There is this advertising campaign on American television starring a family of bears who appear to do nothing but discuss the wiping of their own bottoms. Now, I understand the genesis of this - a rhetorical enquiry about whether it is ursine practice to defecate in forested areas is often used as an indicator of something considered obvious, generally in a sarcastic tone of voice.

I’ve complained about these bears before - they’re the ones that use the maddening term ‘BATH TISSUE’ (why?! It’s not used in the bath - generally, please god, though we’ll discuss that further in a second -and it just drives me insane that you can talk about wiping your arse in no uncertain terms until the cows come home, but consider the word ‘toilet’ to be somehow off-colour). But this is a new concern. A new, potentially civilisation-ending concern.

In one of their latest adverts, the bears demonstrate the relative absorbency of a piece of their precious BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH tissue by dropping a single sheet in a pond. The pond is immediately soaked into the single sheet. Immediately. This is terrifying.

Imagine it: if you were to drop several sheets of it into a toilet, would it not, then, just suck all of the water out of the toilet bowl, the pipes, the sewers? In fact, if a single sheet was able to suck up a small lake, could not a whole roll consume a reservoir?

And if it IS this powerful, wouldn’t the act of touching it to one of your more delicate orifices not just suck every drop of water from a human body and leave it dead: withered, hard and dessicated on the bog? Yes! Yes it could!

We are all, I think you’ll agree, in grave danger from being killed by murderous poo tissue.

I just thought I should mention it.

I was doing some research this afternoon on the subject of hurty knees (not for me, you understand, I have NO WEAKNESSES AT ALL and anyone who says I do is an undercover pirate aware of my crazyhot secret Ninja skills and trying to expose me to the outside world - oh no! I just did! Damn damn damn, what I meant to say was ‘…wrong’. I mean, not the thing I meant to say was wrong. I meant to say that anyone who said that thing that I said at the beginning of these brackets was wrong).

Anyway, I happened upon, in my thorough and intensive research, this site, not that it matters, all self-diagnosis sites are basically the same, and, as it happens, this one didn’t include the stuff I actually needed to read about (not ‘needed’ as in ‘for me’, just as in ‘anything that was useful’).

It did, however, include handy advice for people seeking information on what kind of knee injury you should be calling 911 about.

I imagine the same advice would stand internationally, so you should also, my friends and dear lovelies in the motherland and beyond, consider these also scenarios that you should call 999 about. And other numbers in other countries. Do they include nines? Actually it doesn’t matter, for if I was there and called them, I would spectacularly fail at having a conversation about what was wrong anyway.

SO.

Things you should call 911 about (not 511, that’s local public transport information), include

- ‘dislocation of the knee’, which may be identified by a crazy floating kneecap and possible freezing of the nerves.

- bleeding ‘that does not stop after 15 minutes of constant pressure’. AND

- any situation in which your leg has been ‘partially OR completely amputated’.

There are so many things that I love about this.
I mean, it is not that losing a limb is funny at all… It is just the thought that the lovely people behind this site believe they’re providing a service by catering to the kind of people who, faced with the fact that one of their own perambulators had been whacked wholly (or mostly) off, would google it before phoning an ambulance.

“Dude, that looks kind of hurty. Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
“Should we?! I mean, I don’t know, I don’t want to bother them if it’s not crucial”
“well, it’s lying on the floor.”
“Yeah, but it’s not ALL the way through, look, if I lift my thigh, I can dangle the lower half of the leg by at lest half a tendon and a couple of stringy veins”
“True.”
“I could probably just take an aspirin”
“You know - maybe best not, you’re already spraying blood all over the entire room from that exposed artery.”
“Good point. Well, I supposed if that counts as MAINLY amputated, I should probably phone an ambulance”
“I guess. I’ve got 511 on speed dial if you’d rather know the nearest bus route?”
“No, best not, I think that….”
[dies]

I love the internet.

