When I came to live in America fifteen year ago – well fifteen years and thirteen days to be precise – I knew that a lot of things would be different; for a start I'd have to learn to drive on the right hand side of the road and that I would have to call the pavement the sidewalk and the roadway the pavement; but there were lots of other things I didn't know about.
For instance a girl on the flight coming over told me not to mention the word queue; nobody would know it and to replace it with 'line' so instead of standing in the queue you would say standing in line.
In my fifteen years of being here a lot of people have got to know what queue means; or gotten to know, as they say here. I'm not claiming credit for the spread of this word as they had to call the thing you wait in when you are waiting for someone to take your call when you call a business.
That word back there gotten by the way was common in England many many years ago but was dropped and it's only used now in the phrase ill gotten gains.
Over the past month I have learned from the BBC the phrase the noughties to describe the first decade of this century. It obviously started by being called the noughts and progressed into the noughties – a play on the word naughty being bold, and – er naughty!
In fact I think the word came from the BBC.
There are lots of other things they don't say here often – three fourths for three quarters and I have rarely heard fortnight, spanner, fishmonger, cough-sweet and loads of others. I was here for many years and suddenly found that people didn't use the expression 'one off' and instead said 'one of a kind;' but the expression is catching on now; must be me again!
As well as driving on the right the brakes on a bicycle are the other way around with the back brake at your right hand so if you rent a bike (not hire one) at Venice Beach check the brakes before you set off.
We all know about the spelling – which I don't agree with, by the way; that will have them worried!! As far as I can ascertain the American spelling was used to make things easier; they spell diarrhoea as diarrhea! Now when you have spent your entire life trying to spell such a word and then when you are nearly there somebody says it's okay you don't have to bother any more, it's a little deflating!
But to anybody that has an interest in the history of words and want to know where they came from it's a bit like a name change to anybody trying to trace their family tree. The derivation of the word diarrhoea is Greek
Which brings me to my point (if there is one); I can accept center rather than centre, honor rather than honour, program rather than programme etc but when I came here I found something else that is different.
At school and in business I learned that when you write a letter to a company and start it off with 'Dear Sirs' you conclude it with Yours faithfully; if you started off with a personal address as 'Dear Charlie' you conclude with 'Yours sincerely.'
Here in America they finish them both off with just 'sincerely.'
No 'Yours' or even a difference between addressing the whole company you are writing to or a certain individual there; after the Dear Sirs they put a full colon (or as the texters say dot dot) instead of a comma; no starting each paragraph a tab in - but all that I can stand.
Just because they do it doesn't mean I have to but lately I have noticed something else that's starting to get my goat.
No it's not the phrase 'very fun' – which I have learned to live with – but now I get e-mails signed 'best.' What happened to 'all the?' Is it really so hard to put the two words there to make it all the best?
And what do they mean? Best what? Best wishes? Best love? Why don't they cut it all out and just put wishes? In fact why do they write at all why don't they just leave the page blank if it's too much trouble . . .
Oh hang on! It's not going to rain after all – I can go out!!
All the best!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Internet Movie Data Base.
I'm changing the subject away from current affairs, disasters or even politics as this blog is to do with my novel and me – on Twitter I'm described as a Hollywood Professional Actor and Novice Novelist; and that's what I am.
One of the things you need as an actor is a way of getting yourself known to the people who can give you a job – or as the Americans say hire you.
In Hollywood it has always been The Academy Players Directory and in London it's The Spotlight.
There's a difference between the two of them but basically they are the same thing; a directory of actors both male and female. One of them is very expensive the other is very reasonable; I hesitate to use the word cheap but that would describe it better.
The Academy Players costs about $70 per year although I pay $18 as I subscribe to a casting service who have taken over the running of the Academy Players and I get a discount.
The photos in the Academy Players are usually about ten to the page – this is big enough for any casting director or director to see what you look like.
