If you can't stand the heat....

...don't ever ask me to cook you a meal.

Is it just me or does anyone else find cooking really stressful? Personally I would rather have a filling at the dentists than cook a meal from scratch. The thought fills me with dread. How do I know when the meat is cooked? What happens if one thing is cooked before everything else? How do I baste? What’s a tablespoon? (just kidding)

A few days ago I attempted to cook a Spicy Sausage Risotto. It was a complete and utter disaster. The recipe said to cook the sausages first and then leave them to one side until the risotto was done. I think they must have been joking because when I put them back in the pan with the cooked risotto they were as hard as nails. They looked and felt like pieces of Blackpool Rock. The risotto was tasteless and bland and to top it all the apartment looked and smelt like November 5. And what did I do when it all went wrong? I cried. That’s what I did, I cried like a big baby. Why can’t I follow a recipe? What’s wrong with me? I can read, I can measure, so why can’t I cook a decent meal?

I watched an episode of the F Word with Gordon Ramsey a few months ago. It featured a woman just like me – a complete disaster in the kitchen. She lived on microwave meals (I don’t – I can cook a few things like chicken stir fry and, er, prawn stir fry) and desperately wanted to cook a roast dinner for her husband. Ramsey went round to her house, shouted and swore at her for a few hours and before you know it, she’d cooked a roast. He even went back a few months later to make sure she was still cooking. She was.

The thought of cooking a roast makes me feel very scared. How long do you cook the meat for? How do make roast potatoes? What happens if the vegetables are done before the meat? It’s all so bloody complicated. Some people say they don’t need to measure out ingredients. It’s just a pinch of this, a pinch of that. I have to measure EVERYTHING. I mean, what happens if I put too much pepper in?

I use every utensil I own and end up covered in flour and eggs. It’s horrible. It hate it. We did have home economics classes at school and I guess that’s when I realised I really couldn’t cook. Once we made a stuffed pepper thing and I dropped mine as I pulled it out of the oven. It was probably a blessing as it probably tasted awful.

Some of my friends say that cooking helps them relax. Relax? I relax in a sauna or on the sofa with a good book and a bar of Dairy Milk. Cooking is by far the most stressful thing in my life.

So, until I have taken some cookery lessons I wouldn’t ask me to cook you a meal. I could rustle up some beans on toast or even a chicken stir fry but that’s about it. Sorry.

Only in America

I have seen some strange people since arriving here. Its not that you don’t get strange people in London, of course you do. It’s just that here people tend to ignore them more.

Here are the strangest people I have come across so far:

1. The guy who stands across from Wall Street with a sign which says “College graduate looking for work, drug free”. He sometimes stands there all day and he’s obviously cold because he jumps up and down all the time. Why doesn’t he go home and work on his CV? Harsh but true.

2. I was watching a programme about tattooing the other day. One of the people featured on the show was a middle aged woman with hardly any teeth (always a bad sign) who had framed a grilled cheese sandwich that she said had an imprint of the Virgin Mary. She wanted an image of the sandwich tattooed onto her breast. I will say no more other than the fact that she sold the sandwich (in a frame) on ebay for $25,000. There’s one born every minute.

3. A few weekends ago we went to Washington DC. It’s a strange city with pockets of wealth and power and poverty and crime. There are lots of homeless people in the City and one evening as we were walking to a restaurant we came across a homeless woman poo-ing, yes poo-ing in the street. Her backside facing us. It was very sad to see someone with absolutely no dignity left and I am not mocking her for a single second. All the same it was a bit surreal and not very nice.

4. The guy on the subway train today reading aloud from a book. I have no idea what he was reading as I turned my ipod up even louder but he obviously thought we would all like to listen.

5. The lady who marches up and down a small section of the esplanade near our apartment. She wears a big scarf round her head so that you can only see her eyes and shakes her hands as if she’s starring in a cabaret show.

6. The woman who goes to my gym and works out wearing a Trench Coat (yes really). Perhaps she’s cold. She's my favourite nutter.

7. The guy who was standing in the middle of a very busy road on Saturday night pretending to be a bird. I think he needs to stay off the Crack for a while.

Nanny State

So Ofcom has announced that it’s banning junk food advertising from breaks in programmes aimed at under 16s. This comes as the Government announces that it is introducing ‘Super Nannies’ to teach parenting skills to parents with anti social children.