This isn’t an open call for the inhabitants and loyal patriots and historical enemies and hysterical enemies and reasonable foes and unreasonable friends of either (or both) wading in. I actually don’t care what the angry parts of the internet have to say about either country - they each have a lot of lovely people living in, a good many beautiful places to see and a lot of other nice things to experience. So if you want to get into anything more pointlessly shouty than that, thanks but nonononononono thank you.

There are lots of deciding factors about where we might live a few months from now. With My Amazing Beloved having his Redundancy kick in a couple of weeks from now, and me being very short on work for reasons that could fill a very long, very boring book about the worst way to manage a creative person with no self-esteem (and a dwindling economy in paying people to be interested in pop culture rather than just searingly dismissive of it) there’s chances for us to move into new and different areas.

But that’s not the point right now. The point is: if I go home, I WILL get run over.

I started talking about that as a joke, but the more I talk about it, the more I realise it’s true.

Because, as every tourist coming to The United States of UsedToBeAColony know: this country drives on the right hand side of the road, just to be difficult. So you’d think that the problem is that I’m worrying that when I come back to the UK and go to cross a road, I’d look the wrong way.

It isn’t.

The problem is, I won’t look at all.

I know everyone thinks of California as a BIG CAR country - but the thing is, pedestians have right of way. And, particularly living where I’ve lived these last six months with four-way junctions every 25 metres (or something-somthing yards) and a whole lot of stop signs relating to those: I just don’t stop at the curb. I step out, and expect traffic to stop for me. Just because that’s what it does. Thems the rules: pedestrians have right of way, always, and as long as you keep to your side of the bargain by only crossing at street corners or at designated points on the road.

I’ve tried doing it a british way. I’ve tried stopping, and waiting - or part-stepping out, and then stepping back and waving people on… they don’t like it, That’s not what’s in the rules, and so that’s not what they do. California has a strict Pedestrian’s Right of Way rule. And as an extreme pedestrian, I can’t help but love it.

Sorry, but I do. When I’m sure enough about which country I’m living in long enough to get my licence, I may feel differently, but in the meantime, I’ll be glad to be somewhere where the soft breakable thing (me) has priority over the two-ton metal death-thing. Call me crazy, but that works for me (and yes, I only ever cross at corners and designated crossings)

But god knows THAT’s the thing that’s going to get me killed if we have to move back this summer.

If anyone (for example all the people I know who are very clever, or any of my readers, who are even cleverer than the people I know) happen to end up in a position of power at some point (and I have no doubt that you will, for you are all enormously clever and charming and what is more, your hair looks great today, have you done something to it?) then I would like to apply, prematurely if you will, for a position in your government (or dictatorship). I would like to be the Wrongness Czar, able to legislate on the important matter of Things That Are Wrong That Aren’t Allowed Any More, Because They Are Wrong.

In the meantime, I will start setting out my manifesto of things that will be immediately forced through into proper legal legislation as soon as I am able to make it so.

A LIST OF THINGS THAT ARE WRONG
In my opinion. Until I have the rightful power, then they’ll just be wrong-wrong. Like ‘do it and you’ll get punched in the knees wrong’

Chewing chewing gum inside.
Chewing gum is an OUTSIDE food and should only be eaten outside, or not at all. Failure to comply with this rule will result in instant death. Or tutting noises, a disgusted look and a bin proffered toward you.

Having a belt on your trousers, yet having your trousers belted half way down your thighs so loosely you have to hold them up with your hand
Because you’ve got the belt already. So you’re halfway there.
Surely we’re over this trend by now. Aren’t we?

Listening to music on your mobile phone, on your own, on public transport, loudly
Headphones will be free to all upon the passing this law.
You’re welcome.
And if you don’t use them, you won’t be allowed to use your phone anymore. Well, it’s not so much ‘you won’t be allowed to use it’ as ‘you’ll find it difficult to do so where it’ll have been shoved’.