In the Spotlight you are expected to have a half page or even a quarter page – if not they kind of imply that you are a novice or not successful or, Lord help us, an extra!!!! The half pages are used by big names or even stars. I remember Roger Moore didn't have a photograph at all; just his name. He rightly (or his agents) deduced that we all know what he looks like.
The half page in the Spotlight goes into the hundreds of dollars – I can't remember how much it was the last time I subscribed; I think about £150 or so; now I may be wrong on that but it was certainly a lot lot more than the Academy Players.
So in the nineteen nineties Amazon, the people who sell books on line, started the Internet Movie Data Base; it wasn't meant to be a professional site, like Spotlight and the Academy Players, but more a fan site or for people generally interested in the film and television business.
Up to a few years ago it didn't cost anything to put your photograph on your page – we all have a page and it doesn't cost anything – but now you have to pay for the photos. I don't have to pay because I came in on the ground floor and put photos up there very early.
They had to start charging because many actors started to put their photos up. There are quite a few on my page because added to the ones I put up there are some production photos too.
The other day when they held the Golden Globe Awards here the photos of the winners were on their pages within minutes; those photos were put up there by an agency and didn't cost the actors anything.
The IMDb, as it is known, has more or less taken the place of the Academy Players Directory here in Los Angeles and you can usually tell the British based actors to the American Based ones as the Americans use it and have their photos on their pages whereas the British don't.
If you have no credits I believe you can put your resume up there – your CV in British speak.
There is also the Starmeter which leaves a lot to be desired; this is made up of the number of hits each actor gets in a week; you get lots of hits if you're in the news, have a movie out or you die.
Recent number ones have been Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and other people who have suddenly died but ordinarily what happens you go higher if you have a movie or play, or whatever, on television.
A lot of people watch a film on TV, of DVD, then look it up on the IMBb (notice the little 'b' by the way) then they click on every member of the cast and these are counted up over the week automatically and each Sunday the new list is there for all to see; when I say all to see I mean if you subscribe to IMDb Pro that is.
Tom Hanks for example is number 87; this week's number one is Zoe Saldana who was in Avator and number two is Naomi Watts.
The usual number one is Robert Pattinson who, this week, has dropped down to number ten for some reason and another regular in the top three is Johnny Depp.
If I killed somebody next week the week after I would be very high on the IMDb which brings me to a point I'd like to make.
Some casting directors, and even agents, will only consider, for certain roles or representation, someone in the top twenty thousand – which makes it ridiculous; just because you're on the news or people have looked you up you suddenly become a better actor??
The Starmeter, by the way – and there is a movie meter too – has every actor on it that has ever been in a movie so we are competing for popularity with all the stars of old; and they don't have to be stars.
Adolph Hitler is 8044; Marlon Brando is 364, Marilyn Monroe 981 and John Wayne is 472 and there are millions of others.
The average working TV or movie actor is usually in the forty to sixty thousands and people that haven't worked for years are usually between five hundred thousand and two million.
I go between eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand – peaking sometimes at around sixty thousand. Most of my friends who don't do TV or movies much are in the many hundreds of thousands and as high as two million.
I think there are a lot of Lifeforce fans who look me up. I get letters (e-mails) from people who have seen it numerous times and obviously look me up otherwise I'd be down in the millions as I don't usually get credits for dubbing, looping and voice matching which keeps me going between jobs.
One of the things you need as an actor is a way of getting yourself known to the people who can give you a job – or as the Americans say hire you.
In Hollywood it has always been The Academy Players Directory and in London it's The Spotlight.
There's a difference between the two of them but basically they are the same thing; a directory of actors both male and female. One of them is very expensive the other is very reasonable; I hesitate to use the word cheap but that would describe it better.
The Academy Players costs about $70 per year although I pay $18 as I subscribe to a casting service who have taken over the running of the Academy Players and I get a discount.
The photos in the Academy Players are usually about ten to the page – this is big enough for any casting director or director to see what you look like.
