Things I am missing:
Marmite (it's obligatory to say that, even though I subvert received wisdom by neither particularly liking or disliking it)
Custard (impossible to find)
Crumpets (ditto)
Crisps ('potato chips') in any flavour apart from plain or sour cream & onion
Pies and pasties, except for 'chicken pot pies' which are not the same
Good quality ready-meals
Supermarket burgers, fishfingers etc. (people here just go to fast food drive-throughs)
Instant noodles
Lamb (hardly eaten here)
The English all-day breakfast, including bacon which doesn't taste of maple
Things I have been pleasantly surprised to find:
Real tea (in the form of PG Tips)
An excellent supply of beer, including Fullers London Pride, Theakston's Old Peculier and many other varieties
Things I am enjoying for the first time*:
'Pudding' (like Angel Delight only with a different texture which is impossible to describe)
An extraordinary array of fruit juices and soft drinks, including cream soda and Hawaiian punch
An equally extraordinary array of cereals, including some which are basically sugar dyed various radioactive colours
A quite incredible array of tinned soups - every conceivable variety, and a few inconceivable ones
Squash (acorn, butternut, spaghetti, yellow and many others)
Snickerdoodle cookies
Tilapia (a ubiquitous kind of white fish)
The whole American breakfast experience: pancakes, maple syrup, bacon, sausage and 'biscuits' (a kind of scone)
*Not really the first time in some cases, as I have visited America many times before!
(NB. Anyone reading the list above would get the impression I eat nothing but processed food. I do eat fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables too, but most of these are the same as back home. Honest.)
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
NPR
I have re-discovered civilisation. NPR (National Public Radio) is almost, but not quite, as good as Radio 4.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Domestic frustrations
Houses here are generally bigger than in the UK. And accordingly - at least if ours is anything to go by - they are also more complex and have more stuff in them. And of course, the more stuff you have, the more it can go wrong. Examples of things which I'm having to deal with for the first time in my life are: a security alarm system, an air conditioning system, a lawn sprinkler system, rotary ceiling fans, hundreds of light bulbs of generally mystifying size, shape and design, electric garage doors, and a garden pond complete with electric pump, filter and goldfish (the goldfish aren't electric, just the pump). At various times, most of these things have stopped working, and I've had to try to work out why, and how to get them started again. My wife is more practically-minded than I am, and usually works out what to do much more quickly and efficiently - or alternatively, just seems to know, by some kind of magical intuition - which makes me end up feeling a bit useless. It's almost like you need to go on a week's intensive training course in order to learn how to live in your house. I'm feeling very nostalgic for my old attic bedsit in West Hampstead, where the most challenging domestic operation was inserting 50p in the meter so I could run the gas fire.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A foggy day in Oklahoma City
A foggy day in Oklahoma City
Had me low and feeling ... just like the UK in fact.
Had me low and feeling ... just like the UK in fact.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Happy Hallowe'en
Hallowe'en is a big deal here. There are decorations everywhere, and piles of pumpkins outside all the supermarkets.
No doubt it's all a lot of charming, harmless fun. But I can't help noting, if only in passing, the odd lack of synchronicity between, on the one hand, a festival which overtly celebrates paganism, with the use of symbols like witches, ghosts, and the living dead, and, on the other hand, fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. Shome mishtake shurely?
No doubt it's all a lot of charming, harmless fun. But I can't help noting, if only in passing, the odd lack of synchronicity between, on the one hand, a festival which overtly celebrates paganism, with the use of symbols like witches, ghosts, and the living dead, and, on the other hand, fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. Shome mishtake shurely?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Religious clarification
Just to clarify some recent blogs, I'm not anti-Christian. I'm not formally a member of any church, though I have a Christian heritage, and I incline towards the kind of 'progressive Christianity' espoused by people like John Shelby Spong, and which focuses on love, tolerance, understanding, inclusion, and social awareness, and accepts debate, questioning, and doubt as part of any journey of faith. I'm also happy to respect and learn from the strongly-held beliefs and convictions of anyone, so long as they in turn are willing to respect my own viewpoint. I've even read 'The Purpose-Driven Life' from cover to cover.
That's probably enough of religion. Maybe I should talk about something less controversial instead? How about the weather (in time-honoured British tradition)? It's quite cool, grey and cloudy here in Oklahoma City today - the summer must be at an end.