The term Nanny State springs to mind. There were junk food adverts on TV when I was growing up and I’m not (and never have been) obese. That’s because my parents wouldn’t let me eat junk food all the time. Hello, parents of obese children, ever heard that one before? When I was a kid we went to McDonalds for special treats (about once every six months). It wasn’t my staple diet and I knew it would make me fat if I ate it all the time.

I see toddlers in prams drinking fizzy drinks, kids on their way to school eating bars of chocolate and families surviving on junk food all the time. And you know what? It disgusts me. There is enough information out there to know that eating and drinking junk all the time is bad for you and it’s up to parents to instill that in their children. Banning junk food ads isn’t going to stop people eating it and it’s ridiculous to think it will. All that it does is shift the blame from parents.

It’s all very well blaming the marketers or the advertisers for making junk food appealing to children but how about using a little discipline? Yes, there’s a thought. How about telling little Johnny no he can’t have sweets?

You don’t have to read a broadsheet or watch Channel 4 News to work out what’s good and what’s bad for you. You can read The Sun and get the same information. Everyone knows that fruit and vegetables = good and chocolate and burgers = bad. Its not rocket science.

At the risk of sounding controversial and right wing parents who let their children eat junk and then sit back and watch as they get bigger and bigger are abusing them. How can you sit back and watch your child get out of breath just climbing the stairs?

It’s the same with alcohol or credit card debt. You know that a whole bottle of wine isn’t very good for you and you also know that if you spend £1000 on your credit card you will have to pay it back. It’s not magic money. And I’m not talking about the people who get into debt just so that they can eat; I’m talking about the people who get into debt because they shop in Harvey Nichols all the time.

So Mr Blair, how about getting your team of ‘Super Nannies’ to teach people how to be responsible for their own actions?

And can I have the first and last letter of your password?

I really hate passwords. When I was a child the only password I knew was the one in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves – Open Sesame. Oh how things have changed.

Now I need a bloody password for everything. Of course you can’t have just one generic password. Oh no, that would be far too easy. Some passwords have to have a mixture of Upper and Lower case, some have to have numbers and some can only contain letters. It’s a nightmare. We are living in password hell.

I have a password for my bank account, one each for my credit cards, two for my email accounts, one for my Amazon account, not to mention the one I had for my work computer, the one for the DVD shop and the one for my Ocado account. I am going password crazy.

Passwords are fine if you use them all the time but if you don’t and you have the memory of a ninety five year old (I have) then it can be a bit of a problem. Recently I had to call one of my credit card companies. Now, I don’t call them very often and naturally I had forgotten my password (which I use about once a year). So, the call centre operator asks me for my password and I can’t remember it. The fact that I had my card number, my address, my date of birth, the place where I was born and details of the last transaction I made didn’t seem to matter to the credit card company. No. I had to give them my password. After going through every password I could think of (so now the whole office and the person on the telephone knew all my top secret passwords. Great). In the end I had to admit that I had forgotten it and all my security settings had to be reset. And all I wanted to do was check my balance.

When you enter a password on a website it always reminds you not to tell reveal it to anyone. I bloody wish. It takes all my strength to remember it in the first place.

And my favourite password of all? I b l o o d y h a t e p a s s w o r d s

Pretentious shops

London and New York are very similar in lots of ways. Right down to areas sometimes. Take SoHo, for example. Like its namesake in the UK, SoHo is full of pretentious people who wear sunglasses when it’s raining and poseurs who hang around in cafes all day. Don’t they have jobs to go to?

SoHo is home to lots of pretentious clothes shops as well. You know, the kind which look more like art galleries. All white walls and minimalism. I hate these shops. I think they should be turned into branches of Starbucks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for promoting independent stores and I think some chain stores should be banned from opening branches in certain areas (I mean how many coffee shops do you need on Upper Street?) but I hate all things pretentious. And that includes clothes shops which employ vacuous twits who think that they are there just to look good. I also really hate shops which have in-house DJ’s. I mean, come on, imagine telling people what you did for a living. Er, I’m a DJ. In a clothes shop. It’s as bad as saying you’re a bouncer in McDonalds.

There’s a shop in SoHo, it’s huge but the rails in the shop only have two or three items on them. I have looked in the window of this shop many times and the sales assistants just look bored. They stand around trying to look really cool but anyone who walks passed can see that they are bored out of their tiny minds. Why would you want to work in a place like this?

Personally I’d rather work in Sainsbury’s. OK, the uniform isn’t as nice but at least you wouldn’t be bored. If you worked in the Camden branch you could watch all the shoplifters. That would be quite entertaining.