In the Spotlight you are expected to have a half page or even a quarter page – if not they kind of imply that you are a novice or not successful or, Lord help us, an extra!!!! The half pages are used by big names or even stars. I remember Roger Moore didn't have a photograph at all; just his name. He rightly (or his agents) deduced that we all know what he looks like.
The half page in the Spotlight goes into the hundreds of dollars – I can't remember how much it was the last time I subscribed; I think about £150 or so; now I may be wrong on that but it was certainly a lot lot more than the Academy Players.
So in the nineteen nineties Amazon, the people who sell books on line, started the Internet Movie Data Base; it wasn't meant to be a professional site, like Spotlight and the Academy Players, but more a fan site or for people generally interested in the film and television business.
Up to a few years ago it didn't cost anything to put your photograph on your page – we all have a page and it doesn't cost anything – but now you have to pay for the photos. I don't have to pay because I came in on the ground floor and put photos up there very early.
They had to start charging because many actors started to put their photos up. There are quite a few on my page because added to the ones I put up there are some production photos too.
The other day when they held the Golden Globe Awards here the photos of the winners were on their pages within minutes; those photos were put up there by an agency and didn't cost the actors anything.
The IMDb, as it is known, has more or less taken the place of the Academy Players Directory here in Los Angeles and you can usually tell the British based actors to the American Based ones as the Americans use it and have their photos on their pages whereas the British don't.
If you have no credits I believe you can put your resume up there – your CV in British speak.
There is also the Starmeter which leaves a lot to be desired; this is made up of the number of hits each actor gets in a week; you get lots of hits if you're in the news, have a movie out or you die.
Recent number ones have been Brittany Murphy, David Carradine and other people who have suddenly died but ordinarily what happens you go higher if you have a movie or play, or whatever, on television.
A lot of people watch a film on TV, of DVD, then look it up on the IMBb (notice the little 'b' by the way) then they click on every member of the cast and these are counted up over the week automatically and each Sunday the new list is there for all to see; when I say all to see I mean if you subscribe to IMDb Pro that is.
Tom Hanks for example is number 87; this week's number one is Zoe Saldana who was in Avator and number two is Naomi Watts.
The usual number one is Robert Pattinson who, this week, has dropped down to number ten for some reason and another regular in the top three is Johnny Depp.
If I killed somebody next week the week after I would be very high on the IMDb which brings me to a point I'd like to make.
Some casting directors, and even agents, will only consider, for certain roles or representation, someone in the top twenty thousand – which makes it ridiculous; just because you're on the news or people have looked you up you suddenly become a better actor??
The Starmeter, by the way – and there is a movie meter too – has every actor on it that has ever been in a movie so we are competing for popularity with all the stars of old; and they don't have to be stars.
Adolph Hitler is 8044; Marlon Brando is 364, Marilyn Monroe 981 and John Wayne is 472 and there are millions of others.
The average working TV or movie actor is usually in the forty to sixty thousands and people that haven't worked for years are usually between five hundred thousand and two million.
I go between eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand – peaking sometimes at around sixty thousand. Most of my friends who don't do TV or movies much are in the many hundreds of thousands and as high as two million.
I think there are a lot of Lifeforce fans who look me up. I get letters (e-mails) from people who have seen it numerous times and obviously look me up otherwise I'd be down in the millions as I don't usually get credits for dubbing, looping and voice matching which keeps me going between jobs.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Looting toothpaste and flour in Haiti
Do you know what I heard on NPR the other day from one of the reporters 'in the field' in Haiti? Now I listen to NPR as it's the closest radio station to BBC Radio 4 so I expect fair non-bias reporting; the reporter said there was 'looting' in Haiti. Looting????
What kind of things were they 'looting?” The answer is flour.
That to me is not looting or even stealing – that is survival.
What did the reporter think that the so called looters were going to do with the flour – put it into packets and sell it as cocaine??
Shame on you NPR.