That's probably enough of religion. Maybe I should talk about something less controversial instead? How about the weather (in time-honoured British tradition)? It's quite cool, grey and cloudy here in Oklahoma City today - the summer must be at an end.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Christian schools
OK, this is getting ridiculous. I had heard of the Bible Belt, of course, and thought I understood what that term represented. But I'm starting to feel slightly nauseous from the frankly creepy way in which this simplistic, moralistic, sub-Victorian strand of Christianity appears to seep into every aspect of life here.
Today I went through the listings of private schools in the phone book (I'm not qualified to teach in the public school system) and checked out the websites of many of them, in order to get contact details so I could write offering my services as a musician and teacher. I wasn't surprised that a good proportion of them (well, nearly all of them in fact) were religious-affiliated - I'm well used to that in the UK, and have no problem with it. But the websites were mostly crammed full of quotations from Scripture, references to 'walking with the Lord', 'affecting lives for the Kingdom of God', 'educating the whole person to glorify God' (should that be 'forcing'?) and general insinuations that you had better sign up to their way of thinking, or else.
I'm all for toleration and religious freedom. But the impression I get here is that these people are not. I would have no problem with working in a religious-affiliated school of any description, if I felt that my employers would be willing to respect my own liberal scepticism in the same way that I would be willing to respect their own fervent beliefs. Who knows, we might even both learn from each other. But the impression I get is that that kind of mutual respect isn't really on the cards. Oh well, if any of them respond to my speculative letters, we shall find out!
Today I went through the listings of private schools in the phone book (I'm not qualified to teach in the public school system) and checked out the websites of many of them, in order to get contact details so I could write offering my services as a musician and teacher. I wasn't surprised that a good proportion of them (well, nearly all of them in fact) were religious-affiliated - I'm well used to that in the UK, and have no problem with it. But the websites were mostly crammed full of quotations from Scripture, references to 'walking with the Lord', 'affecting lives for the Kingdom of God', 'educating the whole person to glorify God' (should that be 'forcing'?) and general insinuations that you had better sign up to their way of thinking, or else.
I'm all for toleration and religious freedom. But the impression I get here is that these people are not. I would have no problem with working in a religious-affiliated school of any description, if I felt that my employers would be willing to respect my own liberal scepticism in the same way that I would be willing to respect their own fervent beliefs. Who knows, we might even both learn from each other. But the impression I get is that that kind of mutual respect isn't really on the cards. Oh well, if any of them respond to my speculative letters, we shall find out!
Friday, October 10, 2008
Universities
There are dozens of universities in Oklahoma - I know this because this morning I did a Google trawl looking for people to write to offering my services, such as they are. I drew a line at the Oklahoma Panhandle State University, I'm ashamed to say, though I have written to all four of the Northwestern, Northeastern, Southwestern and Southeastern State Universities, as well as the University of Central Oklahoma, the University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City University, and quite a few others. Against my better judgment, I also wrote to the Oklahoma Baptist and Oklahoma Wesleyan Universities, despite the fact that the strapline of at least one of them was 'The University where Jesus is Lord' and the faculty profiles of the professors each started with at least half a dozen quotations from Scripture.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Anti-family
It hasn’t escaped my attention that there is an election going on at the moment. It’s all over the news channels, and ‘yard signs’ have sprung up outside many of the nearby houses, professing allegiance to either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden. I sometimes wonder how this must affect the neighbourly atmosphere when opposing signs are sported by two houses next to each other. There must be a few rictus smiles while the garbage is being taken out.
I could write bucketloads on the differences between American and British politics, but for now I’ll confine myself to one general observation, which is that the major issues which define one half of the political divide from the other seem to be quite different. In the UK, it tends to be economic and social policy (do you tax and spend on public services, or do you reduce taxation and trust personal wealth to create a higher quality of life?) Here, moral issues like abortion, which in the UK would generally be regarded as an interesting side-issue, seem far more central to the debate, and define the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ agendas.
I occasionally hear liberals accused of being ‘anti-family’. The first time I heard this term, I had to think hard about what it might mean. It strikes me as being essentially meaningless, a bit like being ‘anti-air’ or ‘pro-water’. Families just exist, don’t they? How can you be pro or anti them? Surely one’s relationship with one’s family is an intensely personal matter, something over which one frequently has little control? Some people are no doubt part of a great family, where everyone gets on really well, enjoys spending time together, and supports each other; equally, I’m sure other people, through no fault of their own, don’t get on with their families, or don’t have much of a family, or have dysfunctional families, or have chosen to separate from their families. So what? Aren’t there more important things to consider when choosing the next leader of the free world?