I remember a shop in London (now closed, I wonder why?) where you had to ring a doorbell to get in. Often it would turn away people because they didn’t look right. That just makes me want to scream. What is with these people? They really need to climb out of their backsides.

One day I’m going to go into one of these poncey shops and try to annoy the sales assistants as much as I possibly can. I’ll do this buy asking them when their sale starts (they hate this and they will think I am poor white trash) and then asking them for an item in a size 16. Imagine the look of terror.

Journalists

I was watching a programme on TV the other day where the presenter was interviewing a woman who had survived breast cancer. I almost fell off my chair when the presenter asked the woman if she worried that the cancer would return. What an utterly ridiculous thing to ask.

Sometimes I really hate the media. They say the most ludicrous things. You know the kind of thing. Someone loses a loved one or is involved in a horrible accident and the reporter says “How do you feel?” I wish someone would smack the reporter and then say “So how do you feel?” Geez I would pay someone to do that.

My other bug bear is when newspaper reporters use completely irrelevant information in their stories. I mean, does it really matter if a mass murderer lives in a £500,000 house? Or that a rapist lives on a council estate. I’m sorry but I just don’t understand how that is relevant to the story. Does it mean that mass murderers don’t usually live in expensive houses? Or that rapists live in tents?

Reporters often think it’s really important to print the age of their subject. Again, how is this relevant? Does it matter if someone is 25 or 55? I have worked in and with the media for over 10 years and things haven’t changed a single bit.

There is one newspaper in the UK which shall remain nameless. It’s not the kind of newspaper I would read through choice but sometimes I have to buy it for work purposes. I remember a feature which appeared in this newspaper a few years ago. It was so full of clichés and stereotypes that I wrote a letter of complaint. Obviously they didn’t print it but it felt good to get something off my chest.

The article was written by a dreadful middle-class journalist who had spent one week living on a council estate somewhere in London. In the article she described how awful it was living on said estate. She talked about the junkies shooting up on the stairwells and the kids hanging around the streets mugging people. I don’t doubt that much of the stuff she wrote about was real. But it was the way the article was written which annoyed me the most. It was just so patronising. There was lots of “Oh look how these poor people live. I am so glad I can go back to my four storey house in Notting Hill next week.” To me, this journalist (who I hope was fired for writing such trash) was just a voyeur who wanted something to talk about at her next dinner party.

I’m not a big fan of any newspaper to be honest. They are either too trashy, too middle class or just too bloody worthy. That’s a bit of a problem when you work in Public Relations.

Oh well.

Tourists

Now I guess you could say that I was a tourist. I’m in a country I’m unfamiliar with, I’m not working and I spend a lot of time walking around the City. However, I think I’m superior to many of the tourists I see every day.

I’ll give you an example. A few days ago we were walking back to the apartment and we came across a very large group of tourists who were blocking the road (grrrr). As we passed them (pushed passed them if you want the truth) we discovered that they were taking pictures of a bride who was just about to enter a church. Did these people know the bride? (Who turned up in a Hummer the size of a Limousine – no wonder this country is one of the world’s biggest polluters). No they did not. They were just stupid tourists who thought it would be really cool to have a photograph of someone they didn’t know. The idiots.

Here are some other reasons why I do not class myself as a tourist.

I don’t walk around in a plastic poncho with I ♥ New York on it. If it’s raining then I will use an umbrella like a normal person.

I’m a secret map user. I don’t stand in the middle of the street with a map the size of a fitted sheet. I have a carefully folded map which shows me the area I’m in and nothing else. If I need to look at it I do so discreetly.

I don’t ask a cab driver to take me to the World Trade Centre/Macy’s/the Empire State Building. If you want the driver to take the long way round, thus costing you money then this is a sure-fire way of doing that.

I do not stand in the middle of the street and take photos of oncoming traffic. Yes, that is a yellow cab; there are about 30,000 of them in this city.

I would never ever ask a policeman if I could have my photo taken with him. That’s just embarrassing.

I do not walk around the City wearing a bloody great rucksack on my back.

I would never buy a Starbucks mug or visit a TGI Fridays.

I don’t walk around with a camera around my neck. I’m from a big City and know that this just says mug me, I’m stupid.

Stupid machines

Machines don’t like me. It’s true. In fact they hate me.