On that part of the island bodies are piled high and the stink of those bodies is unbearable so one of the other things that is being taken is toothpaste which they smear under their noses to prevent them from smelling the flesh of the decaying bodies.
Looting???
Of course there are criminals who live in Haiti just as there are criminals here and the criminals in the prisons in Haiti have, by some accounts, escaped from the damaged and demolished prisons – a lot of them killed too, I presume.
But why are some people so quick to look for the bad things; people like Rush Limbaugh for example?
Why does an arsehole like Rush Limbaugh say 'We have already contributed to Haiti – it's called US Income Tax'?
Answer me that – anybody! How can he be so evil?
The day after the earthquake people were coming up to reporters and journalists and asking for money because they were hungry; they wanted to join a queue where somebody was selling food.
Selling food in an emergency? Unbelievable.
Lots of people at the moment are leaving Port au Prince by buses as they are fed up of waiting for the rescuers to arrive and it is reported that the buses have doubled the fares - oh dear.
Now I don't want to come across here as mister angry from the comforts of my apartment in Los Angeles, as there is a lot of good being done to rescue people in Haiti, and if I was religious I would call some of the rescues miraculous, but from what I see and hear everything is arriving there too late.
The earthquake was six days ago and there are nurses who volunteered here in Los Angeles to go and the last I heard they were waiting for permission to go to Haiti; there may be a chance that they have to help from a ship in the bay.
That may be the best place for hospitalisation but to actually have to ask permission in the time of an emergency is ridiculous and who is going to get the victims – six days after the emergency and counting – to the ship?
I also detect, as well as in the news coverage, competition between the various countries and aid agencies to help; in fact a spokesman from France has accused the USA of actually occupying Haiti.
Just a short post for today – I'm off to Philippe's for lunch in down town LA – it's raining heavily so it will be an adventure.
What kind of things were they 'looting?” The answer is flour.
That to me is not looting or even stealing – that is survival.
What did the reporter think that the so called looters were going to do with the flour – put it into packets and sell it as cocaine??
Shame on you NPR.
On that part of the island bodies are piled high and the stink of those bodies is unbearable so one of the other things that is being taken is toothpaste which they smear under their noses to prevent them from smelling the flesh of the decaying bodies.
Looting???
Of course there are criminals who live in Haiti just as there are criminals here and the criminals in the prisons in Haiti have, by some accounts, escaped from the damaged and demolished prisons – a lot of them killed too, I presume.
But why are some people so quick to look for the bad things; people like Rush Limbaugh for example?
Why does an arsehole like Rush Limbaugh say 'We have already contributed to Haiti – it's called US Income Tax'?
Answer me that – anybody! How can he be so evil?
The day after the earthquake people were coming up to reporters and journalists and asking for money because they were hungry; they wanted to join a queue where somebody was selling food.
Selling food in an emergency? Unbelievable.
Lots of people at the moment are leaving Port au Prince by buses as they are fed up of waiting for the rescuers to arrive and it is reported that the buses have doubled the fares - oh dear.
Now I don't want to come across here as mister angry from the comforts of my apartment in Los Angeles, as there is a lot of good being done to rescue people in Haiti, and if I was religious I would call some of the rescues miraculous, but from what I see and hear everything is arriving there too late.
The earthquake was six days ago and there are nurses who volunteered here in Los Angeles to go and the last I heard they were waiting for permission to go to Haiti; there may be a chance that they have to help from a ship in the bay.
That may be the best place for hospitalisation but to actually have to ask permission in the time of an emergency is ridiculous and who is going to get the victims – six days after the emergency and counting – to the ship?
I also detect, as well as in the news coverage, competition between the various countries and aid agencies to help; in fact a spokesman from France has accused the USA of actually occupying Haiti.
Just a short post for today – I'm off to Philippe's for lunch in down town LA – it's raining heavily so it will be an adventure.
Friday, January 15, 2010
News Cameras in Haiti and no aid!