I could write bucketloads on the differences between American and British politics, but for now I’ll confine myself to one general observation, which is that the major issues which define one half of the political divide from the other seem to be quite different. In the UK, it tends to be economic and social policy (do you tax and spend on public services, or do you reduce taxation and trust personal wealth to create a higher quality of life?) Here, moral issues like abortion, which in the UK would generally be regarded as an interesting side-issue, seem far more central to the debate, and define the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ agendas.
I occasionally hear liberals accused of being ‘anti-family’. The first time I heard this term, I had to think hard about what it might mean. It strikes me as being essentially meaningless, a bit like being ‘anti-air’ or ‘pro-water’. Families just exist, don’t they? How can you be pro or anti them? Surely one’s relationship with one’s family is an intensely personal matter, something over which one frequently has little control? Some people are no doubt part of a great family, where everyone gets on really well, enjoys spending time together, and supports each other; equally, I’m sure other people, through no fault of their own, don’t get on with their families, or don’t have much of a family, or have dysfunctional families, or have chosen to separate from their families. So what? Aren’t there more important things to consider when choosing the next leader of the free world?
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Healthcare
One of the things which most British people know is different about living in the USA is that you have to pay for healthcare. In the UK, everyone who needs it gets free heathcare through the National Health Service (NHS).
Well, it's not quite that simple. For a start, people in Britain do pay for healthcare. Anyone who works, either on an employed or self-employed basis, has to (or is supposed to) pay National Insurance contributions, which go to fund the NHS. The Government, of course, funds the bulk of the NHS, although that money in turn comes from taxation. And many people have to pay one-off charges for certain aspects of NHS treatment, such as prescriptions, although such payments don't generally represent the full cost of the medication. And there are private medical practitioners too, for patients who choose to pay, and who may or may not have private medical insurance. In general, though, it's true that anyone who lives in the UK has the right to walk into a doctor's surgery, clinic or hospital and get free treatment for any genuine medical need. The first point of contact for most people is their GP (general practitioner), and most GP's surgeries are recognisably similar, offering roughly the same kinds of services.
Here, medicine seems to be a completely free and open market. Medical practices take many different forms: doctors can set up their businesses in whatever way they want. It's no different from someone who runs a vacuum cleaner shop or a guttering business. Doctors charge a fee which represents the full, realistic cost of their time, services and expertise, including a profit margin. Most people, of course, can't afford to pay this, so they take out private health insurance with any one of a number of insurance companies. This is very expensive; and then there are additional fees on top. Most of the cost of a visit to a doctor's surgery will be picked up by our insurance; but we have to pay what in the UK would be called a 'premium', and here is rather more cosily called a 'co-payment' (oh, we're paying together! What fun!) of $25. My doctor friends in the UK would probably say that's no bad thing, as it helps to discourage time-wasters, and perhaps they have a point.
My wife (who, for the purposes of this blog, I will refer to as Kathy) recently arranged a first visit to a doctor. Having failed to get a good recommendation through word of mouth, she picked a practice, billed as a 'family doctor', pretty much at random from the list of doctors covered by our insurance, and rang them for an appointment. The next available appointment was about 2 weeks away, which seemed rather a long time, but she took it anyway.
When she arrived, she walked into a room which had young children, toys and noise everywhere, and was decorated with kids' pictures. Don't get me wrong, Kathy's got nothing against children, but she wants a visit to her doctor to feel different from a visit to a primary school. She waited for about half an hour before being called in to see the nurse, and a further 45 minutes before finally getting to see the doctor. Apparently, these kinds of timeframes are normal, because female 'family doctors' routinely get called away to the local hospital to deliver babies (there are no midwives here).
The doctor finally came in. She was wearing lots of pink lipstick and a short skirt. She read out Kathy's name in a sing-song voice, looked at her, and smiled. Kathy was rather hoping for something more along the lines of: 'Good morning, I'm Doctor X.' Kathy told the doctor about some medication she needed. The doctor wrote out a prescription and then got up to leave. Kathy said, 'Excuse me, are you going?' The doctor said 'Yes.' Kathy said, 'but I've got two further issues to discuss with you!' Reluctantly, the doctor turned round and came back to her desk. The appointment lasted about 5 minutes in total, and the whole visit took about an hour and a half.
