Englishspeak

It's not like I've lived in Britain forever, but there are words I've learned here that are now a part of my vocabulary - words I used to find very amusing the first few times I heard them.

pants & knickers – underpants

pernickety - picky, fastidious

rude - sexually suggestive

banged up - in prison

banger - sausage

tosser - stupid, badly-behaved person

make a pig’s ear of something - mess something up

snog - kiss

shag - have sex

bird - girl

suss it out - assess and understand a situation or thing

moreish - make you want (to eat) more

lose your rag - get angry

a different kettle of fish - completely different matter

afters - dessert

bollocks - rubbish

bobby - policeman

chuffed - happy

go pear-shaped - get ruined

lido - public (seaside) swimming pool

mac - raincoat

naff - bad (looking)

nosh - food, eats

posh - fancy

quid - British pound

take the mickey - poke fun at

take the piss - same as take the mickey

bells and whistles - trappings

yonks - ages

How could you not love the language?!

A Very Sorry State of Affairs

From a BBC news item today:

"President Musharraf is widely believed to have declared the 3 November state of emergency in order to purge the Supreme Court that he suspected was about to rule against his re-election, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad."

"The verdict was expected to go in Gen Musharraf's favour since he has appointed new judges to the bench who are considered more loyal."

"Meanwhile, President Musharraf has amended the constitution to prevent future legal challenges to his actions."

And they have the gall to call the elections that may (or may not) be held, 'free and fair'!

Things about me I hate to admit

1. I proudly carry all the baggage that comes with being an only child.
2. I wouldn't walk up to me and strike up a conversation.
3. I have a very confused fashion sense.
4. I am much too easily affected.
5. I want a job that requires me to wear a business suit and high heels.
6. I can generally do better, but I just couldn't be bothered.
7. I am not a 'people person'.
8. I am judgemental.
9. I am obstinate, especially if I know I am wrong.
10. I am, quite often, penny wise and pound foolish.

Joyeux Anniversaire Pour Moi!

Dot gave me a birthday present of a weekend away in Nice & Cannes on the French Riviera - he really does love me, sigh. I'll let our pictures do the talking.

There was food...



...Dot trying very hard not to look like the luxury-yacht-owner really he is,



... palms in Cannes (now you know where Palme d'Or comes from),



...pretty little terasses,



...still water,



...Dot on an ego trip,



...Dot with his flea-market, €5, hundred-year-old reading glasses,



...happy feet (with fat legs),



...happy nostrils,



...French accents,



...lots of loving,



...railway stations,



...le boucher miniature,



...beautiful windows,



...glorious pears,



...views to die for,



...more beautiful windows,



...little toy trains,



...crème brûlée,



...saucy and racy menu presenters,



...more food,



...wise men,



...a bad dye job,



...glamour on the beach,



...glimpses of heaven,



...fruit that looked like it could have been waxed perfect for a photo shoot (may be it was!),



...yours truly, trying very hard to look glam,



...spice markets,



...matrons with canes,



...solitude,



...sex,



...shoes and poodles aplenty,




...the compleat angler,



...forgotten treasures,



....money,





....strawberries,



...streets with no names,



....and then there was the wine.

There were Alexanders in America

The United States of America (the more you roll your 'r's and drag out your syllables, the better it sounds!) - the land of opportunity, dreams, plenty, and whatever else you want to call it. For me, it fit every cliche ever written about it, and still was very unique and wonderfully weird - quite 'aaawsumm', if you ask me! Dot, Nodot and I, spent 10 days across the east coast and south of America in September. We did New York, Boston, Provincetown (Cape Cod), Austin and Houston.

Here are my random observations about America and about me in America:
- You replace the word 'please' with 'hey' or any other random attention-drawing word you like, before you ask for directions or for any help from a stranger - you then just leave and ignore him/her like they never happened.
- Your tip at a restaurant could leave you filing for bankruptcy - and the food needn't have been that good - you just empty your wallets.
- Bostonians have an accent that's a cross between Aussie and Southern American - and they take great pride in it. (This affects our family more seriously than we imagined. Dot gets a little bit carried away with the whole New England thing and keeps saying "Baaahstunn" every two seconds of our two days there. If that's not enough, he even gets a tee-shirt to remind us of it).
- Airplane stewardesses are too sincere and friendly for my (wannabe) snotty British taste and will tell you why their mother's sister had to look after them when they were young, all in the space between the plane taxiing to a halt and you stepping off it.
- Waitresses are also frighteningly friendly but have a rehearsed happiness and reel off the specials like only thambi in your local Udipi joint can (sending a little English hello out to Britney from the Joe's American Grill in Boston).
- The local Walmart is usually the size of England.
- You cannot buy regular whole milk, only a series of percentages.
- Texans may carry guns but they seem more genuine than New Yorkers.
- New York is over-rated.
- Boston is what I imagined New York would be like.
- Ashwin is an entertaining driver - never mind the fact that you could get killed. Seriously though, we owe him bucketfuls for showing us around. Thank you Ashwin - you're a star!
- I didn't ever think I would live to see a whole gay proud town in America - go Provincetown!
- Clam chowder (or chowda) is orgasmic.
- Nodot and me knew before everybody else that Frank Gehry's Stata Center looks very WRONG.
- I hate Sparkies or whatever that horrid place we went to for a Mexican breakfast is called. Their Migas (puréed beans) had me (and not to mention my two consorts) gassing for a whole day!
- I don't think the IHOP deserves the bad press it gets. At least it delivers a pile of pancakes with maple syrup at the unearthly hour of 11pm in a very ready-to-go-to-bed Austin.
- You cannot cross the interstate or any other road. Walking is not even a concept. We had to summon Nodot out of his working day to ferry us across to the other side.
- All the houses are chalet-style with wood slats on the facade - and boy do they fly the American colours (or should it be colors) with pride.
- Taking an Amtrak train from NY's Pennsylvania Station to Boston, was a great idea and the American countryside is lovely.
- I saw more SUVs in NY than in Texas - that said, the Texan ones were beasts!
- The NY metro sucks, but is the stuff of legends nevertheless. Where else in the world do you get a rastafarian singing out the next stop and doing a one-minute news capsule about the tourist attractions that go with it? Actually, probably only in Mumbai.
- It is not humanly possible to not get dazzled and be awed by Times Square at night. The lights, the people - fascinating!
- The view of the Manhattan skyline at dawn from aboard the Staten Island ferry is breathtaking.
- Clothes are cheap! Three pairs of Levi's for sixty quid!! Aaawsumm!
- Visiting the Johnson Space Center in Houston, being in an actual mission control room, being in a real astronauts' training chamber, seeing a real space shuttle made me feel very insignificant and yet very very proud.
- You can replace words in your vocabulary like 'good', 'okay', 'alright', 'yes', all with one exclamatory 'aaaawsum'!
- I like driving an automatic car - it's like go-karting.

Click on my Flickrama section for pictures.

Why do I not blog?

I have what Dot calls the 'magnum opus complex'. I want every single one of my posts to be clever and funny, and I want the whole WWW clamouring to read and blogroll me. Thank you to ye olde faithfuls who still bother coming back to check for updates. Since my last post, lots of exciting things have happened, a couple of those which were a new job and holidays in America and the South of France! I have a bagful of tales.