It's seems futile to write anything even vaguely entertaining or even witty here today with the stress and hardship that is happening in Haiti; the news programmes here and the Internet was full of the late night talk shows debacle with NBC frightened to get rid of Conan O'Brien as they would have to pay him forty million dollars and all that news has rightly disappeared; I like to think that but I doubt it.
Now we have the news companies invading Haiti; the head newscaster of ABC, Diana Sawyer, is there; she flew in from Afghanistan to witness it on behalf of us all here in America.
She was dressed like a female Indiana Jones and squirmed her way through the broadcast whilst her underlings in America were left to read the rest of the news.
ABC already had reporters there with cameras and to get Diane Sawyer's flight into Port-o-Prince took a lot of negotiations as there is no tower at the airport and other airlines were in danger of running out of fuel as they had to circle the airport so many times.
Yesterday ABC were there when a baby was found amongst the rubble – they witnessed it but to hear them on TV you would think that they carried out the rescue.
It wouldn't surprise me if ABC has the baby they think they rescued flown back to the USA to make more false kudos out of it.
It beats me why the head of the news has to actually be there when the reporters were already there and it seems to be the same all over.
I flipped over to CBS and there was Katie Couric in Haiti and it must have been the same story there with her aircraft circling the airport and keeping other planes circling; maybe one of them was the one with Diana Sawyer on board or maybe one with urgent supplies.
The one person that should have been dressed like Indiana Jones was Brian Williams of NBC as his face was very sun burned when he was broadcasting from there last night; at least he gave his microphone to someone else who knew more about the situation there.
It's probably the same with every other country with their TV crews taking all the room on the island.
It must be terrible for the poor victims of the earthquake who are looking into the distance for help and they see a group of people coming towards them. They see the people getting closer and closer and the victims hopes build up but when the people get close they are a load of reporters with their cameras to take photographs and ask stupid questions; what a let down; no wonder they are piling bodies and using them as road blocks.
Don't get me wrong I think there should be reporting from Haiti as it informs people what is going on; it encourages us to send money, as that is what they want, and I think it's wonderful that we can just send a text to 90999 using the word Haiti in the message and $10 will be sent to the Red Cross and added to our cell phone bills.
Things like Twitter and Facebook really come into their own at times like these as Haiti, at the moment, is almost out of touch with the rest of the world.
The poor people of Haiti have had to suffer for thirty years or so of dictatorship with Papa Doc and Baby Doc and the USA didn't think it was their business to try and remove them – regime change – as they were not communists.
They were also brainwashed with their belief in voodoo and lately a gang culture and drugs; some of the people interviewed there were saying things like “you know what I'm saying; you know what I'm saying?” Now where did they get that vernacular from?
The buildings in Haiti were built with no building code and look what happened – no regulation means collapse and liken that to anything from the banks to the stock market to anything.
Now we are going to try and rebuild the country when we have rebuilt Iraq and Afghanistan; plenty of work for the banks to raise money for, plenty of aid that we can send them and plenty of conditions for that aid - lovely jubbly, as Del Boy would say; a nice little earner!
I'm not a politician and I can talk as much drivel as the next man but it has been three days since the earthquake and relief from the USA is only getting through today.
This island is not far from the USA so why is it taking so long for medical supplies at least?
The people of the world probably think that Haiti is an island country; well it isn't. It is an island shared with another country The Dominican Republic. I have heard no reporting from there, I don't know if the earthquake affected it and I don't know if they are offering their facilities in this disaster. I find it almost unbelievable that Cuba wouldn't help as they are around fifty miles from Haiti and as they offered help to the USA when Hurricane Katrina blew into Louisiana why aren't we hearing what they are doing? Because, as usual, the good news from Cuba is never reported here.
Are the American TV News Companies not telling us everything? I can't believe that - could you?