Eating Chicken and Eggs in the same meal
What does it matter which came first? The important thing is that the are, essentially, mother and child. Not literally, or course. But still. The chicken laid the egg. The egg is the issue of the chicken. The chicken is the mother of the egg. The serving of the two together is the epitome of wrong.

Wrapping meat around meat of another animal
I concede this is another one of mine, and that I have always found it very difficult for people to agree with me. Which is why being able to pass it into legislation and no longer be obliged to ‘explain’ or ‘justify’ will be very useful. I can just say ‘wrapping meat of one animal around the meat of another animal is basically tantamount to condoning interspecies barnyard sex, and that’s just wrong.

Actually that goes for trying to rebuild animals too. That’s also wrong.
You know, like sausages wrapped in bacon. What’s that if not a primitive attempt to engage in animal frankensteiniship? Nothing, that’s what. And therefore it’s wrong. What’s the next step? Fashion little piggy ears from pork scratchings and hook them up to the nearest lightning rod? Wrong wrong wrong.

Fullbody sleepsuits with bum flaps. For grown ups
Unless you are a gold prospector, which you’re not, this is not an acceptable look any more.

People using ‘devil’s advocate’/free speech arguments to justify being an anonymous twat in comment boxes.
It’s not that it’s old, it’s mostly that it’s boring. If you’re going to be cunty, at least own your cuntiness, and say, openly, ‘I’m a gutless twat!’ In fact, this goes for most rampant negativism on the internet. There will be a strict ‘if you haven’t anything nice to say, don’t say anything nice (unless it refers to any of the things I have already despotically marked as irrevocably wrong and disallowed in which case all bets are off)’ rule, enforceable by punching in the knees. And/or death.

Chocolate covered pretzels
Wrong.

Marking rental flats as two bedroom when what you mean is ‘if you don’t mind on bedroom doubling as the kitchen/living room/bathroom
Wrong.

Painting Cats
Wrong. I happened to pick up a book on it at the weekend, so I know. And no, not a book on Paint pictures OF cats. A book about painting ON cats.

Wrong.

Velveeta
Wrong (trust me, British people, and do not look into this further unless you want to be sick on your feets).

Wearing sunglasses indoors, at night.
Twats.
You’re wrong.

About a million other things
Wrong.

I will be going for a walk this afternoon and putting my mind to thinking of other things - and also I will be taking suggestions, though I cannot promise they will be made into law, because, as previously discussed, I will be the Czar. And you can’t tell the Wrongness Czar what to do. That would be…
All together now…
That’s right:
Wrong.

(But you’re still free to propose additional wrongs to be added into the Wrongbooks. I will decide on the likelihood of them making it in in the comment box below.

This weekend was going to be one of those very quiet, very understated and cheap weekends. The ones where you see a few friends, hang around reading newspapers and playing games and going for walks and doing other things that were mainly - or completely - free.

And then I discovered that the world this weekend - and by the world I mean the East Bay, the bit just over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco - was full of shopping joy, the amazingness of which I could barely have imagined before that moment. The moment I found out, I mean. THE moment. The moment that could so easily have become known in future years as the starting point of the story ‘How I became bankrupt’.

I am an enormous sucker for flea markets and rummage sales and estate sales and junk shops and … well, all of those things. To find out that not only was the monthly fabulous Alameda Market on on Sunday, but there was another thing - a White Elephant Sale held once a year, proceeds going to a local museum, and that my friend was going, and if I didn’t go well, who knows whether I’m going to be here for the next one.

Which is one of the main problems. I’ve been trying not to go to places that will tempt me to buy too many wonderful things until I know for sure which country we’re going to be living in in a few months time. If it’s this one, I can buy things with plugs and heft and solidity. And if it’s going to be another one other than this one, it should be things that are ones I can’t possibly buy there, but that are light and easily packed and shipped etc. And I’ve mainly been quite good: coming home empty handed when I couldn’t find the right thing, all the right kind of behaviour.