Whenever I go near a photocopier they stop working. It’s like they know me and can sense that I don’t like them. A bit like a cat except when a cat knows you don’t like it, it rubs itself up against your legs just to piss you off. Whenever I tried to photocopy something in the office the machine would take one look at me and then chew up the paper. Call me paranoid but it happens a lot.

Take this morning, I swiped my Metro Pass and it refused to let me through. I had to swipe it a further three times before it decided that it had annoyed me enough. This happens every time I use the damn thing. It doesn’t happen to anyone else around me. And believe me I pay close attention.

My Oyster card would do the same. No actually, what my Oyster card did was far worse. I would place my card on the reader and the barrier would open. Just as I was walking through, the barrier would close, trapping me. I would have to struggle free and then nurse my bruised arm. I should sue. Once it trapped me and my grocery shopping. My loaf of bread got a bit squashed. I try to get through as fast as I can but it doesn’t seem to matter. It always gets me.

Take my Laptop, most of the time it works just fine and then every so often just when I am in the middle of doing something really important, like writing a new post for my blog, it decides to crash. How nice of it. I treat it well, give it a clean every now and then, make sure its virus free and let it have a bit of a sleep at night and that’s how it treats me.

Don’t you just hate that bloody annoying paper-clip thing that pops up every now and then? It thinks it can help you but all it does is raise it’s ‘eyebrow’ at you and then just says sorry I don’t know the answer to that one. How about when it pops up and says “I think you are writing a letter”. No, I know I’m writing a letter and if I want your bloody advice I’ll ask for it. Now bugger off and leave me alone. You can get other characters that can help you if you don’t like the paperclip. There’s a dog and even an Einstein character. Who are they kidding?

I think one day machines will take over the world like they do in “I Robot” and when they do I’m running for the hills. That’s if they don’t trap me in a stupid Tube barrier first and keep me prisoner for the rest of my life.

What happened to Thank You?

Call me old-fashioned but I’m the kind of girl who quite likes it when someone opens a car door for me, helps me with my coat or holds a door open for me. It’s nice.

I don’t get offended if a man asks me if I would like his seat on the tube (as long as he doesn’t ask me when I am due) and I certainly wouldn’t say no if a kind gentleman offered to carry my suitcase up a flight of stairs.

A lot of Londoners have really shocking manners. You see it everywhere. In shops, on public transport, on the streets. Ignorance is everywhere and it really riles me. As my mum says “manners cost nothing”.

Once I was on a bus on my way to work and I had a nosebleed. I didn’t have a tissue in my bag and so I asked the man sitting next to me if he had one. He looked me up and down and said “no, I don’t”, then went back to his FT. I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to say (and that is not normal for me). I had one last rummage in my bag and you know what I used to stop the bleeding? A sanitary towel – how dignified. I hope the man who declined to help me had a really shit day and I also hope that one day he has a terrible nosebleed and stains his lovely Thomas Pink shirt. How’s that for Karma?

I really hate it when people don’t say thank you when you hold open a door for them – and I usually shout out “Thank you, you’re welcome”. I’m like that. A bit gobby.

Living in New York has made me realise just how rude Londoners are. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times someone has said thanks when I’ve held a door for them. Here, everyone says thanks. It’s polite and means that you have noticed that the door didn’t stay open on its own.

Once I was on the Tube (yes, manners are virtually non-existent on the Tube) and there was a spare seat. As no-one seemed to be moving towards the seat I thought I’d sit down. There was an ugly looking man standing in front of the seat and so I said very politely “Excuse me, do you mind if I sit down?” Without even looking up from his book he said “Yes I do actually.” I was stunned. He didn’t want the seat but didn’t want anyone else to have it either! I really hoped that a small child projectile vomited over him on his way to work the next day.

You see, that’s how I deal with ignorant people. I wish bad things on them. Not really bad things, just little things that would inconvenience them. My favourite is to wish that they lose their purse/wallet. See, not really bad, but very inconvenient.

My top ten examples of bad manners:

1. Not saying thank you when I hold open a door.
2. Throwing litter.
3. Eating smelly food on public transport.
4. Pretending not to see that old/disabled person as you feign sleep on the Tube.
5. Men scratching their private parts in public. Dogs do it, humans don’t.
6. Women who file their nails, comb their hair or apply make-up on public transport. It’s so undignified. Just get up 30 mins earlier OK?
7. Queue jumpers. Just get in line like everyone else.
8. Shop assistants who think it’s a real chore to serve you. If you don’t like your job get another one. Preferably one where you don’t have to deal with the general public.
9. Talking very loudly on a mobile on the bus.
10. Drivers who run red lights. That’s called breaking the law dick-heads.