It goes without saying the negotiations for Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will carry on and the banks will fight to give billions of dollars in bonuses to their executives; nut cases will still blog that we should leave Haiti to get on with it and help themselves (I actually read this) and Pat Robertson, a southern Baptist, will come out with more statements saying that Haiti has been cursed by God for past deeds.
All sounds pathetic doesn't it - and it is!
Now we have the news companies invading Haiti; the head newscaster of ABC, Diana Sawyer, is there; she flew in from Afghanistan to witness it on behalf of us all here in America.
She was dressed like a female Indiana Jones and squirmed her way through the broadcast whilst her underlings in America were left to read the rest of the news.
ABC already had reporters there with cameras and to get Diane Sawyer's flight into Port-o-Prince took a lot of negotiations as there is no tower at the airport and other airlines were in danger of running out of fuel as they had to circle the airport so many times.
Yesterday ABC were there when a baby was found amongst the rubble – they witnessed it but to hear them on TV you would think that they carried out the rescue.
It wouldn't surprise me if ABC has the baby they think they rescued flown back to the USA to make more false kudos out of it.
It beats me why the head of the news has to actually be there when the reporters were already there and it seems to be the same all over.
I flipped over to CBS and there was Katie Couric in Haiti and it must have been the same story there with her aircraft circling the airport and keeping other planes circling; maybe one of them was the one with Diana Sawyer on board or maybe one with urgent supplies.
The one person that should have been dressed like Indiana Jones was Brian Williams of NBC as his face was very sun burned when he was broadcasting from there last night; at least he gave his microphone to someone else who knew more about the situation there.
It's probably the same with every other country with their TV crews taking all the room on the island.
It must be terrible for the poor victims of the earthquake who are looking into the distance for help and they see a group of people coming towards them. They see the people getting closer and closer and the victims hopes build up but when the people get close they are a load of reporters with their cameras to take photographs and ask stupid questions; what a let down; no wonder they are piling bodies and using them as road blocks.
Don't get me wrong I think there should be reporting from Haiti as it informs people what is going on; it encourages us to send money, as that is what they want, and I think it's wonderful that we can just send a text to 90999 using the word Haiti in the message and $10 will be sent to the Red Cross and added to our cell phone bills.
Things like Twitter and Facebook really come into their own at times like these as Haiti, at the moment, is almost out of touch with the rest of the world.
The poor people of Haiti have had to suffer for thirty years or so of dictatorship with Papa Doc and Baby Doc and the USA didn't think it was their business to try and remove them – regime change – as they were not communists.
They were also brainwashed with their belief in voodoo and lately a gang culture and drugs; some of the people interviewed there were saying things like “you know what I'm saying; you know what I'm saying?” Now where did they get that vernacular from?
The buildings in Haiti were built with no building code and look what happened – no regulation means collapse and liken that to anything from the banks to the stock market to anything.
Now we are going to try and rebuild the country when we have rebuilt Iraq and Afghanistan; plenty of work for the banks to raise money for, plenty of aid that we can send them and plenty of conditions for that aid - lovely jubbly, as Del Boy would say; a nice little earner!
I'm not a politician and I can talk as much drivel as the next man but it has been three days since the earthquake and relief from the USA is only getting through today.
This island is not far from the USA so why is it taking so long for medical supplies at least?
The people of the world probably think that Haiti is an island country; well it isn't. It is an island shared with another country The Dominican Republic. I have heard no reporting from there, I don't know if the earthquake affected it and I don't know if they are offering their facilities in this disaster. I find it almost unbelievable that Cuba wouldn't help as they are around fifty miles from Haiti and as they offered help to the USA when Hurricane Katrina blew into Louisiana why aren't we hearing what they are doing? Because, as usual, the good news from Cuba is never reported here.
Are the American TV News Companies not telling us everything? I can't believe that - could you?
It goes without saying the negotiations for Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien will carry on and the banks will fight to give billions of dollars in bonuses to their executives; nut cases will still blog that we should leave Haiti to get on with it and help themselves (I actually read this) and Pat Robertson, a southern Baptist, will come out with more statements saying that Haiti has been cursed by God for past deeds.