When I walked in, and found that everything was labelled and divided into definite sections, departments, I got a bit overwhelmed. And then wandered around, stroking things, and flitting from section to section, trying to find the one thing that caught my eye and made that little ‘PING’ noise in my brain that things make when they’re the right thing that I should be buying and won’t stop shouting at myself about if I don’t.

And nothing did until, in the photography department, I came across a huge box of slides for three measly americanquids. And I wanted them. These were the right thing, I decided.

And the more I’ve amused myself with them over the weekend, the more I’m sure of that. The fact that I love found-pictures is one thing. But the fact that they were slides was even better. There’s something great about the bright colours, the luminous nature of them: the fact that they all look exactly the same, dark and plastic and boring, until you hold them up against light (or light up against them) and life suddenly springs out.

I love this one, for example - just one random example pulled from the box - even though it’s just a man, in what looks like a quarry, checking his hair.
Because that’s the thing: who IS this man? Why is there a photo of him checking his hair? And the quarry? Why is he in a quarry?

Checking through the rest of the box in random order, though, I just got more and more excited about the contents of this box. But I don’t want to get too over-familiar with them all, at least until I decide what to do with them. At the moment I’m leaning toward having some kind of party where they all get thrown into a slide projector and then someone has to talk through the ensuing show in a complete, logical narrative. But I may just find a way to photograph and catalogue them.

And that was that. Well, apart from the plates I bought. And the bear. And the Bongo Made Easy pamphlet written by the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez from I Love Lucy (that’s not why I bought it, by the way: I was just intrigued to know how bongo could be anything BUT easy, I just like the coincidence) and some other things.

The fact that I went back on sunday and discovered that since everything in the rummage sale was now on clearance sale sale-sale, you could buy a big brown paper shopping bag for $4 (about two pound fifty) and then go around the shelves, filling it with all the books that could plausibly fit in there, whether you could then plausibly carry it, or not. The fact that finding the rest of the sale to be lacking, we then left and went to Alameda?

Well, let’s not speak of that. Of the few subsequent paragraphs in the story that will, one day, become known as “How I became bankrupt (albeit in a house full of brilliant books and other completely AWESOME things, yay)”

Still though: I didn’t buy this:

So I’m not an incurable shit-gatherer yet, right?

That was me making a toast noise.
Not like a toast as in grilled bread popping up noise, (because that would be more like k-pf! depending on your toaster) as in an “I’m about to make a toast” noise.

You really should go and visit my amazing sister. Because she’s been bloggin’, right, TEN BLOOMING YEARS! Which is a veh long time.

That is all.
(for now)

Baaaaarrrth. Tchube Traaaain. Quid. Maths. Shhhedyule.

See?! I am still completely British in accent, immovable, unshakable… undeniably a dyed-in-the-wool subject of her Maj, and no, that’s not a euphemism for something filthy, or at least not yet.
It probably should be.

But SEE?! I pronounced the ‘t’ in the middle of British most properly and carefully, and I still think it’s possible to make every sentence spoken into something rude, I’m clearly just as British as I was the last time I stepped foot on the ground of the motherland 18 months ago. 18 months? Crumbs. Crikey. Gollly. Gosh.
You See?! Completely British.

It’s one of the questions people ask more and more the longer we’re out here. Have I picked up an accent? Have I started spelling things wrong? Have I stopped -more’s the point - considering them ’spelt wrong’? I get shouted at by one particular friend every time I let an ‘Awesome!’ slip into a video chat or a phone call - disregarding the fact that I was rather overfond of her least favourite word for a few years before leaving the UK last.

The boring fact is, no. No accent, as yet. No change in spellings or abandonment of the ‘proper and correct’ way of doing things. Because, let’s face it, when you work at home most days, and work by yourself all the time, with your main professional daily contacts being people with the same accent as you, it’s not really that hard to keep a firm grip on your constants and rein in your vowels. I imagine if I’d been working in a local office all this time, or if I were to start doing that now, then yes, you might start to see it go a bit.