I think people should have to attend a manners class. We should employ manners police who can arrest someone for being rude. Wouldn’t that be fun? I’d volunteer for the job, I’d never be bored.

But is it Art?

I’ve just read about a couple who paid £4,500 for Jake Chapman (a famous and controversial British ‘artist’) to paint a portrait of them as a wedding gift to themselves. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6122142.stm As you can see the result was a little less flattering than they had hoped.

Apparently art critics have said that it will be worth a lot of money in a few years. That may be so, but if I commissioned someone to paint a picture of myself and my fiancé I’d expect the portrait to look a little bit like me. After all, it will hang above the fireplace in the dining room. If I had to look at this everyday I think I might develop a complex.

Does anyone else out there find the whole conceptual modern art thing a load of pretentious shite? Is it me or does anyone else walk around the Tate Modern, or any other museum dedicated to ‘modern art’ and snort with derision?

Some people say that they don’t get modern art because they think they could paint a similar picture/stick an animal in a big Perspex tank. But you know what? I wouldn’t want to create a piece of modern art. I’d be embarrassed to say that I erected a tent, crawled inside and wrote all the names of the men I’d slept with in felt tip on the lining.

I’m an educated person but I will never ever understand how you can call a dead animal or some toy soldiers covered in red paint, art. Oh yes, you can give it a poncey name and create some spiel about how it represents the failings of society but at the end of the day its shite.

I know that taste is a very personal thing but surely anyone with a brain can see that modern art is crap. Its pretentious, trite and above all a bloody waste of money.

I blame the fat, rich art collectors. If they didn’t invest in piles of turd (sometimes quite literally) then there wouldn’t be a market for it. Supply and demand and all that. Their mansions must be filled to the brim with useless bits of metal and dead animals. I feel sorry for the cleaners, how would they know what was rubbish and what wasn’t?

I love those stories you sometimes read in the media. You know the ones about cleaners/security guards mistaking a sculpture for rubbish and throwing it out with the rest of the trash. I sometimes wonder whether they really knew what they were throwing away. Hah!

Give me a Degas or a Hockney any day. Now that's real Art.

Modern Tube etiquette

1. As the tube pulls into the platform and you see a vacant seat, barge onto the carriage without waiting for passengers to get off first. Throw yourself into the seat and smile smugly. Yes you have been sitting on your arse all day behind a desk but who cares?

2. If you are a man spread your legs as wide as possible and force the person into a space about ten inches wide. Women in particular really like having their space invaded. It makes us realise that men have enormous penises and just have to give their thighs some breathing space.

3. Never ever speak or smile to anyone on the tube. Yes you might share the same carriage with the girl wearing the brown coat everyday but this does not give you the right to make eye contact, or heaven forbid, smile. If you do smile or make eye contact, you are clearly a nutter.

4. If you are listening to music make sure that everyone in the carriage can hear it too. If you think the guy sitting right down the other end can’t hear it, turn it up! Personal stereos are made for sharing.

5. Never ever move down the aisles. Always block the doors and never actually step off the carriage to let someone off. This might mean you lose your place, you know the one that has a sign saying reserved for me next to it?

6. If you see someone standing close to you who clearly needs a seat pretend you can’t see them. If you have a book pretend to be totally engrossed in it. Closing your eyes and feigning sleep also works quite well.

7. If you are standing in the centre of the carriage, always lean against the handrail – you know the one that people like to hold onto in case they tube stops suddenly – if you use your whole body to lean against it short people have nothing to hold on to. They like that, it means they can practice the art of balance.

8. If you are a tube driver and you have to stop in the middle of a tunnel, never tell passengers what is happening. We like to make stories up in our heads. It's much more fun and passes the time.

9. If you are travelling on the tube at the weekend and have a newspaper, make sure you discard all the sections you don’t want to read. Either leave them on the seat next to you or better still dump them on the floor.

10. Hungry tube travellers must always make sure that the food they eat on the tube is as smelly as possible. Kebabs, burgers, chips etc. It also helps if the food is really greasy as you can then wipe your hands all over the seats.

N is for New York

A is for acronyms: NoHo (North of Houston), SoHo (South of Houston), NoLita (North of Little Italy). Aarrrgh, be a little more creative can’t you?

