am just as inexperienced as anyone else.

I took a half-day off yesterday so I could be home to watch the inauguration at 4pm. I think most people watched it live. Even though it is so easy to record it (especially in the age of hdd recorders), it’s the kind of thing you want to experience with everyone else, as it happens.

This inauguration was more like a holiday. I can’t remember so much excitement before.

I remember watching the George Bush (senior) inauguration speech in Algebra class when I was in the 11th grade. I never paid much attention to the Clinton or Bush Jr festivities.

So, it was a nice afternoon off. Like most people, I feel relieved. It’s finally over with.