And I have started to see a change in the way I use certain words.
Neither my beloved or I drove in UK, or ever really had that much to do with driving or cars while we were there, so while most of our car-related vocabulary is made up of American words - all freeways and intersections and gas stations and such - that’s partly a thing to do with the language you learn about these things in, and partly to do with the fact that you can’t, you simply CAN’T stick rigidly to saying ‘petrol station’ and ‘boot’ when every single person around you wants to use a different word for it, and doesn’t understand you when you don’t use the same one as them. It’s understandable when you’re on holiday or travelling through a place, but if after eighteen months I was still stubbornly shouting ‘No, PETROL STATION. I want a petrol station! What do you MEAN you don’t understand, that’s what it’s CALLED’, I would sound ridiculously arrogant. And have every reason to suspect that living outside the UK was secretly (or not very secretly) something I was not very happy about doing.

There are other words though. Non-car words, that don’t feel completely natural to say, but, when I step back and look at them, I can’t remember whether they’re feeling unnatural because they’re English and I’m used to hearing their American alternative, or because they ARE the American alternative and sound odd because I’ve gone to them first rather than the English counterpart I’m more accustomed to.
These are the points I want to go home for a visit most of all, when I feel a word slip away, and I have to mindflail around, trying to get one version or other of it back. I find myself pronouncing the vile shortening of ’schedule’ out loud, because hearing ’skedge’ is sometimes the only way to remember which country pronounces it ’shedyule’ and which ’skedyule’ (because only here have I heard the nasty edited version, so only here must they pronounce it with the hard c). And it’s stupid, because these are my words. Mine! Since birth! Though admittedly I never used schedule until i was at least 3.

You’re in the middle of a completely normal sentence, though, and an extra, different spelling or word or pronunciation sneaks in, just to confuse you. There’s no easy way to describe it, either: apart from the fact it’s very like writing the same word down over and over again until it stops looking like a word at all, to the point you have to ask someone, or go and look it up.

It’s usually the most simple thing. I’ll tell My Beloved that I have to step out to the shop because we need some detergent. And then I’ll stop and check myself. Detergent? Would I use the word for detergent if I meant something to clean clothes? That doesn’t feel like a familiar word coming out of my mouth, I’ll think - is it the right word? We don’t say detergent in the UK, do we? Or do we? If we don’t then what DO we say? Washing… I’ll stop and stare at my beloved… Liquid? That sounds a bit vague. Laundry …. something? But laundry’s an American word, isn’t it? So would we say laundry something? Or just ‘washing’ something?

And we’ll stand there and stare at each other.
“I’ll just go and get some liquid to put into the washing machine so they will get clean.”
“Yeah. liquid. Wash-clothes-liquid get.”

And we’ll go off each not quite sure which is the right or wrong word for the thing we may or may not be thinking of.

This will, I sense, only get worse if we stay here longer - as the only jobs that both of us are likely to get will be writingy jobs, it’s currently like learning another language. I have the AP style guide and the Chicago style guide stacked next to the bed. Books about grammar and ones about differences in spelling and in cultural sensitivities to different terms, and ridiculously large repositories of pop culture references that I would not otherwise have known about line my desk.

And yes, clearly they’re not actually taking effect yet, for anyone who has already started planning to go through this post with a fine-toothed comb and leave me a box full of red-penned annotations.

And quite apart from that, I imagine this blog as the place where none of that will ever take effect. That this is one corner of my typing fingers that will be forever England. I can come to spell “colour” properly in my time off, as a treat to myself. And eschew all extraneous use of the letter ‘z’ except when I go to the zoo to see zebras. And the idea that that should be the case amuses me, but doesn’t quite fit with me: one day, I will, to my surprise, end up being bilingual: it’s just a bilingual that will look to all my friends and family and lovely little.red.passengers like spelling things wrong.

Trust me, if it LOOKS wrong, it’s either a euphemism for something very rude, ironic, or sarcastic.
It couldn’t actually be WRONG-wrong.
God no. I’m British.