B is for bloody as in bloody hell. I miss that phrase, along with many other English-isms. When New Yorkers get mad they say "get outta here". Not quite the same now is it?

C is for commercials. The adverts in this country are truly diabolical. You can advertise just about anything from asthma inhalers and sleeping pills to KY Jelly (pre-watershed) and make wild claims about products. Even politicians advertise (often with their children which I find in very bad taste). I hate to say it but our ad agencies put the US guys to shame (sometimes).

D is for dogs. New Yorkers LOVE their dogs. They dress them up and carry them around in stupid bags. You can even put your pooch into day care if you work and don’t have access to a dog walker. There are pet shops everywhere and a dog show just about every week.

E is for eating out. You can find just about any kind of cuisine you want here, from Argentinean to Vietnamese and it is much easier to eat healthily as well. There’s a Deli on every corner and most are open 24 hours a day. I will lose that muffin top!

F is for fashion. Forget it, it doesn’t really exist here. If you have lots of money and can afford to go to Bloomingdales and Barneys then yes, I guess fashion is great. If you are looking for fast fashion that us Brits do so well then you might as well go home. There is no Top Shop equivalent here. Jeans are much cheaper here and so is Cashmere but don’t think you’re going to find that Marc Jacobs-esque jumper for $50. Also fur is huge here and I find that really disturbing. It’s everywhere and sometimes it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t. I steer clear of anything furry just in case it was once a Bunny.

G is for the gym. New Yorkers are incredibly fit. They run, skate, cycle everywhere and it’s putting me to shame. I feel incredibly unfit next to these people (see my previous blog about the gym).

H is for highway. There’s one right outside our apartment and it takes a while to get used to the noise. But you do eventually, I guess it helps coming from a big, loud city in the first place.

I is for Iraq (pronounced I-Rack). It’s on the news everyday. In fact, it’s the only world news that’s ever covered. World News means news from outside the state here.

J is for Jelly. That’s jam to you and me. Jelly is called jello, crisps are called chips, spring onions are called scallions and rocket is called arugula. Got that? No, me neither.


K is for kitchens. Most kitchens in New York City are tiny. Space is at a premium and why do you want a big kitchen if you can eat out cheaply and healthily any day of the week?

L is for ‘Lost’, the best thing on TV at the moment. Guys, if you’re British and love the show, season 3 is great! Sorry I am a ‘Lost’ geek and I apologise!

M is for movies. We went to see ‘The Departed’ a few weeks ago. It was good but very violent with lots of swearing and a few sex scenes. Imagine my surprise when a woman sat down in front of us with two young boys. They were probably about 10 and 12. In the US kids can watch pretty much anything as long as they’re with an adult. Would you want your kids to watch a film where people get their hands broken with bricks? No, neither would I.

N is for New Yorkers. Contrary to popular belief they are generally a polite bunch. They never shove you out of the way for a seat on the subway, often hold doors open for you and sales assistants actually don’t mind helping you (as opposed to chatting to their colleague and ignoring you). They really do put Londoners to shame.

O is open 24 hours. This really is the City that never sleeps.

P is for prices. Pretty much everything is cheaper here, from transport and food to manicures and jeans. It is a shopaholics paradise.

Q is for queue. It’s a line here, not a queue. They are quite good at it though.

R is for rest-room. It’s not a toilet and in fact, that’s a dirty word here. It’s actually considered rude to ask for the toilet. Think I might ask where the Khazi is next time…

S is for sirens. You can’t hear yourself think for sirens. They go off every five minutes and they make the worse noise ever.

T is for TV. It’s crap. ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and ‘Jeopardy’ are on EVERY NIGHT and there are million and one dreadful soaps where the sets shake. I thought that ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ stopped airing in the 1980s. The best things on TV here are ‘Lost’ and ‘Greys Anatomy’ and we have them at home.

U is for….umbrella. Sorry, can’t think of a U.

V is for variety. You want a decaf skinny extra hot Latte with a shot of no sugar vanilla syrup? You got it.

W is for weather. The weather here is weird, we’ve had freezing cold days, torrential rain, howling winds and oh, yesterday it was 70 degrees.

X is for….oh, c’mon now, I’m not that good.

Y is for yellow cabs. You can always get a cab, there are millions of them and they are very cheap. Just don’t expect the driver to a. know where he’s going, b. speak much English and c. be cheerful.

Z is for zonked. That’s me and I’m outta here.