Kathy went to reception to pay, and said, 'Excuse me, but do you have any doctors who don't have children as patients?' She described the woman behind the desk as 'looking at me as if I was some sort of ogre.'
I decided to cancel my own appointment. I will need to get one medicine on prescription, but it can wait. The other one I take seems to exist in a myriad different forms on the shelves of CVS and Walgreens, so I suppose I'll just buy it over the counter. I've worked out that's why there are so many adverts for medicines on American television - anyone in their right mind will avoid visiting the doctor if they possibly can.
Kathy's looked into some different doctors. A work colleague recommended a doctor who doesn't take any patients under the age of 18. On enquiry, the next available appointment is in November, and in any case this particular doctor moved to California in July. So much for the free market.
Well, it's not quite that simple. For a start, people in Britain do pay for healthcare. Anyone who works, either on an employed or self-employed basis, has to (or is supposed to) pay National Insurance contributions, which go to fund the NHS. The Government, of course, funds the bulk of the NHS, although that money in turn comes from taxation. And many people have to pay one-off charges for certain aspects of NHS treatment, such as prescriptions, although such payments don't generally represent the full cost of the medication. And there are private medical practitioners too, for patients who choose to pay, and who may or may not have private medical insurance. In general, though, it's true that anyone who lives in the UK has the right to walk into a doctor's surgery, clinic or hospital and get free treatment for any genuine medical need. The first point of contact for most people is their GP (general practitioner), and most GP's surgeries are recognisably similar, offering roughly the same kinds of services.
Here, medicine seems to be a completely free and open market. Medical practices take many different forms: doctors can set up their businesses in whatever way they want. It's no different from someone who runs a vacuum cleaner shop or a guttering business. Doctors charge a fee which represents the full, realistic cost of their time, services and expertise, including a profit margin. Most people, of course, can't afford to pay this, so they take out private health insurance with any one of a number of insurance companies. This is very expensive; and then there are additional fees on top. Most of the cost of a visit to a doctor's surgery will be picked up by our insurance; but we have to pay what in the UK would be called a 'premium', and here is rather more cosily called a 'co-payment' (oh, we're paying together! What fun!) of $25. My doctor friends in the UK would probably say that's no bad thing, as it helps to discourage time-wasters, and perhaps they have a point.
My wife (who, for the purposes of this blog, I will refer to as Kathy) recently arranged a first visit to a doctor. Having failed to get a good recommendation through word of mouth, she picked a practice, billed as a 'family doctor', pretty much at random from the list of doctors covered by our insurance, and rang them for an appointment. The next available appointment was about 2 weeks away, which seemed rather a long time, but she took it anyway.
When she arrived, she walked into a room which had young children, toys and noise everywhere, and was decorated with kids' pictures. Don't get me wrong, Kathy's got nothing against children, but she wants a visit to her doctor to feel different from a visit to a primary school. She waited for about half an hour before being called in to see the nurse, and a further 45 minutes before finally getting to see the doctor. Apparently, these kinds of timeframes are normal, because female 'family doctors' routinely get called away to the local hospital to deliver babies (there are no midwives here).
The doctor finally came in. She was wearing lots of pink lipstick and a short skirt. She read out Kathy's name in a sing-song voice, looked at her, and smiled. Kathy was rather hoping for something more along the lines of: 'Good morning, I'm Doctor X.' Kathy told the doctor about some medication she needed. The doctor wrote out a prescription and then got up to leave. Kathy said, 'Excuse me, are you going?' The doctor said 'Yes.' Kathy said, 'but I've got two further issues to discuss with you!' Reluctantly, the doctor turned round and came back to her desk. The appointment lasted about 5 minutes in total, and the whole visit took about an hour and a half.
Kathy went to reception to pay, and said, 'Excuse me, but do you have any doctors who don't have children as patients?' She described the woman behind the desk as 'looking at me as if I was some sort of ogre.'
I decided to cancel my own appointment. I will need to get one medicine on prescription, but it can wait. The other one I take seems to exist in a myriad different forms on the shelves of CVS and Walgreens, so I suppose I'll just buy it over the counter. I've worked out that's why there are so many adverts for medicines on American television - anyone in their right mind will avoid visiting the doctor if they possibly can.
Kathy's looked into some different doctors. A work colleague recommended a doctor who doesn't take any patients under the age of 18. On enquiry, the next available appointment is in November, and in any case this particular doctor moved to California in July. So much for the free market.
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