All sounds pathetic doesn't it - and it is!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Twelfth Night - or what you will.
Here we are the twelfth day of Christmas – January 6th – one of the first Shakespeare plays I played in was Twelfth Night (or what you will) and the twelfth day of Christmas is usually the day when you take down the
Christmas trimmings and put the Christmas tree out or, if it's a false one, back into the box.
But the first thing I noticed when I moved here was the Christmas trees being thrown out the day after Christmas, or within the next few days, and everybody going back to work.
No Boxing Day like in England, no St Stephen's Day like in Ireland; just a bald one day Christmas.
No full afternoon of sport, horse racing on the TV, cold turkey and ham sandwiches, no taking of the Alka Seltzer to get over the hangover – no nothing!!!!
Back to normal.
I know there are firms here who give the staff the week off but at my wife's company they just get the one day for Christmas. The fact that she only went back to work this week after Christmas is nothing to go by as the company shut for the week and didn't pay their employees; she is being paid but that comes our of her annual vacation time; how pathetically Scroogy is that?
Now I live here in America and I believe that when in Rome live like the Romans – not that all the Americans who go to Rome live like Italians as they still look for their 'Holiday Inn' when there – so I try to live as much as I can like the Americans; well not necessarily the Americans more like Los Angelinos.
So I get pancakes at breakfast once a week at the Fig Tree on the beach, I wear shorts most of the time, I call Office Depot Office Deepoe and I call Ralphs – Ralphs.
An English public schoolboy I was talking to the other day was calling it Rafes, which is the public school way of saying Ralphs (public school being the aristocrats and upper classes of England, by the way, and not the American version which they call private school) – you would think the English would call their posh private schools something other than a public school wouldn't you?
So back to Christmas – I have been here for fifteen years and I am only just realising that most Americans only have turkey at Thanksgiving.
We had to pay through the nose this year for our turkey as we had bought our turkeys other years when they were cheap at Thanksgiving and put them into the freezer; this year we were sick at Thanksgiving but not as sick as we were when we paid all that money for a turkey!!
Christmas trimmings and put the Christmas tree out or, if it's a false one, back into the box.
But the first thing I noticed when I moved here was the Christmas trees being thrown out the day after Christmas, or within the next few days, and everybody going back to work.
No Boxing Day like in England, no St Stephen's Day like in Ireland; just a bald one day Christmas.
No full afternoon of sport, horse racing on the TV, cold turkey and ham sandwiches, no taking of the Alka Seltzer to get over the hangover – no nothing!!!!
Back to normal.
I know there are firms here who give the staff the week off but at my wife's company they just get the one day for Christmas. The fact that she only went back to work this week after Christmas is nothing to go by as the company shut for the week and didn't pay their employees; she is being paid but that comes our of her annual vacation time; how pathetically Scroogy is that?
Now I live here in America and I believe that when in Rome live like the Romans – not that all the Americans who go to Rome live like Italians as they still look for their 'Holiday Inn' when there – so I try to live as much as I can like the Americans; well not necessarily the Americans more like Los Angelinos.
So I get pancakes at breakfast once a week at the Fig Tree on the beach, I wear shorts most of the time, I call Office Depot Office Deepoe and I call Ralphs – Ralphs.
An English public schoolboy I was talking to the other day was calling it Rafes, which is the public school way of saying Ralphs (public school being the aristocrats and upper classes of England, by the way, and not the American version which they call private school) – you would think the English would call their posh private schools something other than a public school wouldn't you?
So back to Christmas – I have been here for fifteen years and I am only just realising that most Americans only have turkey at Thanksgiving.
We had to pay through the nose this year for our turkey as we had bought our turkeys other years when they were cheap at Thanksgiving and put them into the freezer; this year we were sick at Thanksgiving but not as sick as we were when we paid all that money for a turkey!!
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